Have I got rectal cancer?

[Toby2000]

1. No Toby, your body is throwing up normal things, it is you who is hyper examining them and imagining they are signs of something. Do you think poo is just one solid lump of plain brown puree stuck together? (sorry guys lol) It is full of bits of undigested matter (yes, peppers and all sorts of fibrous materials like sweetcorn and tomatoes), mucus, nuts, seeds and so on. If you were to pull it all apart - which is NOT something I have ever done or advocate doing AT ALL, you would most likely find it has all sorts of different coloured bits and bobs in it.

2. You DO know for sure you don't have cancer. You saw a specialist.

3. Please, if you can do just one thing to help yourself here - stop examining poo. Just stop, this is not something people do and it is so unhelpful. Just go, when you need to, and wipe your bum and go. Just leave it.

That's what I'm trying to tell myself but I can't think what it could've been and I've seen these little spots of purple/red matter a few times before. Could it be onion? I really don't know or understand exactly what it could've been

I'm really reaching my limit here, this is too much for me to cope with. Death would honestly be better than this constant bullsh*t (no I won't commit suicide) and string of problems. All I wanted was to get this problem out of the way for the Summer so I could enjoy it but let's face it, it'll be full of more BLOOD and mucus and googling and diarrhoea and constipation

303 days since I created this thread and it's just gonna keep on going because my body is obviously deciding to do whatever the hell it likes.. I really f*****g despise myself for unloading this all on to you and everyone else and you're all AMAZING for trying to get through to me but I just don't know what to do. If I could give myself a colonoscopy I would but I can't

[nomorepanic]

Nothing is going to change until you do.

Get your diet under control, eat better, stop examining poo and please read the HA workbooks we told you about over 100 pages ago.

What do you do all day anyway?

Do you not work and have any money? How can you carry on like this?

[Toby2000]

Nothing is going to change until you do.

Get your diet under control, eat better, stop examining poo and please read the HA workbooks we told you about over 100 pages ago.

What do you do all day anyway?

Do you not work and have any money? How can you carry on like this?

I do nothing. I just wake up, eat, watch TV, obsess, repeat. Until weekends when I see relatives. I feel like my life is on hold while I try and sort out this problem if it's possible to sort it out without- chemotherapy. I don't enjoy doing nothing, it's very boring, but I don't see the point in doing anything while I'm still POSSIBLY ill. I don't want to get into a happy routine only to find out that I have cancer, that feels like false hope that I'll be alright but then a huge bombshell drops on me

I don't need money, but I get pocket money when I see my Grandma

It's a sad existence, I wanted to get started on turning my life around this Summer (lose weight, eat healthier, enjoy my holiday to Spain) and then go back into education in September once I got the absolute 100% all clear but I seem to be spiraling further because I'm apparently well but I keep seeing abnormal things in my stool

I would stop examining if I knew I had something to work towards and just wait for until it could hopefully be over, a sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy or some diagnostic test, but I can't so I just feel like, what's the point in not looking? I won't be able to have any more tests so for all I know it could be getting worse down there

[nomorepanic]

You had the all clear - you do not have cancer.

If you choose to carry on living like you do then there is nothing more I can offer you in the way of advice as you ignore it all anyway.

If this is how you to choose to live your life then that is your right to do that and no-one on here can make you change anything.

So carry on living like this and just accept this is how you are going to be forever as you will not accept any other diagnosis than cancer.

Such a wasted young life but it is your life and we are not in control of that - YOU are.

I feel bad for you Toby but once again I am not going to post on here as I came back to see the results and they were excellent and you have turned it around again into another cancer issue.

You should be happy and moving on but you won't sadly and I feel bad for that but one day maybe you will so good luck. I am out of this post once again

[Fishmanpa]

So did that post from the other guy I referenced help at all? After all, he went through the same thing you're going through now.

I just read some very sad news.... That other guy left us a long time ago :( RIP and as always...

Positive thoughts

[Toby2000]

I just read some very sad news.... That other guy left us a long time ago :( RIP and as always...

Positive thoughts

It helps but I just wish this possible blood would stop

[MyNameIsTerry]

Like we've said, Toby, this is anxiety shifting. It has found a new target and now made associations to your own fear.

Cogntive Distortions as pulisa said. You are juimping to conclusions, catastrophizing, etc. It's to be expected as you are effectively an untreated anxiety sufferer. At this stage you are not (some people may) going to get very far with the larger goals that are taking control of the thoughts/feelings/emotions/sensations you feel and halt the cycle because you don't really understand it all and haven't done much in the way of methods to address them.

This is where you can educate yourself on negative behaviours and have a plan. Use some therapy tools whether they work or not (they are better than using this thread an aimed at actually changing your thoughts processes in a structured manner), use distraction techniques, do some grounding work (Mindfulness helped you as you say so why not restart that? It's something you are meant to keep doing once started as it's a skill rather than a technique), work to reduce overall levels of anxiety (less sitting about giving you time to panic and more time engaged in healthy activities), etc.

Your daily life is going to start changing soon anyway whether it's back to college or into the working world and I expect your mum will be on your case for that.

[Toby2000]

Like we've said, Toby, this is anxiety shifting. It has found a new target and now made associations to your own fear.

Cogntive Distortions as pulisa said. You are juimping to conclusions, catastrophizing, etc. It's to be expected as you are effectively an untreated anxiety sufferer. At this stage you are not (some people may) going to get very far with the larger goals that are taking control of the thoughts/feelings/emotions/sensations you feel and halt the cycle because you don't really understand it all and haven't done much in the way of methods to address them.

This is where you can educate yourself on negative behaviours and have a plan. Use some therapy tools whether they work or not (they are better than using this thread an aimed at actually changing your thoughts processes in a structured manner), use distraction techniques, do some grounding work (Mindfulness helped you as you say so why not restart that? It's something you are meant to keep doing once started as it's a skill rather than a technique), work to reduce overall levels of anxiety (less sitting about giving you time to panic and more time engaged in healthy activities), etc.

Your daily life is going to start changing soon anyway whether it's back to college or into the working world and I expect your mum will be on your case for that.

I know but the thing is, I still keep seeing suspicious dark red with a shade of purple blobs or whatever they are in my stool, which could be blood. They won't disappear so I feel like I need to address those

I can't see myself going on any further if I have to put up with this s**t 24/7 constantly. I might sound dramatic and I don't mean I'm going to kill myself, I just mean mentally, but I've reached the end of my road, I'm starting therapy soon as you know so I hope that changes my mindset but the thing is that it won't change the fact that I might have small blood clots in my stool

I think mindfulness works best when it's anxiety about the future, when it comes to possible outcomes that you're waiting to happen. Such as "Oh my god, what if I get run over tomorrow?" or something like that. In this situation I'm not sure if it'll work because it feels like it's just ignoring the inevitable, that I might have cancer, something that's fixed

And yeah I'm going to have to do something soon. I'm just not looking forward to having to juggle this and that. Because if I still have this cancer business to deal with then I won't be able to focus fully on education and I'll end up being set back another year.

Thanks for replying, especially this late, your replies are always comforting. Especially when you've just eaten a load of fruit to force yourself to pass a BM and then you're examining it like a lunatic at 2 am to try and find more of these strange possible clots/blobs but instead you find a very small 2mm trace of actual bright red blood on the surface of your stool. Not fun at all :(

[MyNameIsTerry]

I know but the thing is, I still keep seeing suspicious dark red with a shade of purple blobs or whatever they are in my stool, which could be blood. They won't disappear so I feel like I need to address those

T: Why wouldn't you? Think about what your doctor(s) have done. Would a test designed to just have a look what's there actually treat something and make it go away? How does someone saying you have xyz actually treat xyz? Would you describe it as a reasonable belief that it should?

I can't see myself going on any further if I have to put up with this s**t 24/7 constantly. I might sound dramatic and I don't mean I'm going to kill myself, I just mean mentally, but I've reached the end of my road, I'm starting therapy soon as you know so I hope that changes my mindset but the thing is that it won't change the fact that I might have small blood clots in my stool

Why would you think it would? Why would talking therapy change those physical processes when they rely on making changes to your diet. It can help you will the stress side of the impacts on your symptoms but it won't make it all go away as it's out of scope for that type of treatment. You might as well ask for an asthma inhaler to help with it.

I think mindfulness works best when it's anxiety about the future, when it comes to possible outcomes that you're waiting to happen. Such as "Oh my god, what if I get run over tomorrow?" or something like that. In this situation I'm not sure if it'll work because it feels like it's just ignoring the inevitable, that I might have cancer, something that's fixed

It doesn't, it works for far more than that. Otherwise it never would have me when my GAD was 24/7 non stop feeling anxious for often no reason whatsoever. You can only say that's how it works for you and unless you have been putting in many months of it you are very much at the start if learning it and seeing the benefits such as science has shown in how it reduces the fear centre and increased the comparison centre, things all of us can be helped by.

You are back to seeing therapy routes as ignoring illness. Where is your illness? Please explain to me how an entire branch of modern medicine is telling people to ignore their illnesses? You do realise that therapy is used to help actual cancer sufferers too along with a wide range of physical conditions, chronic or terminal. How would telling them to ignore they are ill work?

What does the NHS say about therapy? Do they say it does any of this?

[BlueIris]

Just to pick up on your comments about it not being worth doing anything, Toby...

I know people who've worked through chemo. It wasn't easy and they had to schedule time off around when they were most fatigued, but they did it and they kept on coming in.

When I've been really bad with HA, it's been my job that's kept me (halfway) sane. You can't fall to bits when you're surrounded by people who don't necessarily know you that well and might not understand. I know this sounds like a bad thing, but it really wasn't. I'm not saying it wasn't murder, or that it completely stopped me self-checking or even that I was a particularly good worker during these times. What it did do, however, was keep me on some sort of a level until the worst of the storm passed.

Why don't you head into town tomorrow and see if any of your local charity shops need a volunteer? It'd be great for your CV, great for your mental health and great for the charity.