Pam's Healthful Journey through Stage IV Colorectal Cancer

Join us for an interview with Pam and discover how she has been able to manage through her journey after diagnosis with Stage IV CRC. This is Pam’s Healthful Story. Please note that the video may only play in landscape mode on a mobile phone.

Diagnosis

Treatment

Lifestyle

Navigate Pam’s Journey with Stage IV Colorectal Cancer

00:16 My name is Pamela, I think I’m going to be 30 this year

03:10 I was very tired and I ended up actually fainting

03:56 It was right before the Fourth of the July weekend of that year and then that Monday when I woke up to go to work, I felt weird. I basically had like tingling in my extremities and like I was a little bit nauseous and my head was fuzzy it was just all around sort of bad

04:25 So we went to urgent care and urgent care checked all the things that they can check and they said we have no idea what’s wrong with you

04:54 A bunch of weird little nodules showed up in my lungs

05:19 So then the next couple weeks I was just fine and then I went in for a follow-up CT scan

05:40 I then went to get a PET scan

05:59 So they scanned everything and they said well stuff in your lungs doesn’t light up the way that bad spooky stuff lights up

06:07 And they said but you know what did light up a big old thing in your colon

06:27 They scheduled me for a colonoscopy

06:56 That’s when I was diagnosed with cancer, right before a big beach trip

08:52 The fainting episode was right before the Fourth of July and then my diagnosis was August 31st

10:54 I get sad when there’s additional information – adjusting to that is ongoing every time a new piece of the puzzle arrived

11:40 I was so young and did not have any symptoms

11:50 They said well it’s in the lymph node we biopsied which means you have to do chemotherapy

11:55 Then I was crying in the stairwell at my office

"If you're just now learning about your diagnosis, understand that that initial time, that first few days, that first few weeks, maybe a few months - that's the worst time... it's when it's hitting you the hardest... and there's a lot of uncertainty. It's going to suck a lot in the beginning and it's going to get easier as it goes on."

Pam

FOLFOX chemotherapy

12:28 So there’s a lot of checking and then once everything was checked

12:48 I started chemo in late September

14:04 One of the only people that I actually had to like come out and tell in any formal capacity was my boss

15:46 I started with FOLFOX which is the standard go-to for metastatic colon cancer and it’s a platinum-based chemotherapy

16:02 Side effects of like nausea and vomiting but it also has its own special side effects

16:19 FOLFOX makes you sensitive to cold and I started it in September so I was doing it throughout the winter

16:56 It made hard to hydrate because I could only drink warm liquids

17:41 I also started getting nosebleeds more often because you know chemo wrecks all of your mucus membranes

18:21 I had numbness called peripheral neuropathy

18:37 Usually people are on FOLFOX for eight to twelve sessions

18:59 I ended up getting a a blockage so one of the fun things that happened when I was diagnosed is that doctors told me you’re not allowed to eat anything that’s high fiber or leafy vegetables or a bunch of different specific vegetables because yeah because specifically colon cancer it’s a big thing in your intestines and so fiber and leafy vegetables bulks up your stool

19:48 In January of 2020, I had an intestinal blockage and I had to have an emergency surgery for that and now I have a colostomy bag

20:15 I switched to a a clinical trial that for an experimental therapy targeting the KRAS mutation

24:17 FOLFOX did a really good job of shrinking and killing the stuff that was in the colon specifically

Advice

25:44 I’m very very fortunate to have a super supportive social environment. I’ve got awesome parents and two great sisters and a fantastic husband and the the pandemic was you know a weird wrench being thrown into the works but almost it was like I feel like it was probably easier for me to deal with the pandemic than most people because it’s like my life was already just like totally upheaved

27:35 I’ve got parents who are very emotionally and financially supportive because obviously I don’t have a job anymore

28:26 It is okay not being okay sometimes

28:45 Here’s here’s advice number one: don’t Google statistics!

29:40 Don’t try to play comparative sadness Olympics where you’re like I’m not allowed to be sad because other people have it worse

30:46 If you’re just now learning about your diagnosis, understand that that initial time, that first few days, that first few weeks, maybe a few months – that’s the worst time… it’s when it’s hitting you the hardest… and there’s a lot of uncertainty

31:21 It’s going to suck a lot in the beginning and it’s going to get easier as it goes on

Share Your Story

If you’d like to share your own Healthful Journey, you can upload video here or e-mail contact@healthfulheroes.com to arrange a live half-hour interview.

Support our Healthful Mission

Please consider supporting our Healthful Mission to share individual health journeys to inform, empower, and inspire by clicking here.

Support Our Healthful Mission

At Healthful Stories, we believe in the power of sharing health journeys to inspire and empower others. Your kindness can make a difference by helping us collect, edit, and share these stories with the world. Whether through donating, volunteering, or sharing our mission, your support helps magnify our impact on those managing through illness.