Hello All,
Just wanted to join and share my story.
I'm 33 years old, Vietnamese, youngest of 8, both parents are in their 70's(healthy), no family history, 18% body fat, I don't drink alcohol, no sodas, no smoking and generally eat really healthy.
I recently got married in June!
Everything about life up to this point has been perfect. I was a usual once a day pooper, within an hour of waking up. My body was like a clock, with no signs or symptoms of anything wrong. Starting in July I noticed a change in my bowel movement. I wasn't going every morning as I was before. Sometimes I would go 2-3 days before I could finally go. There was one day where I believe it was close to 4 days since I had gone #2 and took some laxative to help me with a bowel movement. That didn't help either. Eventually I had a bowel movement after lots of pain and suffering like I never felt before. I just thought it was constipation and tried to eat a little healthier. I never had any blood in my stool.
From July - October, I had good weeks and bad weeks of bowel movements after learning to control my stool hardness by diet.
In October I finally went to go see a gastrointestinal doctor. The first visit he put me on a bunch of fiber and sent me home for another appointment in exactly a week. When I came back and reported the fiber didn't help at all, he immediately scheduled me for a colonoscopy the following week(AMAZING DOCTOR).
He couldn't go past 7 inches into my rectum because there was a 2 inch tumor sitting in the sigmoid colon.
A few days later after doing a CEA(Level 25) blood test and getting the results back from the biopsy. It was confirmed I had colon cancer. As you can imagine, this came as a big shock to me. I won't go into all the details of all the questions that flowed through my head.
It's confirmed I have stage 4 Colon Cancer, there is 1 tumor inside the colon about 2inches in diameter(SUV 8.9) and an additional tumor right outside the colon in the fatty tissue about 1/2" diameter(SUV 4.6). This was done via PET scan
Since I've been diagnosed with cancer only 3 weeks ago, I've had a port installed, my first round of chemo and on the road to fighting this thing we all call cancer.
Just wanted to share my story with everyone and show that cancer can really effect anyone it wants.
Feel free to ask any questions