Luke Williams

July of 2022, we went to Minnesota for a family vacation. One day, I used the bathroom and something didn’t look right. At the time I didn’t think much of it as we were eating and drinking out of our normal routine and chalked it up to that.

Home from the trip after about a week, the feeling didn’t change and what I saw in the bathroom didn’t change. So I got an appointment with a general physician and it wouldn’t be for a few more months. But the stomach cramps and what I saw in the bathroom didn’t change at all. Finally saw the physician in October and told him how I’ve been feeling and what was going on and the first thing he recommended was let’s get you a colonoscopy.

Then for about two weeks, my physician and the insurance company went back-and-forth because they did not want to cover my colonoscopy because A, I didn’t fit into the age bracket and B, had no family history of it. They finally approved and we got it a few months later in December meanwhile, I was still feeling all the same effects and things were still looking the same.

So after Christmas, I finally had my colonoscopy and while I’m in recovery, the G.I. doctor said “Yep, you’ve got colon cancer.”

My heart sank. The look on my wife’s face was complete shock and I felt miserable for like maybe a couple minutes. Then I said to my GI doctor, just tell me what I gotta do and I’ll do it. A few weeks later, he had me meet with a colon surgeon and an oncologist, and they got me set up with a CT scan and an MRI which revealed not only a humongous tumor in my colon but also four large tumors in my liver.

So they took my diagnosis to the tumor board and a radiation oncologist came on board and we started with five days of radiation to kickstart the whole process. Then proceeded to do five rounds of chemo and we got the tumors small enough so that they could go in and cut all of them out so Father’s Day of 2023 I went in for my surgery. We got them all out and they gave me an ileostomy.

After that, I did seven more rounds of chemo. Everything was clear and we were able to reverse my ileostomy in December of 2023.

My first scan in 2024 was February and we saw three more spots popped up in my liver so I proceeded to do six rounds of chemo then my liver surgeon suggested that I be a candidate for an HAI pump. HAI stands for hepatic artery infusion. Which can send chemo directly to my liver so I don’t have to do systemic chemo. So Father’s Day of 2024 I was able to get that pump inserted and I’ve had it ever since and I have not had systemic chemo since that pump has been inserted.

From Then until today, I have probably had maybe 10 to 12 rounds of chemo in the pump to keep everything at bay I’ve had two small spots in my liver pop up, but it has improved my quality of life drastically.

I’ve also had five spots pop-up between both my lungs and we have used radiation to keep those at bay I had one spot recently on my liver that the pump was not reaching so we used the radiation on that and got that one. I feel for this last year is 2026, we’ve been playing whack a mole!

So that’s where we stand today, but again my quality of life has drastically improved in the last two years, and I’ve felt like I can be a father and a husband and be a friend to our group and just be able to be present. So now that I am in a better place, I want to be able to use my voice to help others to make sure that they get their colonoscopies even if they’re not 45 and use my story as hopefully a kick starter to open people up to take care of themselves!