What happened, in summary

Barbara was 42, raising 3 children and going through a difficult divorce, when digestive symptoms kept being dismissed. She had trouble eating because food felt like it sat in her gut, and she repeatedly sought help. She had also documented that her father had colon cancer, but that family history was not acted on. An alternative doctor finally focused on the risk and told her she should have had a colonoscopy 2 years earlier. Barbara scheduled one, and the diagnosis moved quickly after that. A formal stage was not given. She was treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering and underwent laparoscopic/Da Vinci colon surgery. She was marked for a possible ileostomy before surgery, but woke up without a bag. Chemotherapy followed. Barbara described starting with FOLFOX and later shifting to a capecitabine/CAPOX-like oral regimen with oxaliplatin, with a planned 12 rounds over about 6 months, every 2 weeks. The treatment caused severe nausea, cold sensitivity, brain fog, and trouble driving or functioning after infusions. As of October 2021, Barbara was speaking as a colon cancer survivor, focused on boundaries, parenting, and rebuilding life after treatment, with no recurrence described in this edited story.