Yeah, I was 39. Practically the first thing a nurse told me when I came up from sedation was, "It's a REALLY good thing you came in when you did." If I'd waited even a year or two, it assuredly would have been cancerous by then.
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My oncologist estimated that I was stage 1 ~40. A colonoscopy even by 35 would have made a difference. I already had cancer before my dad died, but no symptoms. It’s too bad Cologuard didn’t yet exist. I’m glad you were caught before things got more serious. My brother had polyps identified in time.
aug 6, 2025, 3:45 am • 2 0 • view
Yeah, that tracks. And I keep hearing that people are getting it younger and younger on average. In my family it seems to either hit early or late; my dad's mom died in her 40s, and I was pretty much on her schedule, I think.
aug 6, 2025, 3:48 am • 2 0 • view
And we no longer can feel safe by exercising and eating right. I was doing things like running marathons and riding my bike 150 miles in a single day…while cancer was growing. A woman I know was a longtime vegan and diagnosed in her early 30s. Athletic teens are being diagnosed.
aug 6, 2025, 3:51 am • 2 0 • view
Exactly. I had a hilariously pointless meeting with a (well-meaning, let's be fair) nutritionist at SCCA / Fred Hutch who gave me generic "eat less red meat and more vegetables" advice, but that was all she had, because it was so screamingly obviously genetic. Diet won't make it go away.
aug 6, 2025, 3:55 am • 2 0 • view
My son’s diet is terrible…but he doesn’t have much incentive to eat better when he saw what I endured. I think in his mind if he has to start scopes in 6 years to fend off cancer, why not eat what he craves, now. I’m more worried about the other poor diet ailments that he could encounter, sadly.
aug 6, 2025, 4:03 am • 1 0 • view
I'm sorry you had to go through the ordeal you did, though. It's such a sneaky disease. :(
aug 6, 2025, 3:42 am • 1 0 • view