No Noticeable Signs or Symptoms of Colon Cancer – Or where there?
We’ve been asked over and over if there were any signs or symptoms of Colon Cancer that we could have noticed?
I asked the doctor how long this has been going on, for it to be at Stage 4 without really any warnings. He said the polyp could have been there for years. SCARY.
A lot of people have asked us if Steve had any signs or symptoms. According to Cancer.org the signs and symptoms of Colon Cancer are:
- A change in bowel habits, such as diarrhea, constipation, or narrowing of the stool, that lasts for more than a few days
- A feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that is not relieved by doing so
- Rectal bleeding, dark stools, or blood in the stool (often, though, the stool will look normal)
- Cramping or abdominal (belly) pain
- Weakness and fatigue
- Unintended weight loss
He has lost weight but he was trying to, so we can’t really say that was a sign. He doesn’t have the best diet so he doesn’t always have normal bowel movements so he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. And he’s never noticed any bleeding in his stools. Though now we understand bleeding in the stools just looks dark.
Besides the pain that brought him to the ER, he’s never had any abdominal pain. He doesn’t feel weak nor fatigued. He is having night sweats and hasn’t sleep good in a while but again, nothing that we would have thought anything of.
And I forgot to mention that his blood work at the hospital was all fine as far as his white blood cell count was fine, his platelets were fine and his red count was slightly off, due to him having slightly low iron. And all his blood work from the doctor done in March was also fine. So no warnings there.
That is what makes this even harder to understand because he feels fine and looks fine yet this cancer is taking over his body. How does that even happen?
We are going to do the best we can to fight this for as long as we can. And hope that something new will come along to help us.
I say ‘we’ because I’ve told Steve this is happening to both of us, not just him. ‘We’ will go to all his appointments together, ‘We’ will work together to get him the best care ‘we’ can and ‘we’ will work hard at getting him as close to cancer free as ‘we’ can.