Brooks Bell’s intestine told her that something was wrong – but it took two doctors who diagnose her symptoms before receiving the response that would change her life forever.
“I wanted a colonoscopy from the beginning,” Bell the post told. “But I had this voice in my head saying,” Don’t be dramatic. Do not be hypochondria. Don’t be that girl who goes straight to the scary thing. “”
“The Scary Thing” turned out to be its reality: colon cancer in phase 3 and time was critical. Had her tumor spread only one millimeter deeper into her colon wall while she was looking for a third thought, her chances of survival could have fallen by nearly 20%.
Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer in the United States. The number of early onset cases is increasing, with diagnoses in people under 50 who are expected to double by 2030.
Bell’s experience underlines a harsh reality: many of these cases have not been correctly identified at the beginning. According to the Colon Cancer Alliance, 82% of young survivors of colon cancer were initially poorly diagnosed and 67% were advised at least two doctors before receiving the proper diagnosis.
In 2019, the established Bell Data Analytical Company was flourishing, and the work came with many trips. The 38-year-old then thought she was “pretty healthy”, despite being CEO’s stresses.
“I hadn’t eaten red meat consistently since my teens, I was regularly practicing and eating lunch salads in most days,” she said. “I’m not overweight, I never smoked, but it was very stressful running a company with 50 employees.”
“‘Big C’ is now adjacent to me and it will never be different.”
Brooks bell
Then, while traveling for business in November 2018, Bell noticed blood on her bench. She quickly google possible causes and called her primary care doctor, who assured her that it was probably only internal hemorrhoids.
“The doctor essentially told me to do nothing about it,” Bell recalled.
Eased, she continued with her busy life in Raleigh, North Carolina. Later that month, at the Dinner of Thanksgiving, she even joked with the family that she was “grateful that I have a hemorrhoids, not colon cancer”.
But blood continued. Concerned, she saw another doctor for a personal exam.
“She didn’t find a hemorrhoids, but she still thought it was what it was,” Bell said. She was described cortisone and was sent home.
However, Bell remained unresolved.
“If you are bleeding you can’t be healthy,” she said. “I had to reach its end, so I decided to get a third thought. I called it a gastroenterologist.”
It was not until early January 2019 that she finally had a colonoscopy.
“Am I not too young for colon cancer?” Bell remembers to ask the doctor’s assistant before going to a nod caused by anesthesia.
When Bell woke up, her doctor approached her with a ashen look and avoiding eye contact. The news was devastating: they had found the source of the bleeding, and it was almost probably cancer.
The testing confirmed that it was Phase 3a, which means the cancer had spread to the first two layers of the colon and reached two nearby lymph nodes. But it was only one millimeter away from diagnostics with stage 3b.
This small change could have been changing life. The five-year survival rate for phase 3a is 83.4%, but drops to 64.1% for phase 3B, according to the US Joint Cancer Committee.
Bell remembers the shock of hearing the diagnosis. “My life wasn’t over, but it just changed forever,” she said. “‘Big C’ is now adjacent to me and it will never be different.”
“Once you’ve had cancer, you never completely recover from it. Think so much about death changes how it gives priority to things.”
Brooks bell
Traveling ahead would prove its strength. Weeks later, doctors removed the tumor, 10 inches of its colon and two cancerous lymph nodes. Then came three months of high dose chemotherapy to destroy each prolonged cell and reduce the chances of returning cancer.
“What people don’t understand is that when you are over, you can recover, but you won’t know for a few years because after that, it’s a waiting game to see if she comes back,” Bell said. “If it is repeated, then you will update in stage 4, and it’s a completely different game plan.”
For Bell, that two-year observation period was the hardest part. “It’s not treatment, it’s expectation and fear,” she said.
Six years later, Bell is without cancer and feels good, but still catches its mortality. “Once you’ve had cancer, you never completely recover from it,” she said. “Thinking so much about death changes how it gives priority to things.”
Unlike the years she spent rushing like CEO, Bell now ensures that she takes 10 hours of sleep every night and dedicates her time to friends, family and raising awareness of colon cancer.
“I’m so much happier than I was before,” Bell said. “I felt really good about my career and my level of success … But under it, I wasn’t really happy.”
Together with her friend Sarah Beran, who was diagnosed with Phase 4 colorectal cancer in only 34 years old, Bell co-founded the world fashion brand to break the stigma around colon cancer and advocate for early shows. The duo donates income to finance colonoscopies to those who cannot allow them.
“After all are colonoscopies prevent colon cancer,” Bell said, explaining that the procedure allows doctors to distinguish and remove polyps – abnormal growth in the colon lining – before returning cancerous.
The recommendation from the US Prevention Task Force is to start colorectal cancer manifestations – that is, colonoscopies – at the age of 45. But if you have a family history, that age may fall.
Bell emphasized the importance of listening to your body and looking for a colonoscopy if you have symptoms, even if you are under the recommended age of review.
“You have to push,” she said. “Doctors are not bad people and it’s not that they don’t care … but for you as a patient, that time may be the difference between life and death.”
The mortality rate of colon cancer in people under 55 has increased about 1% a year since the mid -2000s, while deaths among the elderly have fallen. This is partly due to the fact that cancer in young people is often discovered in more advanced stages, according to the American Cancer Association.
Colorectal cancer is the leading cause of cancer death to US men under 50 and the second leading cause in women of the same age group, despite being very curable when caught early.
In 2025, American Cancer Society estimates that 154,270 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in the US, and 52,900 people will die from the disease.
#received #colorectal #cancer #30s
Image Source : nypost.com