Stage 3 Cancer Survival
by Kevin
Back in 1999 I had a colonoscopy. The Dr. found 3 polyps but told me they had been removed and I should return in 3-5 years. The fact that my grandfather had had colon cancer, was the reason I had the initial colonoscopy.
Then in 2002 (which was 3 years after) I began to have several symptoms that by themselves seemed normal, but together I should have known something was very wrong. One symptom, losing weight, was something I assumed was due to my hectic travel schedule. Plus I would walk large airports in my position as an IT person for a major airline.
I was extremely tired during vacationing with my family in August 2002 on a river rapids trip. I was very dizzy from the altitude during this trip and when visiting Pikes Peak. Again two symptoms I thought were unrelated.
When I got back home I was doing some yard work, but was so very tired and had to take several breaks which had never happened to me before. Later that day, I was throwing batting practice to my son and his fall baseball league team and was just so tired.
I told another father there that I needed to see my Doctor and that I thought because of my being thirsty a lot, the lack of desire to eat and my being tired, I thought I was having adult onset Diabetes. I saw my Doctor and had a physical on Thursday that week and the next day he told me I needed to get to the hospital. One of my tests showed my Hemoglobin was a 5.6 (a normal male my size 14-16!) and I must be bleeding somewhere. My wife came home from work and drove me. While in the ER one of the residents looked at my hands and asked me: why didn't I know I was ill and lost so much blood since my hands were almost all white.
I guess I never really looked at my hands like that! I was admitted and the next day I had a colonoscopy and the other test where they put a tube down my throat. The reason they scheduled both was: another blood test they gave me showed no increase in cancer cells, or that cancer was unlikely. I went to sleep during these tests, fully expecting to find I had a large bleeding ulcer somewhere. Instead I was told I had a 5.8 centimeter bleeding tumor in my colon and the doctor told me even without the biopsy results, he was sure it was cancer.
He said not many non-cancerous tumors bleed. I had the cancer removed and then six months of chemotherapy and I am here today with my 7 year anniversary 9-9-09 since the surgery and doing OK! I have been able to see both my children graduate high school (my surgery was on my daughter's 14th birthday) and my son graduate college.
I plan on seeing my daughter graduate college and both getting married as well. I am thankful that although I did have stage 3 colon cancer, it only involved 3 lymph nodes out of 21 they removed and it is likely I will not die from this disease.
