Sara Alvarenga

Life before CRC was busy as a young 33-year-old mom to two young kids. Aside from raising kids and the routine challenges of life, life was relatively carefree. My husband and I both worked full time and made a good living for our family. We were in the process of becoming debt free in the hopes of buying a new home for our children to grow up in.

Our carefree life changed dramatically in December 2018. For years I had experienced blood in my stool and other symptom but after seeing multiple doctors, I was assured the sporadic blood was due to hemorrhoids. With no family history of CRC and having had children, hemorrhoids made the most sense.

But in December 2018 things changed. I started to feel bloating that didn't match up with my menstrual cycle. I made the decision to visit urgent care. At urgent care, I was prescribed antibiotics. The doctor there said it was likely a gut infection causing the bloating. Unhappy with the doctor's explanation, I decided to visit my primary doctor a couple of days later. My primary doctor agreed that it could be an infection but decided to send me the ER to rule out appendicitis. In the ER, a CT scan confirmed I had thickening in my colon and a micro perforation. I was admitted to handle the perforation and told that I needed to see a GI upon release. I never made it to see a GI.

I was in and out of the ER that December and into January 2019. The third hospitalization led to my diagnosis. I came in with severe pain - turns out I was septic. The perforation was not healing and the infection was getting worse. The local hospital GI surgeon made the decision to give me a colectomy. He mentioned it might be cancer and there was something suspicious on my liver but they would check when they went in to remove part of my colon. I still remember not even giving cancer a second thought - it couldn't be. A week after that emergency colectomy the GI surgeon came in to my hospital room and gave me the news. "You have stage 4 colon cancer that has spread to your liver. With treatment you can live 2-5 years. Our first goal is to start you on chemo."

I remember thinking we needed to do something about this as soon as possible. I needed to live for my kids and my husband. 101 chemo treatments later I continue to strive to live for them and for me. I share my story to let young people know that this disease does not discriminate. Know the symptoms. Advocate for yourself and if something doesn't feel right, look right - it isn't and persist until you have answers.