Persistent Heartburn was HIDING My Stage 4 COLON CANCER!

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]I had heavy gastrointestinal problems.

[00:00:03]Uh so, heartburn being a big one. It was always just, you know, take omeprazole, you know, kind of cover it up, put a band-aid on it. And I my wife and I do feel that if at any point my doctor had >> [music] >> said, "Hey, this isn't going away. This isn't getting better. You change your diet. You're on the medicine. Let's look into this."

[00:00:21]We may have found something a lot earlier. Right up until I went to the hospital, it was I would eat a meal and I would Oh, man, I'm I'm really full.

[00:00:29]I'm not digesting well. I need to just [music] go lay down. I also love food.

[00:00:34]Uh it's kind of one of my hobbies. So, >> [music] >> did I overeat? Now that I look back, I see them as symptoms. I was laying in bed and I got right around my gallbladder, so kind of my upper right or mid right torso. Uh just a stabbing pain. And I'll be honest, I've I had that, you know, gas, things like that before, so I didn't really think anything of it. After a few hours, [music] it didn't go away and it was only feeling worse. It was only getting worse. I was getting paralyzed by this by the pain, actually. I was just laying in bed not moving because it was that bad. And I'm kind of your average guy.

[00:01:06]I'm like, "Ah, let's give it time. Let's see. Let's wait." [music] Uh my wife on the other hand was like, "No, this this is something we need to go get looked at." So, we went in, got all the blood work. [music] Uh they really weren't sure where the pain was coming from.

[00:01:17]They were helping me with pain medication, things like that. Um we were able to kind of get that under control.

[00:01:23]And my actually my primary care doctor was the first one to suspect some sort of [music] cancer. And she was like, "Listen, we can get you in and out of different facilities for tests. She's like, "I recommend you go get admitted [music] to a hospital right now. You meet the requirements. They'll admit you and then they'll run all your tests."

[00:01:43]Back to back to back to back to get this all looked at as quickly as possible.

[00:01:46]So, we rushed into the hospital uh right into the ER and they immediately were running blood work, doing tests, things like that. Um come to find out right in the ER after some blood work, I was extremely anemic. Um so, I had major blood problems, iron deficiencies, hemoglobin deficiencies, um which actually would explain prior to my diagnosis why I was exhausted. I just thought full-time job, five kids, I just live a busy life. I'm tired all the time. I love being a father, though.

[00:02:20]I mean, it is just where I feel like I thrive.

[00:02:22]>> We had what I would consider an almost perfect life. Our children were healthy.

[00:02:28]Um my husband and I got married very young. We started a family young and we worked hard. Everyone says we have a limited amount of time.

[00:02:35]And realistically, everyone does. You just don't know when it's going to happen, right? Car accident, anything like that. Um but you don't really live your life that way. They're like, "Listen, we're going to go in and do a colonoscopy. We're going to go take a look, see what's going on." And that was when they found everything out.

[00:02:49]The doctor comes in and he goes, "Hey, Allison. Um why don't we go downstairs and meet Nathan?"

[00:02:56]And I said, "Oh, no, it's okay. Um I was told that they were just going to bring him up to to me."

[00:03:03]And he said, "No, Allison.

[00:03:05]I think you need to be down there when Nate wakes up."

[00:03:10]I have to tell you, um we found a mass, Allison, and I am so sorry. It is [music] cancer. You hear people say it doesn't feel real. You hear that a lot from people who experienced something awful. And I know what they mean now because you are shock sets in. For [music] me, it was instantly. I go in the door and as I'm walking down the corridor, it's the nurses were behind their computers crying. And I look over at Nathan and [music] he's peacefully sleeping. And I asked Penny, "What do I do next? What do I do?" And she said, "You You wake him up gently and you tell him." So, my wife actually is the one who got the news, had to deal with it, digest it, walk through the hospital, meet with all the nurses, come find me.

[00:03:56]I was still asleep [music] and I remember her telling me she was just like waiting for me to wake up. Like, I can't believe I have to do this. I have to wake him up and tell him probably the worst news we're going to hear as people, as a couple, as a husband and wife, and as a father and a mother. And with tears in my eyes, they were just welled. I just shook my head no.

[00:04:18]And he said, "What?" And she's like, "I don't know how to tell you this. You have You have cancer. You have colon cancer. You have a baseball-sized tumor in your colon and in your descending colon, you have another golf ball-sized tumor tumor and you have about 15 polyps outside of that."

[00:04:36]>> the worst moment of my life. The moment I thought when I would think about other people who had to do this, I thought, "How did they survive that moment?"

[00:04:46]And I learned very quickly it's because they had to. They had no choice but to survive in that moment. And that's pretty much how all the moments going forward since have been. You just survive because you don't have an option. You wake up and you manage the house and the kids and cancer and [music] all the other things good and bad that life has to offer. And you do it because you don't have an option.

[00:05:13]With the amount of polyps and just presence of cancer in my colon, um the first thing they wanted to do was remove my colon. Obviously, I have lots of questions. What does that look like for me?

[00:05:24]You know, ostomy bag, things of that nature. Um what will, you know, just my whole digestive tract look like after that? Um and I I will say prior to that, they had put a stent >> [music] >> in to open up that area with the tumor to buy me some time and buy my time my body some time to adjust to this whole process. Um but we did come to the conclusion that based on what we saw, it was best to get rid of my colon. The first major surgery I had was a >> [music] >> uh full colon removal, a colectomy.

[00:05:52]Recovery was about 2 weeks uh in the hospital. I wasn't sure what to expect with chemo. Um I had read stories. I had been involved in groups, you know, I went on Facebook, joined groups, which was both helpful and [music] difficult to deal with cuz it's over almost an overdose of information sometimes. Uh people can kind of get you panicky if you're not careful. So, we went and did the first round of chemo. Folfox is compounding. Round three is really when I was like, "Okay, this is bad. Like, this is really difficult." And I'm >> [clears throat] >> I'm 35 at this point. I get sick. I get hurt. I still bounce back pretty quick, so [music] that's kind of what I'm used to. Um so, the physical aspect was very difficult. I went into surgery basically at about 183 lb.

[00:06:36]>> [music] >> At the end of my chemo, I was about 130 lb. And I'm not an overweight guy. I didn't really have 60-plus lb to lose.

[00:06:45]And a lot of it was muscle mass. My 4-year-old at that point had fallen asleep in the playroom at night and I was going to carry her to bed and I couldn't pick her up. That was just one of those moments that hit really hard as a father. I had to go get my wife to carry her up to bed cuz I couldn't even And we're talking a 4-year-old. I couldn't even get her up off the ground.

[00:07:07]That's how much muscle mass I had lost at that point. I was getting maybe [music] 2 and 1/2 hours of sleep every night.

[00:07:12]Um part of the issue with the chemo was I had, >> [music] >> on top of losing my colon, I had chemo-induced diarrhea.

[00:07:20]Um so, I just went from liquids to just even worse.

[00:07:24]And part of the problem that we weren't exactly able to identify is I was going multiple times an hour, even at night.

[00:07:32]So, I was waking up every single night five, six times [music] going to the bathroom.

[00:07:38]And extremely unpleasant, extremely painful. Come to find out at a later surgery, the small portion of my colon that I had left had flipped.

[00:07:46]So, I had basically a whole 'nother blockage going on that I was not aware of. So, I think it was late October, right before Halloween, uh we It's mid-October. We found out that not only did I have cancer, but it was stage four cancer that had metastasized to my liver. And they were And it was a bleak outcome because of where it had metastasized to. It was the peritoneal membrane, which is pretty aggressive.

[00:08:09]Chemotherapy can't reach properly.

[00:08:12]Um so, we had to do it again. This time I had my husband by my side and we pulled the girls out of school and we took them to a park and we just told them, "You know, it's the information we had was wrong before and the information we have now is that it is stage four and it Daddy likely will not survive this.

[00:08:37]But we're going to fight and we're going to do everything we can."

[00:08:40]>> [music] >> And that was horrible. They were not strong in that moment. None of us were.

[00:08:43]We all crumbled and shattered and broke.

[00:08:47]You know, because what you don't realize is you're not just telling your children they're going to lose their father.

[00:08:54]You're telling them that he's not going to walk them down the aisle.

[00:08:58]That he's not going to be there to hold their first child.

[00:09:03]That he's not going to to be there anymore. My oncologist, we met with him and nothing bad against him, but he got to a point I think it was the facility limitations. Um we got to a point where we were like, "What's the next step?"

[00:09:18]And he was just like, [music] "What do you mean? We're on chemo. Um if the chemo get rid [music] gets rid of everything, we'll look at additional steps, but right now, you're just going to ride the chemo train as long as you need." And he said that he would have a professional gave him the diagnosis that this is fatal. It's, you know, [music] 9 to 18 months on average. And he said he he did accept that and I just couldn't.

[00:09:45]So, I just started Googling. Luckily, an hour away from us uh [music] um a colorectal surgeon who actually does this procedure. The battle after that was getting insurance to approve us to go to and shoots.

[00:09:59]That's what I did when Nathan was in the chemotherapy chair at the smaller cancer center.

[00:10:04]That's what I did for 5 hours a day every day. I battled insurance.

[00:10:09]>> Hipec is called the mother of all surgeries. They cut you open.

[00:10:13]They open you up. They strip away that peritoneal membrane, which is extremely time-consuming because we're dealing with major organs.

[00:10:22]They have to peel it away and they have to be very careful with everything that's going [music] on.

[00:10:25]And then when they're almost done, once they have all that and while they're doing this, they're looking [music] for spots on the liver and I had like 30 some lymph nodes removed as well from my abdomen.

[00:10:37]I did have that mass that they were worried about. That was removed. Chemo had shrunk that enough >> [music] >> to the point where they were comfortable removing that. Then they kind of do a sew job, put you back to or I'm sorry, they fill you with hot liquid chemo.

[00:10:51]So like 108°.

[00:10:54]They basically just dump it inside of you.

[00:10:57]They sew you up. It was absolutely wild and yeah, like I said, it was it was a 12-hour surgery and there's always that in the back of your mind that am I even going to [music] come out of this? I mean, when they talk it up to be the mother of all surgeries or abdominal surgeries, even with my health and my age and keep in mind at this point, I'm 10 rounds [music] into chemo.

[00:11:16]I love you girls. I'll see you as soon as I'm done with all my surgery and ready to have you down to come see me at the hospital. I'm the [music] lightest weight I've ever been. I opted for an ileostomy to be put in while I was under for that surgery.

[00:11:30]And I still have that. It was supposed to be reversed.

[00:11:33]I have [music] uh ulcerative colitis on top of that. We found out, so I can't really get it reversed until [music] that's managed. I guess I don't Most people, me especially, didn't realize how much your abs do for your body. Even just sitting up, your abs work. Sitting down, your abs work. Rolling over, your abs are working. So when they cut through my entire abdominal cavity and tore through all those muscles, I couldn't sit up. I couldn't I couldn't do anything. I still haven't [music] bounced back. From the chemo, I still have chemo-induced neuropathy >> [music] >> in my feet and legs.

[00:12:06]It was in my hands, but that's pretty much gone away for the most part. But my feet and [music] I mean, I'm just pretty much from the moment my feet hit the floor when I get out of bed, my feet are >> [music] >> in pain. I'm I'm just in pain. It's It's not necessarily a stabbing pain. I kind of describe it as if you were wearing no shoes walking on like river rocks, like a rocky riverbed. It's that unknown that I said I don't like to live [music] in and I'm right there constantly, but especially this close to a scan. [music] It could go either way. I mean, I don't know how to live with it still.

[00:12:43]I struggle living with it still. The you know, you just don't know how much time you have. And my wife and I have this relationship where we are husband and wife, but she's my best friend. Having to have her look at me and ask me how how am I going to do this without you?

[00:13:04]I don't I still don't have an answer for that question. She's asked me multiple times and I don't know how to answer that question correctly. How do I keep going?

[00:13:15]Know that I'm still there with you.

[00:13:17]I don't know if there is a correct answer for that question.

[00:13:20]Especially at 36 years old.

[00:13:22]>> This man should not have gotten colon cancer.

[00:13:26]>> [music] >> And he's not the only one.

[00:13:28]Join a colon cancer support group and people like Nathan, young people like Nathan, are joining every day with the a very similar story to my husband's.

[00:13:37][music] Young people are dying. Families are being destroyed.

[00:13:42]Something has to be done, especially with the information we have now. This is not ending. [music] This isn't going anywhere. We're not guaranteed tomorrow or next week.

[00:13:51]But until someone looks you in the face and says you have 9 to 18 months to live.

[00:13:57]>> [music] >> That doesn't really hit.

[00:13:59]And it has just it's just time is so valuable and you just don't see when they say time is money, that has so [music] much more weight than it did previously. And not necessarily money in the sense of dollar bills, but just the value of time with people.

[00:14:21]And you know, you just think you have so much of it and you might not. [music] And the true blessing is that I have the ability to look at these moments realizing I'm I may not have another one and really getting the value out of that time with my family, my wife, my kids. If this is the last time it we're going to [music] this is going to be the best time. We're going to make this just the best that we can and make sure it's a a positive memory for all of this.