Back in 2015 I had colorectal surgery to remove my entire colon due to a genetic condition I didn't know I had until a month prior to the surgery. It's a condition no one in my family prior to me shares. When I had my initial colonoscopy they discovered hundreds, if not thousands of pre-cancerous polyps. It thankfully wasn't cancer yet, but it was a virtual certainty that I would develop it in the future without surgery. To this day, I still have a hard time describing the dark hole this experience put me in. I was grateful for the knowledge and the surgical measures to prevent cancer, but it has still been a life altering change in many ways, and still necessitates annual scopes to make sure nothing more is growing. My most recent scope was earlier this week. 3 more polyps removed that showed up since last year.

Last year, I found out that people with my condition are also at risk for other kinds of cancer, and at the prompting of my GI doctor at a follow up visit, had an ultrasound scheduled and performed on my thyroid. As my luck would have it, they found a decent sized nodule that they biopsied and came back as cancerous. So late last year I had my entire thyroid removed as well. that experience also brought me back to that dark place of 2015 and it took a while to come back out. Almost a year later, I'm doing fairly well, but have to take thyroid replacement hormone for the rest of my life. Cancer sucks, and I fully sympathize with what you're going through, and hope for the very best for your care and recovery.

Out of curiosity, do you know who your colorectal surgeon is going to be?