I arrived at the emergency room on May 7, 2021, with severe abdominal pain. After many test and CT scans, doctors discovered a football size tumor in my uterus. I was admitted to the hospital and had a full hysterectomy a few days later. The hysterectomy went great and I was at home healing when I received a call that I needed to come in, immediately. My mom drove me to the doctor’s office and it was there I was told I had colon cancer on the back of my ovary. Which meant stage IV and we would need to treat it aggressively.

I had a colon resection a few weeks later, then a port put in. And then I began the front-line chemotherapy for colon cancer – 5fu with Oxaliplatin or “Folfox”. The first 3 rounds would left me asleep for days. All of my hair fell out; something was wrong. It was after round 3 my PA decided to test for DPD deficiency, a rare deficiency where your liver is missing an enzyme that breaks down chemo. The test came back positive that I had it.

We turned the chemo down, and I continued for 7 more treatments. Then we ran CT scans and blood work and both showed no evidence of disease. I began maintenance chemo and immunotherapy.