@LV2Hike posted:Well, that got me to take it seriously and it was a more advanced than he thought it would be. It went into two lymph nodes, but my surgeon told me that under 4 lymph nodes is like no lymph nodes, and he prepared my intestines by meshing it to the side, keeping it out of the line of radiation, so he could do the pull through about a year later, after finishing radiation and chemo.
Interestingly, in 2015, I had papillary thyroid cancer that metastasized into 2 lymph nodes, which they called stage 3 cancer. My surgeon did a thyroidectomy and removed the two lymph nodes. I also had radiation in the form of radioactive iodine. I asked my surgeon how he identified the lymph nodes where the cancer went and he told me they have a different, bluish color. Thyroid cancer of course has a much higher 5 year survival rate than colon cancer, which is largely due to the highly effective treatment of surgery plus radioactive iodine, which is absorbed by and kills any remaining thyroid cells in your body.
It's good to hear you have had 25 years after surviving colon cancer. Many are not so fortunate.