Last October, Tyler Buckel felt severe pain on the right side of his stomach. She had cooked salmon the night before and she was worried that she might have accidentally made herself sick.
“I started thinking maybe I hadn't cooked the fish enough, and I thought, 'This is really bad food poisoning,'” the 27-year-old high school teacher told TODAY.com. “It started to hurt really bad so I went to the hospital.”
Emergency room doctors scanned Buckel and discovered a mass. Later, I learned that the mass was colon cancer.
“My mind went blank,” he says. “That was a gut punch.”
Sharp pain was a sign of cancer
Buckell is a first-grade teacher in an emotional support classroom in central Florida.
“I love my high school,” he says. “I love the kids I work with.”
One day in late October, during the second period, I felt severe pain in my right side abdomen.
“I thought, 'Wow, this is weird,'” he recalls. “I had never actually had food poisoning[before]but I seemed to have all the symptoms that would qualify.”
He took Pepto Bismol in hopes of easing the pain. When that didn't work, he realized he needed medical attention.
“The next 10 minutes got really intense,” he says. “I knew something was really wrong.”
Buckel called the school office saying she wasn't feeling well and went to the emergency room. Doctors performed several tests and performed scans. When the doctor told him he had a mass, he was stunned.
“I didn't have any symptoms leading up to it until that morning. It felt like I had been kicked in the stomach,” he says. “It was a sudden, severe pain.”
Buckel didn't know colon cancer was even possible at his age.
“I had never heard of anyone my age getting this type of cancer. I thought it was something older people got,” he says. “At 27 years old, I have never met anyone with this type of cancer or heard about it. Until that morning I knew nothing about it.”
He was admitted to the hospital, where doctors performed further tests and performed two biopsies of the mass. After the second time, doctors were convinced he had cancer.
“It was starting to really destroy[my colon],” he says.
Still, he was surprised that he had cancer because he was young and healthy.
“I exercise at least four days a week and try to eat right,” Buckel says. “No one in my family has had this. So it was certainly a surprise, to say the least.”
Backel's treatment plan includes six months of chemotherapy in the clinic for five hours once every two weeks. For his next two days, he wears a pump and slowly injects chemotherapy.
“I carry this pump around like a backpack and slowly deliver more chemotherapy while it's not connected to the actual machine,” he explains.
He recently underwent a PET scan for doctors to take a closer look at his tumor. Although doctors had not yet staged his cancer, they knew he needed to start chemotherapy immediately.
“They know where it is. They know how to kill it,” he says. “They just had to start doing it.”
Eventually, he would have to undergo surgery. As Backel undergoes her three months of chemotherapy, doctors will monitor the tumor's response and adjust the treatment plan if necessary. If the mass shrinks, Buckel will undergo surgery.
“They said it was like cutting an old pipe in your house,” Buckel explains. “If you cut a section out, re-plumb it and reconnect it, it will grow back.”
He will then complete another three months of chemotherapy. If the size has not shrunk enough, chemotherapy will be continued for six months, followed by surgery.
Colon cancer in young people
Colon cancer used to primarily affect older people, but now it is occurring more frequently in younger people. A recent report from the American Cancer Society identified colorectal cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among young people. TODAY.com report. Cancer is currently the most common cause of cancer death in men under the age of 50 and the second most common cause of cancer death in women under the age of 50.
“The continued rapid increase in colorectal cancer among young Americans is alarming,” said Ahmedin, senior author of the study and senior vice president for surveillance and health equity science at the American Cancer Society.・Dr. Jemal said in a press release. “We need to halt and reverse this trend by increasing screening uptake, including awareness of non-invasive stool testing with follow-up care for people aged 45 to 49.”
Dr. Jemal noted that younger patients often have genetic conditions that cause early cancer development.conditions such as Lynch syndromeFor example, some cancers, such as colorectal cancer and uterine cancer, can develop at a younger age.
In most cases, experts do not understand why young people develop colorectal cancer.
“Simply put, we don't fully understand why this is happening,” Dr. David Liska, director of the Cleveland Clinic's Juvenile Colorectal Cancer Center, told TODAY.com last year. told. “We know it's happening, and it's been happening consistently for at least the last 20 years.”
Poor dietary habits, a sedentary lifestyle, and rising obesity rates are thought to increase the incidence of colorectal cancer, but these alone do not explain the increase.
“There are many patients who are young, healthy, and fit and yet are at risk of developing colorectal cancer,” Liska says. “That's not all.”
Seeing your doctor when you start having symptoms can help your doctor catch it early. Signs of colorectal cancer include:
“Wake up with a good posture every day”
Buckel had to miss about a month and a half of school to undergo testing and early treatment. Chemotherapy is making him tired and making him feel sick.
“I feel nauseous almost every morning, so I eat something and take some medication to help my body prepare for the day,” he says. “very tired.”
He's back at school, but knows he needs a few more days off. Thanks to her Facebook post from his mother, other teachers donated their sick days to Buckel. Now, even if he needs an extra day off, it is possible.
“People have been very generous with giving me sick days, so when I'm sick or going through chemotherapy, I can miss a few days here and there,” he says. “I was very lucky to have enough days off for surgery and rehabilitation.”
Buckel is trying to stay positive and hopes that will help her as she continues her treatment.
“I learned how resilient I am. It was pretty bad news. I had no idea how to deal with it at the time,” he says. “I try to wake up every day with a good attitude, knowing that one day this will be over and we will beat it.”
This article was first published today.com
