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 症状 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.

但在 2018 年 12 月，情况发生了变化。我开始感到腹胀，这与我的月经周期不符。我决定去看急诊。在急诊室，医生给我开了抗生素。那里的医生说，腹胀很可能是肠道感染引起的。由于不满意医生的解释，几天后我决定去看我的主治医生。我的主治医生也认为可能是感染，但决定送我去急诊室排除阑尾炎。在急诊室，CT 扫描证实我的结肠增厚并有微小穿孔。我入院处理穿孔问题，并被告知出院后需要去看消化科医生。我没能去看消化内科医生。

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.