After a strong fight against colorectal cancer, Robyn passed away in April 2017. We will keep fighting everyday in her memory.

认识罗宾  

Robyn Schmid Tiffie, Stage IVA CRC

俄克拉何马州俄克拉何马城

罗宾的故事

Before diagnosis, I had about 10 years of tummy issues. From senior year of high school and well into my late 20s, I saw numerous doctors and several specialists. I was told that my symptoms were due to a subclinical hypoactive thyroid.  I changed my diet, cut out gluten, went through almost every test possible just short of a colonoscopy. When a colonoscopy was presented to me as the next course of action at the age of 28, it was positioned like this: I was told that it probably wouldn't give us any additional information (because at the time, they thought my symptoms were all diet/ gluten related) and it was expensive and that I was too young for the insurance to pay for it. At the time, I had single payer coverage and was barely out of college and honestly, all my doctors seemed unconcerned with the symptoms and told me it was pretty normal, so I made the choice most people would make when asked if they want to opt in for a colonoscopy.

A few years later, I was feeling some payoffs from some hard-won success in a new job that had great insurance and stability. But I was disassociated from what was going on with my body, because I was so focused on all other areas of my life. Luckily, I was beginning a new relationship with a wonderful man with whom I felt comfortable sharing some of my symptoms that I had been ignoring. And the day I shared with him what was happening was the first time someone said, “Robyn, that's not normal.”

I listened to him, and 24 hours later I had an appointment with a specialist who told me I was too young to be seeing him, and prepared me at worst for a diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. I insisted on his first available colonoscopy. I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.

I came away from my colon resection extremely sick from a massive infection from a pinhole leak that went undetected and unchecked for weeks. I was restaged from Stage IIIA or B to Stage IV because the first radiologists to read my initial scans missed the lesions on my liver. My treatment was delayed for months and I was given a temporary ileostomy, which I still have. My nutrition was so poor and my health was in such bad shape, that the gatekeeper/new patient staff at MD Anderson wouldn't consider my case. Luckily, we had a personal connection with a nurse in another oncology unit there who hand delivered my files and plead my case.

Starting in October of 2014, I had 27 rounds of FOLFIRI. Almost a full year later, in October of 2015, I was told that I was a candidate for surgery because my response to the therapy had seen so many of the lesions shrink and disappear. From November 2015-January 2016 I had a liver resection in three separate stages--two major surgeries--that removed 85% of my liver. This past May I had a follow up scan that showed although my liver tests healthy and it has grown, some lesions also appeared on the remaining liver.

Since then, I've had 4 rounds of FOLFIRINOX, and scans.  I'm hopeful that my body responds to the treatment as well as it did before. And the hope is this chemo will give me a good running start to then transition to immunotherapy--which my doctors are telling me they are well on the way of creating the vaccine for my tumor! I'm learning more as we go.

百万雄师对罗宾的意义

I passionately feel that had I heard just once that maybe I wasn't too young for this, we could have caught my cancer at a much earlier stage. And I want to contribute positively to the cause and the content that can be found on the Internet.  In my first few hours of diagnosis, I turned to the Internet to research and dig into other survivor's stories and experiences and Fight CRC was one of the first places I found that gave me facts and gave me hope. Since then, I knew I'd like to volunteer my time in some way, but I have missed your registration dates for various opportunities until now. I'm looking for a community, and I am eager to contribute.

7关于 "Meet the One Million Strong- Robyn Schmid from Oklahoma "的想法