How Did We Get Here?

So, what the hell happened? How did I go from being a healthy 34 year old to having stage 4 colon cancer in a matter of weeks? Well, obviously it had been developing longer than that, but let’s rewind the clock to Valentine’s Day 2025. At one point that afternoon I was sitting on the couch with our pugs (whose favorite place in the world is my lap) and our little black pug, Kate, stepped on my stomach. It felt a little sore, but only for a second or two so I paid little attention. I didn’t notice it beyond momentary discomfort for the next couple of weeks until March. 

I went skiing for the first time in my life the weekend of March 1. My two buddies Alex and Andy are damn good at it and they helped me get down the mountain in one piece (also a great story for another time) but all during that trip I noticed that I felt a little soreness in my gut after eating. I started paying attention to what caused these cramps and what didn’t, but couldn’t seem to find a pattern. This went on for the next week or two, so I made an appointment with my primary doctor. This appointment was over a month away, so I held on to hope that it wouldn’t get any worse. I was counting on being able to navigate the discomfort and the pain until then. I changed my meals from sitting and having a full one to having a few bites at a time throughout the day. I quit having even a moderate amount of food at a time. Then I was able to move my appointment up to first available. 

I wasn’t able to see my PCP but I did get in to see someone. Anyone, and at that point I didn’t really care. It was a quick appointment and I left there with a plan to target foods on the FODMAP diet to try and isolate what might be causing it. Nobody suspected a blockage of my descending colon, including me. That was on a Wednesday. When I awoke on Thursday, the pain was there. It wasn’t excruciating or debilitating but it was certainly getting there. It lasted all day. I went to bed hoping to feel better the next day, but that’s when we found out. 

Friday, April 11th 2025 was the day I didn’t wake up on time. I was late for work, but by the time I was up and able to get out of bed, Leah saw me and asked “are you finally ready to go to the hospital?” ….And I was. I had held out long enough trying to avoid the ER visit. I was hurting and I had my conscience telling me that it was time to listen to my body and go. Leah made the work arrangements for the day and we were off to the hospital. 

The ER was empty except for one other person. I was taken back right away to get vitals, information, etc. then they did a CT scan. That’s when they found it. “So, we looked at the scan results and we have some… not so great news. The scan shows a mass in your descending colon, and from what we can see it’s causing a blockage. We’re working on admitting you now.” The rest is a blur. Everything happened so quick, I was changing rooms, being assigned nurses and doctors, and having to prepare for a colonoscopy.

If you know anything about colonoscopies, you know that most of the time you prepare by fasting for a day with the exception of laxatives, lots a water, and other fluids to help flush your whole system for the camera scope. I had about 12 hours to steadily drink this gallon-and-a-half jug of some really heavy duty stuff, because they had scheduled my colonoscopy ASAP as a result of what they saw from the scan. Then I got worse in that observation room of the ER. That night was the worst of my life. The pain was unbelievable. My intestines were on fire. The nurses were great and did everything they could to ease the pain. I was so ready for the colonoscopy because I was so ready for answers, and I know Leah was too. I get rolled back and put under, thankful that we’ll all know more when I wake up. 

Wrong. The mass was causing such a severe blockage that they couldn’t get the scope around it. It didn’t budge, try as they might. The doc even used the pediatric scope at one point (because it’s smaller) to try and squeeze past, but no luck. After a good 45 minutes they finished up and wheeled me back out. When I came out of anesthesia I was given the play-by-play and that’s when things took a turn for the worst. They had me scheduled for surgery within the next few hours. This was gonna be the big one, they were going in after this mass and coming out with whatever they had to in order to clear the blockage. That’s when they took nearly all of my large intestines. 

They cut me from sternum to groin. It became an exploratory surgery, and they were having to not just remove the mass but also any part of my colon that was dead or dying tissue, which was roughly 80%. The blockage was causing blood loss to the rest of the intestine, so it was distended to the point that the doctors feared it perforating. A much more severe problem and risk of sepsis if that happened. They did everything they could to save what little of my colon was still healthy, and hooked me up to a colostomy bag for the immediate future. The surgery to save my life was a big, messy, rough, painful success. But… even since hearing about the mass from the CT scan, Leah and I both had it in the back of our minds… “is this thing a cancerous tumor? Is it malignant?” 

We had to wait on that. The biopsy for something like this would take a couple of days, even as rushed as everything with my case had been so far. Those were very anxious days. 

This is where I’m going to stop writing for the night. If you have read this far, stay tuned, I will continue this story and try to post updates (at least) every week to provide the connected dots for my journey.

~Cassidy