The answer is, it was hard, because while I felt something wasn’t right, the doctors all kept telling me everything was fine. Until, one day, finally, they changed their story. In 2018, I was 28 and had met my now-husband. About six months later, we found out we were pregnant. I had an amazing pregnancy for eight months. But at nine months, I started to feel like something wasn’t right. It started to get harder for me to go to the bathroom, which led to a little bit of stomach pain here and there. I brought this up to my doctor and she told me, ‘You are okay. Your body has had many changes, and you are days away from giving birth.’ As a first-time mom, I thought, “That makes sense.”
Symptoms That Didn’t Improve
Six weeks after having my son, my postpartum check-up looked great. But then days and weeks went by and I still hadn’t been able to go to the bathroom normally. I was constipated most of the time, not to mention there was an extremely odd smell that followed trying to go to the bathroom. The days I was able to go, I began seeing dark and bright red blood in my stool. Worried, I went back for a second postpartum check-up. The doctor told me he was 99.9 percent positive it was internal hemorrhoids, but if I continued feeling unwell, he told me to follow up with my primary doctor, which is exactly what I did. I had bloodwork done, and it was all fine. That doctor gave me suppositories in hopes that would help. Two months passed, and it hadn’t helped. But by this time we were in the process of moving back to the East Coast and I was stressed about it, especially with a newborn. I decided to put it aside until we’d moved. We got settled on the East Coast, and my fiancé and I were both able to get jobs and all was well. Except that my symptoms were getting worse. I still wasn’t able to go to the bathroom normally. I was seeing more and more blood and my appetite began to decline. I started to lose weight. One morning, I remember getting ready for work at the same time as my fiancé and saying to him, ‘Am I ever going to feel normal again?’ It had been months — and it would be many months more, as it turned out.
One Validating Voice: ‘You Know Your Body Best’
I went to doctor after doctor. As soon as I mentioned that I was a new mom, that was all they focused on. It was hard for me not to question my own body — until I wasn’t able to sit at a restaurant without feeling sick. I’d be so hungry, but unable to eat. I began to hate going to work because I was nervous I’d be in the bathroom all day. Between the constipation, length of time, the odd smell that lingers, and the pain in my abdomen, my stress level was rising. By now, I was crying almost every morning before work not wanting to go, but knowing I had to. I knew something wasn’t right. On one specific morning there was enough blood that it I was alarmed. I called my mom in a panic and off to the ER we went. When I saw the doctor, it was the same old thing — new mom, most likely hemorrhoids, stay away from certain foods or spicy food. My bloodwork came back looking fine. They set me up with an appointment at a family clinic and sent me on my way. That appointment would turn out to be pivotal. Not much came of the appointment itself, really. But one nurse said to me, ‘If you don’t find your answer during this visit, keep searching and don’t stop. You know your body best. If you feel something isn’t right, it most likely isn’t.’ I live by that to this day. It truly made me keep going.
At Long Last, a Diagnosis
At this time, I still didn’t have good health insurance. But with the help of friends and family, I finally found a primary doctor who was able to see me. She wrote me a referral to see a gastroenterologist. This may sound weird, but I brought pictures with me of what I was seeing in the bathroom. The gastroenterologist looked at the pictures, and ordered a colonoscopy for the following day. At 28 years old the word “colonoscopy” can seem scary, but weirdly enough, I couldn’t wait. That’s how much I knew something just wasn’t right. The next day, I went to the appointment. When I came out from the anesthesia the doctor told me I had a tumor in my rectum. He showed me pictures from the colonoscopy. He didn’t say it was definitely cancerous. The biopsy report would take two weeks. But he was already giving us suggestions on where to be treated. As my mom and I walked out of the gastroenterologist, we were both scared, worried, and uncertain. In the car, I lost it. The more I thought about how long I hadn’t been feeling well, how much blood I’d seen in my stool, how much weight I’d lost, how I was never hungry, and always feeling sick, the more I knew what I was going to hear from the biopsy report. And I was right. Nine months after I started feeling something was not right, nine months during which was told my symptoms were nothing to worry about, I was diagnosed with stage 3 colorectal cancer.
