Fast forward to October 2016. I was pregnant with my fourth child. I had had three very easy pregnancies, but this one was hard. I figured this was payback. I started bleeding a bit more, and things became a little more painful as the pregnancy progressed. Having been pregnant three times before, I knew these weren’t normal aches and pains.
I also started to get diarrhea. That worried me because it can lead to dehydration, which in turn can spark early labor. So I went back to my primary care doctor. He thought my symptoms were still probably within the normal spectrum of pregnancy, but I told him they weren't. “I’ve done this three times before, this is not normal,” I remember saying.
He sent me to a GI specialist right away, who was also concerned about the risk of dehydration. The specialist thought I could have ulcerative colitis and wanted to start me on treatment with steroids, but then decided to do a scan first to verify the diagnosis. Two days later, I was at Advocate Christ Medical Center for the test, which was like a truncated version of a colonoscopy. You could tell right away; the tumor was right there. I then had a full colonoscopy, and I was diagnosed with stage 2 colorectal cancer.
Because I thought it was just ulcerative colitis, I had gone to the scan by myself. My husband was at home with our three kids. Here I was at the hospital by myself being diagnosed with cancer. I was in disbelief. I remember thinking, Are you freaking kidding me? It felt surreal. I had no risk factors, no family history. Had I not seem the tumor on the scan, I would have thought it was a joke.
I was sent for lab work and got a lot of information—the wheels started turning immediately. A whole team was assembled. When I arrived home, my husband asked, “How did your scan go?” I motioned him upstairs with my eyes so I could talk to him without the kids hearing. I had to break it to him that this is what we were looking at now.
Because of the pregnancy, everything went super fast. I always say that had I not been pregnant, who knows how long it would have taken to diagnose me? Colorectal cancer symptoms—like abdominal pain or changes in bowel habits—can be similar to early signs of pregnancy, so it can be hard to diagnose. Even if you suspect cancer, some of the scans used to confirm it can’t be done in traditional ways when you’re pregnant. The abdomen has to be shielded for a lot of the scans, and you can’t use the contrast agent that’s usually used with CT scans.
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