Colorectal Cancer Symptoms: The Pain That This 34-Year-Old Ignored For Months Before His Diagnosis

Joe Faratzis, 34, shares the early signs of colorectal cancer that he overlooked, his diagnosis and treatment. Faratzis shares that he noticed his first symptoms in 2019 when he started to have faint abdominal pain. He says that he started to experience this pain in the bottom right side of his abdomen whenever he bent over. However, since it happened only periodically, once or twice a week, he didn’t think much about it.

According to a report in SELF, speaking to Julia Ries, Faratzis said that he spoke about the issue with his primary care doctor who told him to get a CT scan but he ignored it then. However, he now says that if he had gotten the CT scan back then, it would have averted a lot of troubles.

The next sign of colorectal cancer

Nearly six months after the stomach pain, Faratzis said that he noticed a couple of bright red spots of blood on the toilet paper after I went to the bathroom, once or twice a week. However, since it was never an alarming amount, he wasn’t concerned. But, today when he speaks about his disease, he says that the blood in his stool should have been a major indicator and that he should have spoken to his doctor.

The BIG red flag

A few months later, when Faratzis was sitting on the couch, he passed a gas and saw blood. He went to the bathroom and there was nearly half a cup of blood in the toilet. While it wasn’t painful, it seemed like there was an issue. He then went ahead and fixed an appointment with a doctor.

The Diagnosis

He explained his symptoms to the doctor and he conducted a digital rectal exam. However, the doctor didn’t find anything concerning other than a tiny bit of blood in my lower rectum. Faratzis was then referred to a gastrointestinal specialist as they thought he probably had haemorrhoids. The GI doctor asked for a colonoscopy and a month later, he had a colonoscopy.

 

Faratzis was sedated for the procedure and when he woke up, the doctor told him they had found a big tumour and had taken a biopsy to check if it was malignant. Three days later, his doctor told him he had adenocarcinoma.

After several tests and imaging, the doctors told him he had stage II colorectal cancer and that the cancer was localized to his colon. He was advised to do chemotherapy, radiation and get surgery to remove the cancer from the colon.

He took an oral chemo daily. Along with that, he also underwent radiation treatment five days a week for a few months to reduce the size of the tumour before having surgery. After this, he had a low anterior resection, a surgery to remove the portion of my colon containing cancer and an ileoscopy, a procedure where your small intestine is redirected out through your stomach into a bag.

 

The cancer spread

After the surgery, more imaging tests were done and it revealed that the cancer had exploded and it had spread to the lungs and liver. That’s when he was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer. For three months, he did intravenous chemotherapy to kill the lungs and liver lesions. The chemotherapy got rid of the spots in the lungs and shrunk the liver lesions. However, there were several other liver lesions, for which he underwent a laparoscopic procedure.

Three months later, his lung lesions were back, however, the doctors were able to burn and free them away. He says, “This process repeated itself: Throughout 2021 and 2022, we’d find new spots on my lungs or liver and have to zap them. I probably had 9 or 10 lung surgeries that worked, but also led to some not-so-fun complications, like a collapsed lung, along the way.”

He says that he was never given a prognosis, or survival rate but he’s learnt that even if you have stage IV cancer, if you’re able to find tumours early and have them removed, there’s a chance you could continue to live for a really long time. “This isn’t always the case, but, thankfully, my doctors have been able to surgically remove all the malignant lesions that have popped up so far.”

 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.   

https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
https://kneereplacement-stickclub.blogspot.com. for info on knee replacement
https://cancersupportindia.blogspot.com  for infor on cancer and health related topics
https://GSiyers home remedies.blogspot.com   is the latest addition to my blogs. I'm going to add posts there, do give me your valuable feed back on my blogs. Thanks a lot, take care, be healthy and be happy.