I was totally shocked and unprepared to receive the result of the colonoscopy, the gastroenterologist told me I had cancer.
Blood in stool
I rarely had constipation. Once I had a very bad one I was not able to poop for 3 days. My belly was so bloated. I was extremely uncomfortable. Cecilia whom I visit on a regular basis for traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture worked on me with her needles. Eventually in that evening I was able to poop.
To my shock, the poop came with lots of blood. Hemorrhoids?! That came to my head straight away. Cecilia said I should not guess but to see a specialist immediately. She referred Dr John Wong who is a gastroenterologist.
The Colonoscopy
At my visit, Dr Wong gave a preliminary examination. He urged me to conduct a colonoscopy for a thorough assessment. So I did and with a biopsy I found out that I did not have hemorrhoids, but a 5 cm tumor at my rectum. The tumor was causing bowel obstruction.
Cancer! Bad news but I was calm. “Death” did not come to my head. I was thinking what the next step should be. I also knew that life was not going to be the same from then on just I hadn’t got a clue what was ahead of me.
MRI & PET CT Scan
Dr. Wong immediately organized for me a MRI and PET CT scan at Adventist Hospital, Wan Chai. Both scans were conducted on the same morning on 21 October 2020. I liked that as I could avoid having to do the intravenous catheter for the radiocontrast agents twice. I hate needles since I was a kid. Only I realized later that I could not avoid needles any more for what I had to do to treat my cancer. Damn!
The scans went smooth. I was at the hospital since 8:30 am and managed to finish by around noon to be in time to catch up with my friends for lunch. The only thing that was not nice was the radiocontrast agent for the PET CT scan bumped up my heart rates shortly after infusion. It caused me anxiety especially I was alone lying on the cold machine table. The adverse feeling went away within a minute but enough for me to hate this test. Later as I had to do the PET CT scan on a regular basis, I learned that this adverse reaction could be eased by adjusting the speed of the infusion.
I received the scan reports few days later; I was diagnosed Rectal Cancer Stage 3C.
Dr Wong’s Guidance
Dr Wong was kind and compassionate. He guided me during this time for things that I needed to do. I did not have much interaction with him after I started the conventional treatments but I will always thank him for his professional assessment and the kind advice he gave me. He referred an oncologist and two surgeons whom I met in early November right after I received the reports of the MRI and the PET CT scan.
In the meantime, Dr Wong’s instruction was to change my diet immediately to a low fiber/residue diet to limit high fiber foods to aim at fewer and smaller bowel movements each day as a short-term measure during this acute stage of my condition.
About Dr John Wong
Dr John Chi To Wong – Specialist in Gastroenterology and Hepatology | OT&P Healthcare (otandp.com)
Low Residue Diet
This was the very first step of my diet change. It was not fun as there was not much food choice available.
No vegetables/legumes/beans/nuts/seeds except lettuce. I used to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits of different varieties but then had to put on hold. I could only do pulp free fruit juices and ripe bananas. What made it more difficult was Cecilia advised me to minimize consumption on meat (animal acid) and wheat products like bread, noodles, pasta (which contain gluten) as they cause inflammation which promote cancer.
That did not leave me with much choices. I was repeating my 3 meals with basically a few things on rotation. Coffee and biscuits for breakfast, noodles, congees, egg sandwich for lunch, steamed egg, boiled lettuce, steamed fish for dinner, ripe banana as dessert. I was not entirely eating gluten free or meat free yet. I was trying.
For years I was trying to be slimmer but had no luck as I was not disciplined on food and beverages intake. Now to follow Dr Wong’s guides I also stopped eating unhealthy snacks like chips, ice cream and drinking my favorite bubbly. I thought then I was going to loose weight quickly. I did and actually I continued to loose way much more kilograms than I initially anticipated. I was at 75kg and within 6 weeks my weight dropped to 71kg, and a lot more later on.
