Staying Postive during a Colorectal Cancer Journey
- Christine C. Quinn, 56, was diagnosed with stage III colorectal cancer in May after months of stomach pain and gastrointestinal issues.
- She is sharing her story to offer support to others going through what she said can be a very lonely time.
- A cancer journey comes with a complex range of emotions, and having a support system wuth you along the way is important.
- Colorectal cancer can describe cancers that begin in the colon or the rectum.
- Symptoms of colorectal cancer can include a change in bowel habits such as diarrhea, constipation that lasts for more than a few days, a feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that's not relieved by having one, rectal bleeding, blood in the stool, cramping or abdominal pain, and fatigue.
- The United States Preventive Services Task Force recommends that colorectal cancer screenings begin at age 45, but if you have concerns about your risk you should talk to your doctor.
Quinn was New York City’s first female and openly gay council speaker from 2006 to 2013, and today she’s the president and CEO of Win the largest provider of shelter, social services and supportive housing for homeless families in New York City. She’s clearly committed to serving her community, but now she’s taking on the topic of cancer as she, herself, battles the disease.
Read MoreShe went on to say that she considers herself “extraordinarily lucky” since her tumor hadn’t broken the colon wall and she “had access to some of the best cancer care in the country” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
“The doctors there successfully removed the tumor, and with the support of amazing nurses, I was able to recover and quickly return home,” she wrote. “I tried to resume my day-to-day with the same intensity. But no matter how old you are, your body doesn't just bounce back.
“In my case, doctors removed and then reattached sections of my colon, and I needed to be at home near the bathroom while my body worked to repair itself.”
But despite a promising surgery, Quinn’s cancer journey was far from over as the emotional effects of the diagnosis began to take hold. Especially since her diagnosis came right before she turned 56 the age her mother died of breast cancer when she was a child.
“I expected to reach this emotional and psychological milestone healthy,” she wrote. “It's jarring that just two months before my birthday, I found out I had cancer myself.
“Removal of the tumor doesn't actually do much to unburden you from the emotional questions of mortality. You wait. You wait for what seems like an eternity for the pathology reports to tell you if the cancer is a few steps ahead of you. You wait to learn whether it has spread. While I waited, I played out every scenario from the best to the absolute worst. And I kept thinking: This is the year cancer killed my mother.”
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Thankfully, Quinn’s cancer had very limited spread to her lymph nodes. For additional treatment, she underwent three months of chemotherapy which she just completed.
“To be totally honest, it was one of the more grueling experiences of my life,” she said of chemo. “Each session led to the longest 72 hours of my life. I got all the side effects and moreand they seemed to run right up to the next round.
“It felt like my stomach was at war with the rest of my body: I suffered from constant nausea that would keep me up at night, as well as constipation and a strange pasty metallic taste in my mouth that made it hard to eat or drink. I tried to convince myself that the intensity of the symptoms meant that the chemo was doing its job. The worse I felt, the more successful the treatment, right?”
Still, even with harsh side effects, Quinn says the hardest part of her cancer journey has been handling her mental health along the way. She always felt that her mother’s 10-year cancer battle was somehow her fault as a child. And now she’s actively working to fight the “similar causality” she’s been feeling about her own diagnosis.
“This is one of the biggest challenges of fighting cancer: managing the trauma that comes with it,” she wrote. “My mother battled cancer for 10 years, and for 10 years, my family didn't talk about it. It was a secret that we didn't share outside of close family. I now feel that this made the ordeal, and the distress that came with it, so much worse.
“At 56, I have come to recognize, for me at least, talking about it in the open takes some of the fearand believe it or not, a feeling of shameaway.”
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Quinn wants people to know the lonely reality of a cancer journey and reach out to their loved ones battling the disease.
“Cancer is a difficult experience in so many waysand a lonely one, even for those of us who are blessed to have love and support as we face it,” she wrote. “If you know someone fighting this disease, offer encouragementeven if it feels hard to know the right thing to say. A friendly, comforting conversation is medicine all its own.”
In addition, she also wants her story to be a part of the conversation surrounding the important procedures that can save lives.
“For me, and I imagine for many who have lost people to breast cancer, October brings a certain sense of dread as the ubiquitous pink ribbons remind us of lost loved ones,” she wrote. “Yet for all the discomfort the month elicits, I recognize and embrace the importance of these symbols if they prompt a single person to schedule a mammogram.
“A colonoscopy saved my life. The latest estimates show that worldwide, cancer screenings during the pandemic decreased 35.6 percent for breast cancer, 41.8 percent for colorectal cancer, and 54.1 percent for cervical cancer. It's time for everyone to get back to the doctor for a check-up.”
Processing the Emotions of a Cancer Journey
It's very normal to have negative feelings throughout your cancer journey and it's okay to express them. Anger, shame, fear, anxiety they're all to be expected. But how you handle the rollercoaster of emotions that can come with a cancer journey is up to you.
Evelyn Reyes-Beato, like Christine Quinn, is a resilient woman who's also had to deal with the complexity of emotions during a cancer journey. The colon cancer survivor comes from a culture where health issues and feelings aren't normally talked about, but she found that expressing her emotional pain was a big factor in helping her overall physical health.
You Just Have to Let it Out: Survivor Evelyn Reyes-Beato on Healing Emotionally After Cancer
"You have to let it out," Evelyn previously told SurvivorNet. "Your mental and your emotional help your physical get in line. If you keep all of the emotions in, the way I see it, is that stuff is going to eat you up inside and it's not going to let you heal."
Danielle Ripley-Burgess, a two-time colon cancer survivor, is another inspiring cancer survivor. She was first diagnosed with colon cancer in high school and proceeded to beat the disease not once, but twice. Understandably so, Ripley-Burgess has had to work through a lot of emotions that came with her cancer and its recurrence. Even still, she's always managed to look at life with a positive attitude.
"As I've worked through the complex emotions of cancer, I've uncovered some beautiful things: Wisdom. Love. Life purpose. Priorities," she previously told SurvivorNet. "I carry a very real sense that life is short, and I'm grateful to be living it! This has made me optimistic. Optimism doesn't mean that fear, pain and division don't exist they do. Our world is full of negativity, judgment, and hate. Optimism means that I believe there's always good to be found despite the bad, and this is what my life is centered around."
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She moves through life with a sense of purpose unique to someone who's been faced with the darkest of times. Happily in remission today, she's determined to, one day, leave the world better than she found it.
"We can choose to stay positive, treat others with respect and look for the light in spite of the darkness," she said. "This type of attitude and behavior will lead to the kind of legacies I believe all of us hope to leave."
Understanding Colorectal Cancer
The term colorectal cancer is used to describe cancers that begin in the colon or the rectum so some people just use the term colon cancer if that's where the disease began.
Colorectal cancer, like all cancers, presents its own unique challenges for patients on the road to recovery. But Dr. Heather Yeo, a surgical oncologist and colorectal surgeon at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center, wants to remind people how far the treatment of this disease has come.
"One of the most exciting things about my job is that we've made a lot of progress on treatment options," Dr. Yeo says in a previous interview with SurvivorNet. "However, patients are still while they're living longer, they are still living with colon cancer, and so I think it's really important that we talk about how some of the things in your life affect you."
Symptoms of Colorectal Cancer
Colorectal cancer might not immediately cause symptoms, but these are possible symptoms to look out for:
- A change in bowel habits such as diarrhea, constipation or narrowing of the stool that lasts for more than a few days
- A feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that's not relieved by having one
- Rectal bleeding with bright red blood
- Blood in the stool which might make the stool look dark brown or black
- Cramping or abdominal (belly) pain
- Weakness and fatigue
- Unintended weight loss
It is important to note, however, that displaying some of these symptoms does not mean you have colorectal cancer. You could also have colorectal cancer and not display any of these symptoms. Regardless, it is important to bring up any symptoms to your doctor should they arise.
Screening for Colorectal Cancer
Dr. Yeo also emphasizes the importance of colorectal cancer screenings such as colonoscopies because most colorectal cancers can be prevented early with screening.
"You Shouldn't Die From Embarrassment": Colon Cancer Can Be Prevented
"In the United States, on a national level, colorectal cancer has been decreasing for the last 20 years," Dr. Yeo says. "And much of that is thought to be directly due to screening for colon cancer."
Even still, colorectal cancer cases are rising among younger people. And in the United States alone, rates have increased every year from 2011 to 2016 by 2 percent among people younger than 50. Because of this increase, the United States Preventive Services Task Force has recently updated its colorectal cancer screening recommendations to begin at age 45 instead of 50.
"We know that colon cancers can be prevented when polyps are found early," Dr. Yeo said. "Lowering the screening age helps somewhat with this. But access to care is a real problem."
And increasing access is crucial to making sure that we don't see racial disparities within the world of colorectal cancer. Whites and Asians are significantly more likely to be up to date with their colonoscopies than African Americans, Latinos and Native Americans.
RELATED: Why Do So Few Black Men Get Colon Cancer Screenings?
Research suggests that tailoring colorectal cancer screenings to each person's individual risk may be beneficial. If you are not yet 45 but have concerns about your risk, talk to your doctor. Ask about your individual risk based on your lifestyle and family history and find out when screenings would be right for you.
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