A bunch of words that can mistakenly be seen as seemingly strung together for effect.
“I know people are pretty well embarrassed just at the mention of colon cancer. Sticking a tube in you to find out what’s wrong is not a nice thing. But I can tell them, a 30- or 40-minute test is worth it. We have to make them feel more comfortable about getting screened.”
-- Eric Davis
This is my preliminary diagnosis. Actually, the results of my biopsy reads: "Sections show fragments of an invasive moderately differentiated adenocarcinoma in a background of adenomatous polyp with high grade dysplasia." I say preliminary because I still need another MRI to finish staging and to determine if it is actually colonic as opposed to rectal, or is truly colorectal. More information could have been retrieved during the colonoscopy if the tumor was smaller and had left a bigger opening than approximately the diameter of a normal soda straw, preventing the colonoscope from going past it. No banana for scale at the moment and, no, at this point in my life I'm not currently full of shit thanks to GoLYTELY. And, ultimately, as far as I have read, a full diagnosis isn't possible until after the mass has been surgically removed, which in my case will be in about a year, or so I've been told.
Anyway, what do all these words mean, some may ask. Well, in context, invasive means the cancer cells have grown deeper than the mucosa of the inner lining of the colon or rectum (or both), making this a true cancer, and not just pre-cancerous. Moderately differentiated refers to how quickly the carcinoma may grow and spread, and is a grade assigned by the pathologist that performed the biopsy. Moderate is the intermediate grade, falling between well-differentiated (or low grade) and poorly differentiated (or high grade). There are times, however, where only two grades are used: well/moderately differentiated (low grade) and poorly differentiated (high grade). Colonic, of course, refers to the colon and an adenocarcinoma here is a carcinoma that starts in the gland cells that make mucus to lubricate and protect the inside of the colon and rectum, and is the most common type of colorectal cancer.
Auduster: I'd like it on record that I just pressed the C! button while thinking about Weroland's rectum.
This is probably obvious, but I wanted it explicit.