After one year. Here it comes again..

The bowel is part of the digestive system. Your doctor may call this the gastrointestinal tract, or GI tract for short. The digestive system processes all the food we eat and turns it into energy. It also gets rid of any solid waste matter from the body. The bowel is divided into the

• Small bowel or small intestine
• Large bowel or colon and rectum

The small bowel is actually the longest part of the bowel - about 20 feet long. The large bowel is about 5 feet long. The small bowel is called 'small' because it is much narrower than the large bowel. When people talk about bowel cancer, they nearly always mean cancer of the large bowel. Cancer of the small bowel does happen, but it is much, much rarer.

After food has been swallowed, it passes down the gullet (oesophagus) into the stomach. The food is digested and passes into the small bowel. Here digestion continues and the body absorbs the goodness (nutrients) from the foods.

The large bowel absorbs water as the digested food passes through and the waste matter or stool gradually forms. The stool is stored in the rectum, or back passage, until it is ready to be passed out of the body as a bowel motion.

The large bowel has 5 sections. Cancer can develop in any of these. They are the

• Ascending colon - the first section that runs from the appendix at the end of the small bowel up the right side of the abdomen
• Transverse colon - goes across the body, under the stomach from right to left
• Descending colon - goes down the left side of the abdomen
• Sigmoid colon - an 's' shape bend that joins the descending colon to the rectum
• Rectum - the back passage which joins the opening of the bowel to the outside, the anus

The bowel has walls that are made up of several layers of body tissues. Bowel cancers start in the innermost layer - the lining of the bowel. If left untreated, they can grow into the muscle layers under the lining and then right through the bowel wall. It is the stage of your cancer that tells you how far your bowel cancer has grown into the wall of the bowel.

We think most bowel cancers take 5 to 10 years to develop. Most begin as a small growth on the bowel wall called a polyp or adenoma. Sometimes bowel cancer spreads to another part of the body.

The liver is a large organ at the top of the abdomen. Blood from the bowel goes first to the liver, so it is a common site for colorectal cancer spread. The diagram shows blood flow from the bowel to the liver. Lymph nodes are part of the immune system. Colorectal cancer often spreads to lymph nodes in the abdomen.

There are books and booklets about Colorectal cancer, some of which are free. Look in the bowel cancer reading list

* note : article taken from www.cancerhelp.org.uk (Thanks to cousin Fifi in Nottingham for the infolink)

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p.s It's been exactly one year since my mom got her surgery to remove her colon due to cancer and last night, I got a call from my brother telling me that the latest checkup shows that the cancer is back and for now, the doctor could not determine where is the exact point that started it all.

"Mama, I'll pray that you'll be alright. Please God, let her live to see all of her children live happily and fine. Only to You I seek help..Aminn"