meet joanna 5+ year survivor of colorectal cancer
My name is Joanna, and I am a 5+ year survivor of the metastatic colorectal cancer. Since March is the colorectal cancer awareness month, I’d like to relate my story here in hope that it might help some avoid this kind of late diagnosis on the one hand, and offer hope in survival on the other.
I am originally from Poland and I arrived in the USA in early 1990s to attend college. I completed my education here, fell in love, and decided to stay. Life was good, nearly perfect. I had a great marriage, two wonderful kids, a job teaching college that I loved.
But it all came to a screeching halt in 2014. After my first ever colonoscopy, I woke up to the devastating news: “There is a mass.” Following the pathology report and more screening, I was diagnosed with stage 3b rectal cancer.
Why me? Why did I get it? Could I have prevented it? Could I have eaten better, slept more, exercised harder? I had no family history of CRC, I was healthy, I exercised, I ate well. In fact, I felt the healthiest I’ve ever been. I quit smoking and drinking alcohol, I turned vegan, and I became an avid spinner several years prior to my diagnosis.
I was 46, still under the recommended age for a colonoscopy. But I had some rectal bleeding on and off, which my doctors quickly deemed related to hemorrhoids following giving birth two years earlier. (Such misdiagnosis happens too often especially for females of child-bearing age, so please be vigilant!)
For a year and some, I battled the disease with all that mainstream and integrative medicine had to offer: surgeries, chemo- and radiotherapy, supplementation, and a change of diet. Unfortunately, some 18 months after the initial diagnosis, my world was turned upside down once more. A routine CT-scan discovered a metastasis in my lung, small and operable, but nevertheless, I was now officially in the metastatic cancer territory.
I was lucky. So much luckier than many others I met in person and virtually over the years and who are not with us any longer. My lung metastasis was resected, I received another round of chemo, and a longer cycle of the biological Avastin to keep another reoccurrence at bay.
I was and still am blessed with remission… in May, it will be 6 years! Given the odds I was given – 1 in 10 chance not to get another reoccurrence by the 5th year mark – I see it as a true miracle.
It was a miracle, but it required also lots of work and commitment on my part. I realized pretty quickly that I wanted to combine the best from both worlds – traditional medicine and complementary treatments. I found a naturopathic doctor who specializes in cancer care, and I also made sure that my surgeon has been board-certified in colorectal surgery. As for my oncologist, I was lucky that he was open to my choice of combining allopathic and naturopathic approaches.
I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through. PLEASE be vigilant, get a colonoscopy as soon as you feel like something is off. Don’t wait till 50 or even 45 which is currently the new recommended age! Colorectal cancer is on the rise among 30- and 40-year-olds, and is often found at a very advanced stage.
And yet, if found early, it colorectal cancer is completely curable! Listen to your body and pay attention to your poop, yes, that’s right! If your poop looks different in form, consistency, or frequency, observe it and go get checked asap.
I would never say that cancer has been “the best thing that ever happened to me.” It definitely was not. But, having to battle it for all these years has taught me a lot and made me change my lifestyle in many ways.
My wake-up moment taught me to go back to the basics: live to the fullest, love more, practice gratitude and de-stress, exercise, clean up my diet, and go back to skincare basics by ditching chemically-overburdened products in favor of natural, gentle and far more effective formulations.
I also started blogging about my experiences and my mission is to help people in their midlife lead the healthiest lives possible. I believe strongly that the best way to keep cancer at bay is to make our bodies inhospitable to this monster of a disease. Clean food, movement, and saying no to environmental toxins in cosmetics and household products can help us achieve that goal.
To follow Joanna’s blog and connect visit:
My blog is https://oko-logic.com