HOW I FOUND OUT

On July 21^st (2013) I started experiencing some abdominal pain. It continued to worsen throughout the night and became so severe that even prescription pain pills did nothing for it. Finally, at 4 am, after listening for hours to my Lamaze-like breathing and moans of agony, Daryll convinced me to go to the emergency room. It helped that she had just gotten her drivers permit and was looking for any and every opportunity to drive (love you Daryll).

A CT scan revealed a thickening of the wall of a small section of my colon and air in my abdominal cavity. The only way for air to get there (aside from a puncture wound) is through a perforation in the intestines (which can be microscopic). The on-call GI surgeon saw the CT scan before she saw me and was intent on immediate emergency surgery because a perforation can result in sepsis, which can kill ya. When she came into my room and saw me, however, she decided against the surgery. She was amazed that I was otherwise clinically sound- not throwing up, didn’t have a fever, wasn’t anemic. The pain had mostly subsided at this point and I felt and appeared “normal.” (Insert joke/dis about me here). 

The surgeon’s differential diagnosis included trauma, diverticulitis, and cancer. She opted to believe it was diverticulitis and admitted me to the hospital where I was not allowed food or drink for 4 days in order to let the perforation “heal.” She prescribed a colonoscopy to be done three weeks thereafter- once the inflammation would presumably have gone down.

None of my recent bike wrecks were severe enough to blame for the perforation and although I would love to be able to claim to be so talented as to stick any object 40 centimeters up my ass, I can’t. So… I was okay with ruling out the trauma diagnosis.

The cancer diagnosis, on the other hand, not so much. After getting out of the hospital I went for a second opinion and was told basically the same thing as the first opinion: I was too young and healthy to have colon cancer. It's for old wrinkly dudes. If cancer had caused the perforation, it would be late stage and, hence, I would know it. I would be losing weight, be anemic, have a fever, have a higher white blood cell count and so on. 

Prior to all of this I had been eating a healthy and fiber-rich diet (with the exception of the maple bar donut every Friday at work and the very occasional late-night drunken impulsive McDonalds or Beto’s raid) chalk full of vegetables, leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, seeds, berries, legumes, fish, etc. I avoided any simple carbs such as pastas and bread and only consumed dairy products on rare occasion. I eschewed all hydrogenated oils and processed foods. My daily supplements included probiotics, omega 3s, and Vitamin D3. I’ve also always been physically active. In essence, I was the poster child for how to prevent cancer AND diverticulitis! The moral of that story: Maybe we should just eat whatever the hell we want. Fried Twinkies here I come! Mostly kidding.

Plus the CT scan didn’t show any telltale diverticulum (which are necessary to cause diverticulitis). Ergo, I should also have been able to rule out the diverticulitis diagnosis. Things just weren’t adding up.

Nevertheless, I ate the prescribed (disgusting) low-residue (read: unhealthy as fuck) diet so as not to aggravate my “diverticulitis” and agreed to wait the 3 weeks for the colonoscopy. Meanwhile, thanks to my lengthy hospital stay and the antibiotics I was given while admitted to treat my “diverticulitis,” a lovely bacteria called C. difficile set up shop in my gut. Which, btw, I self-diagnosed and had to ask the doctor to be tested for! The C. diff called for another bout of antibiotics and set my colonoscopy back an additional 3 weeks due to the inflammation it can cause.

Finally, on September 5^th I had the colonoscopy. A tumor was found, biopsy was done, and the pathology report came back the next day: drum roll…....... CANCER.