Colorectal Cancer Community

I had Pre surgery chemo and Radiation in 2009. I was 42 at that time. That is still considered very young for this type of Cancer.
I elected to take my chemo thru a port and go home each day with it instead of sitting at the clinic. The chemo did make everything taste terrible and my family had to force me to eat a few bites of something each day. There were only a few foods I could tolerate eating during that period and it also took months and months before food begun to taste better again. I lost about 20 lbs from 6 weeks of Chemo.
For me the worst was the Radiation. What it does is like burns your tissue and makes it raw as the days go further into treatment. The first week or so was not so bad, but the further you get into it the worse it got. The last two weeks my family had to drag me there and I would be very upset insisting I couldnt take anymore. I am not going to get into the gorey details of what you go thru or feel but I can say that what I went thru did succeed and my Tumor shrunk quite a bit and it is now 2 yrs later and I'm still here so that in itself was worth it. Because of where the Tumor was located I now sport a colostomy for life, but that too was dealt with and I made the adjustments in my life to support all the changes that have occured.
In my opinion I'd rather go thru all that hell one time then just get the surgery and with no treatment and they didnt get it all and have to be operated on it again. The surgery was not pleasant either, the after...the recovery.
Just do what you have to do, be strong and believe you can beat this.

I'm not in my 30's (I wish) but am mid-50's. Had a large tumor that they did radiation and chemo for before the surgery. It was tough to go through, especially the radiation. I was having some real GI issues until the oncologist recommended Culturelle (a probiotic). Within a week, my system was 100% better. As for food, for me it was the smell of food cooking that turned me off. As long as I did not smell it cooking, I could pretty much eat it. Long story short, the radiation and chemo were successful in reducing the large tumor to a scar. This in turn gave the surgeon enough to work with so I didn't have to have a colostomy. After 1 1/2 years of treatment, I am in remission. It turned out a lot better than I thought it would when I first started out. I was scared as hell, but wanted to fight a good fight. I am thankful that I did. My support groups (wife, family, here) was what made the daily stuff bearable. Good luck and let us know what is happening.

I realize you posted 2 months ago so you've probably already made up your mind and are either in the middle of your chemo/radiation or have already gone thru your surgery. I was diagnosed with stage 2 and the doctor was pretty adamant about me going thru the chemo/radiation to shrink the tumor before surgery. I did 6 weeks of both at the same time. I guess I was one of the lucky ones. It was no walk in the park, but not nearly as bad as I had anticipated. I had no trouble eating, didn't lose an ounce, but I did start taking vicodin about half way through for the pain. It was successful, it shrank the tumor quite a bit. After recuperating from that, it was time for the surgery and one more round of chemo. The surgery really "kicked my butt" literally. But I survived and am now cancer free. I go in to see my oncologist in a few weeks for my first 3 month follow up appt. I wish you the same great outcome. Please post again and let us know how you are doing.