Transcription
My name is Cole. I am 30 years old and at the age of 28, I was diagnosed with stage 2 rectal cancer with a T3 tumor. And then one year later, I was then diagnosed with stage 4 rectal cancer with metastatic spread to both of my lungs.
March is colorectal cancer awareness month. So I wanted to come on and share my entire diagnosis story from start to where I am now. I think that it is so so important for everybody who is affected by colorectal cancer to share their stories this month, spread awareness so that this young generation that is being affected so immensely is more aware and is able to really be in tune with their body and advocate for themselves to get answers.
Colorectal cancer is rising rapidly in young adults. Out of every new colorectal cancer diagnosis, one out of five is someone under the age of 50, which is absolutely crazy because this disease wasn't affecting young people as much as it is now. And the more alarming thing is that all of those young people that are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, four out of five of them are being diagnosed at an advanced stage, meaning at either stage two, three, or four. And I think that a huge reason why people are being diagnosed at such a later stage is because we are conditioned to think that colorectal cancer is um a disease that affects older people. Uh the standard screening age for colonoscopies was 50. It's now been lowered to 45 years old. But with that age set in mind, we don't really think that we need to be aware of any signs or symptoms at a younger age, which it is not true.
And I am here to share with you my personal symptoms that I had that led me to my diagnosis. So when I was 28 years old, I was a mother to two daughters. I had a one-year-old and a three-year-old, so a new mother. And I had just gone through some significant body changes. I had two pregnancies, but other than that, I had a very clean bill of health. I had never needed to go to the doctor other than for my pregnancies. I never had any health issues. I am an active person. I eat healthy. I drink a lot of water. I had no reason to ever have cancer on my radar, let alone colorectal cancer.
So, at this time in my life, I was running around um chasing a toddler, taking care of a one-year-old, and um I didn't have any significant stressors in my life or anything like that. My work life balance was really fantastic. But I had noticed my first symptom was my bowel habits just started to change. I was going to the restroom and using the restroom way more frequently than I ever had my entire life. my normal habits where I would go maybe once every other day, every couple days. That's just how my body was. And at this point in my life, at 28 years old, I started to notice I was starting to go more frequently. Like I was going every day and um sometimes even a few times a day. And I thought to myself, you know, I've had two kids and maybe I'm just getting more fiber in my diet. Maybe it's because I've been drinking a lot more water because I was nursing both of my daughters and you know, I just kind of chocked it up to like, oh well, that's not really like that's not something significant. But looking back on that change in your bowel habits is a significant thing to be aware of.
The next thing that was actually a little alarming to me um was I had started to experience some bleeding from my rectum when I would have a bowel movement. So, if you have ever had bleeding, um it can be caused by hemorrhoids or internal hemorrhoids. And that is kind of just what I thought it was initially. And also, when you look up online bleeding when you're using the restroom and it talks about hemorrhoids and it relates it to pregnancy, when you are pregnant and after you give birth, you are more prone to getting hemorrhoids. So, I looked that up and I thought, "Okay, that's totally what's going on with me. I have had two babies. I'm a year postpartum and that is that is why I'm bleeding."
The next thing that I noticed was after I'd been bleeding, it it started to happen a little bit more consistently. I think I was bleeding every time I was using the restroom and then the blood started to become a little bit darker. It wasn't just like a bright red blood. It was a deep red blood and then it had progressed eventually to blood clots. So, I was starting to notice that it wasn't just liquid just blood kind of coming out in the toilet. There was now clots of blood that were in the toilet. So, with these blood clots, I was also experiencing a lot of stomach cramping. I was having pain in my stomach and it wasn't like any pain that I have ever really felt before. It felt not like not like menstrual cramps. It did not feel like the pain you have when you feel like you need to have a bowel movement and your stomach kind of cramps up a little bit. That's not how it felt. It was different. It was more of like a sharp deep pain. And it would kind of take my breath away for a little bit, just for like a a second or two. And eventually it had progressed. This pain was happening to me multiple times a day. And I would notice it and I would make a note of it. And then after it just starting out as being like a little pain where it takes my breath away for just a couple seconds, it had progressed to it would last for like 30 seconds up to a minute and I would have to kind of sit there and just kind of breathe through it.
So, this is a symptom that I have not really ever shared before, but I do believe that is important for young women to look out for this because I definitely a red flag went up in my mind when this happened. So, I was experiencing bleeding, change in bowel habits, I was having stomach cramping, um having blood clots come out when I was using the restroom. When my husband and I had had intercourse, I had noticed that it kind of felt like there was a lot of pressure down in my bottom area. And um I just remember this one time I had started bleeding from my bottom and we were just having regular intercourse. And I had noticed it after the fact and it really really raised a red flag in my mind and he was really freaked out because he didn't nothing like that had ever happened before and we were just really confused. And so that was that paired with all of this stomach pain, this bleeding that I was having, the irregularity in my bowel habits. It was like all these things kind of stacked on to each other and we were like, "Okay, I I feel like there's something wrong." And this had happened over the course of maybe a month to two months where this had all progressed. I know that a lot of people things happen a lot slower and more gradual over time. But in my specific case, these are the symptoms that progressed over a month or two.
So then at that point I said, you know, we need to make a doctor's appointment. I need to go to the doctor. So now I want to get into how I received my diagnosis. and how you truly truly have to be your number one advocate. I went and I saw my general physician and I told her everything that had been going on and she said, "Okay, let me do an exam." So, she did a rectal exam and she checked for hemorrhoids. She checked for internal hemorrhoids, which I didn't know that was a thing. And she said, "You know, I don't feel anything in there. There isn't any blood right now. Um, I'm going to run some blood work on you and test all your levels and then I will order a sigmoidoscopy so that we can take a look inside internally to see if there's anything alarming."
So, my blood test results came back and they were completely normal. All of my levels of my blood panels were normal. There wasn't anything alarming. One of the things that that doctor had told me was, I was looking at your iron levels. you are not anemic, which means there is nothing too serious going on. You're not losing a ton of blood, so that's good. And so from there, I thought, okay, I'll just wait for my sigmoidoscopy. And I think it was scheduled out for about 2 months after that appointment when I had seen that doctor. So I went home and I carried on with a normal life. About a week later, my symptoms really started to progress. I messaged my doctor again and told her I am experiencing very intense stomach cramps. They are getting worse. The bleeding is getting worse. There are more blood clots that are coming out. And now at this point, I was getting I was experiencing the urge to have a bowel movement where you get those kind of stomach cramps. And I would go to use the restroom and I would sit there and nothing would come out. And I would be having these cramps like I need to have a bowel movement, but nothing would come out. All that would come out was blood and blood clots and this tissue kind of stuff. And so I looked it up online because my doctor hadn't gotten back to me. And everything online said bowel cancer, colorectal cancer, colon cancer, rectal cancer, all these different things, gastric cancer. And I'm like, I was so confused. I told my husband. I said, "There's no way. there is no way that cancer is even my on my radar. I'm 28 years old. I'm healthy. There's no way that I could have cancer."
So, a couple days had gone by since I messaged my doctor. She finally responded and she said, "You know, everything looked normal with your blood work and I think that you just need to wait to get that sigmoidoscopy procedure done." I was having now unbearable stomach pain. And I said to my husband, I said, "There is something wrong. I need you to take me to the ER because I can't wait for this next appointment to figure out what's going on or them to help me because it's hurting so bad. And so we went to the ER. I saw a doctor and I told him all of my symptoms. I showed him pictures of the blood clots and the blood that I was experiencing. And all he did was run the same exact blood work. and I sat there in the ER and I'm in pain and I'm anxious because I don't know what's going on. And he came back finally and he said, "Well, your blood work looks normal. You are not anemic. Your iron levels are normal, so you're not losing too much blood." So, he just suggested that I wait for that sigmoidoscopy procedure. I now had had two doctors that had seen me, heard all of my symptoms, even seen pictures of what I was experiencing, and they still brushed me off because I was young, I was healthy.
I called the GI department, called them myself, and I said, "I need to speak to a nurse or somebody. I need to get on a cancellation list. I need to see if you guys can get me in any sooner. This is what I'm experiencing, and I know that there's something wrong." And the woman I spoke to was wonderful and she said, "That is very alarming. We definitely need to get you in as soon as possible." And they got me an appointment the next week.
The whole purpose in sharing this story with you is that many doctors are accustomed to if they look at your chart and they see your health and they see that you have no history of anything that has been significantly wrong with you. If they see that you are young, if they see that you are generally healthy, they are going to. And I'm not saying that every single doctor does this, but I'm saying that a lot of doctors do. And that's why three out of four young people that are diagnosed with colorectal cancer are being diagnosed at an advanced stage because they are getting brushed off for too long or they're not noticing symptoms that are going on in their body. And by the time they finally notice it or by the time it finally gets unbearable or extremely uncomfortable, that is when they're going to the doctor and getting a diagnosis.
The whole purpose of me sharing my story and the reason that I really want to dive deep into my whole entire journey is because I really want to raise awareness. I do not want to see any young mothers or young fathers or brothers or sisters or daughters or sons. I don't want to see any young people being affected by this disease. I was then diagnosed at a advanced stage a year later, and I'll get into that in a different video, but being on top of things, being in tune with your body, making sure that you are noticing just the slightest changes in your health are going to make a world of difference if anything were to end up being wrong. And I'm not telling you to be a hypochondriac and think that one tiny little thing means you have cancer or this tiny little thing means that you're going to be diagnosed with this. That's not at all what I'm saying. But if you are experiencing the textbook symptoms of colorectal cancer, do not dismiss it just because you are young and you are generally healthy.
If you or anybody that you know has been experiencing anything that I talked about in this video or is walking through anything similar, please share this video with all of your friends, all of your family, anybody that needs to hear this message. I am praying for awareness in this generation. And I know that if enough of us speak up and share our stories, the more it's going to be brought to the forefront of everybody's attention. And we can help this young generation avoid being diagnosed at advanced stages of colorectal cancer.