I begged doctors for a colonoscopy but they refused because I was only 30 and looked healthy. Now I have stage 3 cancer… these are the subtle symptoms they left too late – and my biggest regret

I can pinpoint the day my life split in two: before and after. It was Friday, February 6 and I had just received a phone call from my doctor that I had Stage 3 colorectal cancer.

Two days earlier I had undergone a colonoscopy to find out why I felt bloated and unable to use the bathroom regularly, symptoms that had started after I gave birth to my third child in 2023, just three years earlier.

I thought I might be having some gut issues related to my Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disorder that affects the thyroid and that I’ve managed with medicine since I was five.

When I woke up from the colonoscopy, my gastrointestinal (GI) doctor told me they had found something in my colon.

‘I’ve done this for a long time,’ he said, noting that my results would need to be confirmed by pathology. ‘And I want to prepare you that you’re about to start on a long journey.’

I soon learned that they had found a lime-sized tumor in my descending colon. My world as I knew it froze – I had no idea what would come next.

The diagnosis sent me reeling – I was overwhelmed with a tidal wave of emotions: shock, fear and debilitating anxiety. As a 32-year-old wife and mother of three sons, ages 7, 5 and 2, my first thought was what my family would do without me.

My second was, why wasn’t this found sooner? I had spent the last two years begging my endocrinologist for a referral for a colonoscopy because my digestive system felt off. 

My worries were dismissed by my doctor because of my age and background (the American Cancer Society recommends screening at age 45). My doctors had no concerns simply because I was a young woman who appeared extremely healthy with no family history of the disease. I didn’t fit the profile of the so-called average colon cancer patient, typically 70 or older and affecting a greater percentage of non-whites.

In 2026, I finally got a referral from my OB-GYN, who took what I had to say seriously.

The day before my colonoscopy, I had been prepping arts and crafts and getting my classroom set up for the preschoolers I taught at my job for children’s ministry at our church in Memphis, Tennessee.

That night, I remember texting my brother-in-law, who works as a radiation therapist, telling him: ‘I think it could be this or that, but I know it’s not cancer.’ He agreed, telling me he ‘wasn’t worried about that.’

How wrong we were.

My husband and I made the decision together not to tell our sons that I had cancer, though we had conversations with them about my being sick.

We asked my doctors to treat the cancer as aggressively as they could. My oncology team advised that we start with radiation and chemotherapy to see if we could eliminate the need for surgery and colostomy.

About a week after my diagnosis, I started radiation. For six weeks, I received the treatment every single weekday at 9am, before heading to work, a 20-minute drive from my home. They targeted my whole pelvis, focusing on killing not only the tumor and affected lymph nodes, but everything around it to eliminate any chance of cancerous cells surviving.

While the radiation treatment itself only took about five to seven minutes and wasn’t painful in the moment, the physical side effects were brutal. My skin burned after every session and, after 30 sessions, I could feel the intense irritation both internally and externally. During that time, I also began taking an oral chemotherapy drug, which caused extreme fatigue.

After radiation, I had a five-week break so my skin could heal from the third-degree burns resulting from the radiation, before starting chemotherapy. I felt hopeful after finishing my weeks of radiation because when my team drew my blood after its conclusion, my Circulating Tumor (CT) DNA had gone down from 2.9 to zero.

If radiation was hard, chemo was 10 times worse. I became violently ill, nauseous and fatigued. I lost so much weight that I didn’t feel like myself. After the first harrowing couple of weeks, I told my doctors I didn’t want to continue doing chemo, especially since I had such a positive result from my CT DNA test, but they reminded me that I had asked them to treat the cancer aggressively.

They explained that with the radiation they had put out the fire, but they still needed to go through the full chemotherapy treatment to completely extinguish the embers. They didn’t want to leave any chance that it would reignite.

My hair began to fall out in handfuls, leading me to eventually shave my head. That was a hard conversation to have with my children. I told them, ‘This medicine is making Mommy’s hair fall out’ and ‘I’ll just feel prettier if I just shave it all off.’

When my husband helped me shave my head, we asked the boys if they wanted to help – they said no, but they’ve been incredibly resilient in the wake of so much change.

They know that I take medicine and that I have a port. They know that the days that I wear my chemo pump home, I am probably going to be in bed for a while. When they ask questions, we answer them as best as we’re able to.

We still haven’t told them about the cancer and have decided it will stay that way unless – or until – the day comes where we have no choice. To be honest, my husband and I are still digesting our new reality.

By the fourth week of treatment, I ended up in the ER from low platelets and extreme dehydration. I also began having trouble walking and extreme cramping, to the point that I had trouble opening my fingers. When you get chemotherapy, it’s not only killing the cancer, it’s killing the healthy cells as well.

My doctors gave me fluids by IV with calcium and magnesium to help with my hydration and to combat the cramping.

This is the reality of living with cancer – the medicine makes you feel more violently ill than the sickness. There are also random side effects that no one warns you about, like nosebleeds and major bruising.

It can feel really isolating, being on the other side of a cancer diagnosis. That’s partly why I decided to document my journey online. Through sharing my story on TikTok, I’ve found so many other people who are also battling colorectal cancer, many of whom are women and young mothers like me, who have helped me feel less alone.

It’s a relief to have this community, people who have experienced the same thing, even though we haven’t met each other in person. We can vent to each other or ask one another questions or give answers.

I’ve learned so much since my diagnosis, and I’m shocked that my concerns went unheard for so long.

According to the American Cancer Society, colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths for Americans, with over 150,000 cases diagnosed annually. The Cancer Research Institute reports that one in five diagnoses occur in someone under the age of 55.

People have opinions about what causes the cancer. They try to tell you it’s because of diet, or red dye or a vaccine. But when I had my first appointment with my oncologist, they told me that they’ve seen a sustained rising trend of more young people and women getting colorectal cancer – people that don’t necessarily match the current risk profile that doctors are using. Although research is being done now, the doctors said it may take years before they understand why cancer is increasing in young people.

During my push to get a colonoscopy, I was never once told about the rise in colorectal cancer for young people.

What’s frustrating to me is that I was asking for help at a time when I probably already had cancer. Colon cancer starts as a polyp and is slow-growing. It’s harrowing to me to think that this could have been caught a lot sooner if somebody had just listened to me.

It’s sad, but I’ve had multiple times in my life where I’ve had doctors that I don’t think took me as seriously because I am a younger woman. It takes a lot for me to ask for help or advocate for myself and when a professional brushes aside those concerns, it can be demoralizing.

This whole process has made me more sensitive to the very real crisis that women in this country face when it comes to healthcare and support. It can feel like a Catch-22 – we have to trust doctors because we are trying to heal, but at the same time there is a mistrust because I don’t think that they always listen.

My main regret is that I didn’t find a new doctor or go somewhere that didn’t need a referral.

I wish I had advocated harder for myself before I got this diagnosis. My hope is that other women will feel empowered to speak up for themselves, but it’s also equally important that healthcare professionals listen to us and take our concerns seriously.

One of the best pieces of advice I got after my diagnosis came from a cancer survivor at our church. He told me to prioritize making as many good memories as possible during this time.

‘You’re going to have a lot of traumatic memories from what you’re about to go through,’ he said. ‘Make sure you sprinkle in really good memories in there where you can.’

We’ve been trying our best to make good memories. On my healthy weeks between treatments, we’ve taken weekend trips we wouldn’t have normally taken and done fun things like going to the movie theater as a family. Hopefully there’s a day when I’m healthy and I can look back on this and remember these moments as well as I do the difficult ones.

I’ve just completed my final round of chemotherapy. While I do have stage 3 cancer, my body had been responding well to the treatments I’ve had so far and I’m hopeful that I won’t have to have surgery.

One thing my eyes have been opened to during this time is how many good people are in the world. We live in a weird time right now, where it can feel like conflict is the norm, but during this moment of crisis for our family, so many kind people have made it clear that they really care, from preparing us meals and helping with childcare to sending me flowers when I completed all of my chemotherapy sessions.

My husband and I have made a promise to one another that once we get through this, if nothing else, we want to be as good to others as they have been to us.

As told to Cady Lang 

TOMORROW: How to cut your cancer risk by up to 35% with these simple lifestyle changes