The question has come up a few times now about why they can't just do a resection where they just cut out the piece with cancer and sew the rest back together. I think the problem has to do with the amount of damage and amount of cancer. If it was just a small tumor that hadn't penetrated the intestinal wall, maybe they could. In my case, it's not a surface mounted tumor but instead it's the cells of the intestinal lining that are turning cancerous, and the "good" tissue left is "ulcerative". So, even if they did remove just the cancer parts, and even if they were able to stitch the rest back together enough, what I'm left with not only has ulcerative colitis still, but has now shown a tendency toward cancer. I would guess that the likelyhood of getting cancer again, which is already very high in people with ulcerative colitis, would be too high to consider.

Really though, I won't know any of the "real" reasons until I meet with the surgeon, and I'm supposed to meet with him next Wednesday.

As for when this is all supposed to happen, right now the thinking is within the next 6 weeks... so Merry Xmas. Again, I'm sure the surgeon will have more specific ideas.

-jk