Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi, my name is Gloria. I am 31 years old and I was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer
at the age of 28. Prior to my diagnosis, I have been living the dream really. I attended
Duke and Stanford law school and I was well on my way to a very promising career at my
law firm O'Melveny Myers. I was having great life, great time with my friends. I had some
GI issues that I sort of pushed to the side. I was going to the restaurant quite frequently.
Starting in January 2010, there were never pretty times in the bathroom, I was getting
bloated at night and symptoms started to get worse as the year progressed. I wound up seeing
my general practitioner in July and explained to her, look I am having diarrhea six times
a day and look at my belly, it is all blown up and she told me to take probiotics and
so she kind of blew it off and I did too and she did not refer me to a GI doctor and a
couple of weeks later when the probiotics really did not work, I called her office and
said look I need a GI doctor and they gave me the number and I called the office and
they said the first appointment would be September 21, 2010 and I remember feeling a very sinking
feeling at that moment. I called my husband and I said the first time I see this doctor
in September 21 and that's going to be too late. And I was right, I wound up having severe
symptoms, could not keep food down during the second week of September and wound up
having emergency surgery because I had complete intestinal blockage from the tumor in my colon.
Emergency surgery was on September 19. So two days before, I am going to met with this
GI doctor, I had emergency surgery and that is when I was at stage 4 and that, you know,
it threw everybody for a curve, nobody expected it, especially my surgeon. He exited the operating
room in tears and told my family that I would never play basketball again, never lift weights,
never practice law. I would die within a year or may be two years at best and my life would
be deciding about how much life I wanted to live versus how much pain medication I wanted
to be on and I remember my mom delivering the news to me and I did not, you know, I
was never afraid, I was never sad, I was never scared. She wound up telling me you now, its
stage 4 and its very aggressive and I said well, I am an aggressive girl, so what do
we do and from there, my entire network mobilized, my attorney, friends, my colleagues, my friends
from Duke and Stanford, my family. I had interviews with doctors and surgeons immediately. Even
when I was still in the hospital, I had these phone calls and the Thursday after I was released,
I was released on Sunday, four days later I met with Dr Lantz and I knew pretty much
right after that that he was going to be my oncologist. His confidence, his leadership,
his knowledge, and in fact that if he wasn't you know feeling sorry for me. He didn't say
oh wow, you are such a young girl. He was very focused and determined on what we were
going to do, so I loved his positivity and his energy and I just knew, he was going to
be my partner in crime, so that's the story of me finding Dr Lantz and that has turned
into very special relationship and you know, we have done a lot of work together for my
health and for non-profit.
For an interactive tool to learn more about your colon cancer and your personalized treatment
options, go to MyColonCancerCoach.org.