Colon cancer blog, Butt Seriously, teams up with Chris & Neysa TaylorButt Seriously wants to welcome Chris and Neysa Taylor, our newest bloggers on the mission to help prevent colon cancer. We’ve asked Chris and Neysa to join the Butt Seriously team in hopes that people will be inspired to get their colon cancer screening as they hear how colon cancer has affected, and is affecting, the Taylors’ lives. Feel free to welcome them below in the comments!

What a difference a few short months can make. In April, we were doing what most families do – planning the kids’ summer camps, thinking about vacations and looking forward to time at the pool. But all of that came to a halt in May. In May, we learned that Chris had colon cancer. How do you plan for that? He was pretty fit, under 40, and had an active profession. Sure he had been a bit tired, but he has a demanding job. That demanding job probably saved his life.

Chris had to undergo a mandatory physical for work. It was during that physical that he learned that he was severely anemic. (Click here to read more about anemia as a symptom of colon cancer.) Now Chris is not a little guy. At 6-feet-3-inches and more than 200 pounds, he eats often and well. It wasn’t like he wasn’t meeting his nutritional needs. But we had noticed that Chris was super tired recently. So the doctor referred us to a gastroenterologist for a colonoscopy.

After my husband’s colonoscopy the nurse said, “The doctor wants to see you.” From that moment I knew I was about to hear bad news. I have to admit that I fell apart the minute the doctor left the room. It was like in an instant our entire world changed. If you are reading this blog, you might have been there. There is that void between diagnosis and treatment plan that kills you. You have this disease, but no info to go with it, so you spend hours on the Internet. You spend hours calling every medical professional or cancer survivor that you know. You want someone to tell you something, even if the information is erroneous.

By the time we actually met our oncologist, I was a cancer scholar… at least in my mind. I had a pen and paper. I had questions. I was ready. Chris, ummm, let’s just say that he was less prepared. He was more along the line of let’s just play it by ear. Thank God we found an oncologist that can talk to both of us in our “languages.” By early June, Chris was undergoing surgery to remove the mass. Two weeks later, we knew where we fell on the spectrum – colon cancer stage 3B. Now we could formulate a plan. Now, we can call our enemy by name. Now, we could go to war.

While we informed our immediate family and friends of Chris’ diagnosis, we didn’t tell our children (all under the age of 12) until we knew if he would need chemo. We didn’t want to stress them until it was absolutely necessary. But the kids have been resilient. The first question they asked was “Is he going to die?” Once we told them that we didn’t plan on him dying any time soon, they were good. Where they still worried? Yes. But at least the worst case scenario was off the table.

So how do you prepare for colon cancer? You don’t. You can’t prepare, but you can help prevent colon cancer. No one looks at their calendar and says “hmm, I think I will schedule my cancer for August. I think I am free then.” Nope, it doesn’t happen like that. But one can look at a calendar and say “I can take Monday off work to get my colon cancer screening or colonoscopy.”

We urge anyone who is experiencing colon cancer symptoms or is of colon cancer screening age to get a colonoscopy. Find a colon cancer screening center near you. Yes, we are stronger together – as a family – fighting the disease, but we don’t want other families having to fight the colon cancer fight.  From surgery to chemo to our first infection, we are still learning to navigate the pitfalls of colon cancer. But we plan on not only navigating it, but beating it. 

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