I used to be diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at 31 no matter being fit and wholesome. Docs brushed off my concerns as being pregnant symptoms.

• Jenna Scott used to be diagnosed with stage four colon cancer frail 31 no matter being fit and wholesome.

• Misdiagnosed symptoms at some level of being pregnant delayed her cancer diagnosis, complicating remedy.

• She expects to endure remedy for the comfort of her lifestyles to retain the cancer at bay.

This as-told-to essay is according to a dialog with Jenna Scott a 39-year-extinct Chief Running Officer in Peach Tree Corners, Georgia. The next has been edited for dimension and clarity.

For the first three an extended time of my lifestyles, everything used to be gargantuan. I used to be a cheerleader in heart college and college, the put I met my husband.

We bought married in 2015 and our associates would snarl we had been living a fairytale.

I purchased pregnant with our son, Cameron, that year and I conception, “Oh, how could life get any better?”

However in 2017, at the age of 31, I used to be diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer.

The physician acknowledged my symptoms had been related to my being pregnant

My symptoms started after I used to be round seven or eight months pregnant. I told my obstetrician I had genuinely execrable abdominal cramping and rectal and vaginal bleeding, but he acknowledged to not disaster due to they had been being pregnant symptoms.

It used to be my first being pregnant so I conception: “This is what pregnancy is like, I can handle it, I’m tough.”

My abdominal distress didn’t toddle away after I gave initiating and my obstetrician put it the total way down to the C-share. Cameron used to be my critical design back. I used to be continuously drained, too, but didn’t prefer to complain.

I seen a physician who gave me some IBS capsules and acknowledged he’d refer me to a GI specialist in the event that they didn’t work.

They didn’t, so he sent me to a GI specialist who told me: “Why are you in my office? You’re way too young.”

On June 29, 2017, shapely over a year after Cameron used to be born, I had a colonoscopy and awoke to four nurses, my physician, and my husband in the room.

The physician told me: We discovered cancer.

Cancer would not jog in my family and I didn’t know the way it’s going to dangle happened to me at 31.

Stage four cancer changed everything

I used to be diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. The oncologist acknowledged they couldn’t peek the cancer that successfully on the CT scan due to I had so distinguished muscle and so dinky full.

It didn’t win sense and I shut down. My husband and mother had been extra emotional than me.

After that appointment, we silent my son from day care and I shapely held him. He’d shapely turned one: how may perhaps perhaps I process the conception that he may perhaps perhaps additionally merely not know me?

Lifestyles rapid turned into stuffed with clinical doctors’ appointments and scans, and my employer took away my better initiatives so I could perhaps perhaps focal level on my health. I had labored laborious to gain them so it felt unfair but in hindsight, they had been true.

I started chemo on August 9. It took eight hours every a bunch of week at the sanatorium, then a 46-hour drip at dwelling with a portable pack. I had insomnia, hallucinations, and dismay. I would peek at the toddler computer screen and peek one in all my coworkers in my son’s crib, or tarantulas crawling during my palms.

I had 11 months of chemo, stopped for a pair of months, then used to be told it had unfold to my colon, liver, and lungs, so I started yet any other 11 months of treatments and surgical procedures.

By 2021, I used to be on a lower “maintenance” chemo dose to retain the cancer at bay. I would take dangle of six chemo capsules each day, alongside various others, which made me very unwell and saved me at dwelling after I wished to be level to for my son.

One day I determined I shapely didn’t prefer to retain out it anymore and my physician acknowledged I could perhaps perhaps finish for a while. However by Christmas 2022, the cancer used to be in my lymph nodes. I waited till the unusual year to originate remedy so I will dangle my storybook Christmas.

Even with insurance coverage, clinical bills had been a nightmare

I needed to pay plenty out of pocket that first year sooner than my insurance coverage provider may perhaps perhaps reimburse me, at the side of $500 upfront for the colonoscopy. That used to be plenty alongside prices esteem our mortgage and day care prices.

My husband’s insurance coverage concept used to be genuinely correct but I started having concerns a pair of years in when appointments had been again-to-again and I used to be racking up bills of about $3,000 a month. The sanatorium saved calling me for payments and we regarded as promoting our dwelling and inspiring in with our of us.

Eventually, my husband’s associates impressed him to arrange a GoFundMe page, which raised $17,000 in only a pair of hours while I used to be having surgical diagram, and $30,000 in 17 days. I felt betrayed initially, but my mother helped me peek it as a blessing.

My son looks out for me

Seeing my son develop up has been conserving me collectively this complete time. Now we had been reading children’ books about cancer and feelings to Cameron for years and he’s initiating to know what’s going down.

As soon as he requested me, “Mommy, can you die from cancer?” and I iced up. I didn’t know what to snarl. He cries at evening about it, holds me, and tells me he would not prefer me to head away. However he takes correct care of me. When my hair used to be longer, he extinct to place it in a ponytail for me and put chapstick on my lips.

As of late, my cancer plight is “non-detectable.” I genuinely dangle chemo every four weeks and seek details from to be on this repairs regime indefinitely, an conception I struggled to address initially.

I work full time, which is laborious as I’ve had a bunch of aspect effects. I’ve passed out a pair of instances, my physique overheats so badly I genuinely have to take dangle of off all my clothes, I genuinely feel esteem I genuinely have to vomit but my physique may perhaps perhaps additionally merely not carry out it, and I barely sleep for days at a time. Here’s my lifestyles now.

I are trying to stop busy to take dangle of my mind off the tricky treatments. After I genuinely dangle chemo on Fridays and Cameron, who’s 9, has a baseball sport on Saturday morning, I am there with my transportable pack shapely doing everything that I will, despite the very fact that I genuinely feel drained and nauseous and vomit plenty.

And I am so grateful to our family and associates who serene come over to cook dinner and dapper for us after eight years. However for the reason that cancer remedy aspect effects are cumulative, having a pleased lifestyles is genuinely laborious.

I am hoping I genuinely dangle a lengthy lifestyles forward of me, but I don’t wish to be on this remedy perpetually and am eternally crossing my fingers that science can peek unusual treatments.

I’ve realized the things I extinct to emphasise about are fully manageable and I genuinely dangle so many blessings. I assert every person that lifestyles is correct, or not it’s shapely the methodology you peek at it.

I prefer children to know that they have to not untouchable. You may perhaps gain regular instruct-americaand imply for yourself.

Correction: June 23, 2025 — An earlier model of this legend misstated Cameron’s age. He is 9 years extinct.

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