At age 36, Jill McDonald was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Ten years ago, she had profuse night sweats and trouble sleeping. At the same time, she felt something unusual happening in her bowels.
“Strange things were happening“, she told the Daily Mail, describing her abdominal pain and blood in her stool. But the doctor linked the presence of blood to hemorrhoids. He also prescribed her sleeping pills for sleep problems. But, quickly, she felt significant pain in her liver.”I could not understand. I wondered: Is it because of the drink? Is it something I eat that is causing this pain? Just putting my hand aside was really uncomfortable.“
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Faced with these symptoms, a medical assistant took charge of her case to understand what was happening. Abdominal ultrasound and CT scan revealed approximately 20 lesions throughout the liver and lymph nodes. For several months, her colon cancer symptoms were mistaken for fatigue and hemorrhoids.
“There’s a lot of cancer on both sides”
But, by the time her cancer was diagnosed, it had spread to other organs in her body. Now, 10 years later, she has undergone countless operations and dozens of rounds of chemotherapy. “Cancer is unlikely to kill me. But I will probably die of liver failure. This is because all these treatments are toxic to the liver. I had to do radiation everywhere“, says the molecular biologist in a Daily Mail column. Since then, 20 centimeters of her intestine and half of her liver have been removed.
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“Maybe I should have been a little more careful. There is too much cancer on both sides. All of us kids always joked, “Oh, we’re going to get cancer at some point.” I never thought that at the age of 37 I would be diagnosed with stage four colon cancer“, explained the patient.
Chemotherapy and total hysterectomy
She quickly underwent numerous cycles of chemotherapy, during which a tumor developed in her right ovary. “I think that’s when they realized we probably couldn’t wait for more treatment and maybe try a surgical approach.“She underwent a total hysterectomy, which removes the entire uterus and cervix, to prevent future growth of tumors on her reproductive organs.
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In early 2016, more lesions developed on his liver. She continued to undergo chemotherapy and a form of radiation that directly targeted the tumors. She also had several lymph nodes removed. “I’m nine years old, and even if I die tomorrow, I think talking to someone or seeing someone who’s still alive after this time, where people think you’re going to die of stage 4 disease, that you Gives a little more fire, a little more hope.“
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