Gina Horne

I was diagnosed with colon cancer on November 3rd, 2016. The words you never want to hear from your doctor. Given I have no family history and was mildly symptomatic, my cancer went undiagnosed by 2 doctors. As my symptoms persisted and worsened I decided to get yet another opinion (& thanks to my family & friends who pushed me to do so). This time I researched more gastroenterologists and finally came upon Dr. Deborah Sokol. My consult with her was extremely thorough. She stated that she couldn't give me a diagnosis until she could rule out a few things and with that she scheduled me for a colonoscopy.
So, on Halloween, the night before my colonoscopy, I drank that awful prep that I've heard everyone that's every had one complain about. And, the next day I went in for the scope. As the anesthesia wore off and I finally came to, my doctor explained to Jim and I that I have a tumor in my sigmoid colon. Huh? was my thoughts. She was shocked too. It was not expected at all. So from there, we waited for the results of the biopsy.
As we all now know, my biopsy results were not good. I was then sent for a CT scan to rule out any other tumors or spots elsewhere. Again, my results were not good. The scan showed a spot on my lung, so a biopsy was needed to determine its nature. The following week, I had the biopsy of my lung and waited for the results. Probably the hardest part of this whole thing was waiting for results over and over. And unfortunately the biopsy of my lung tested positive for cancer which metastasized from my colon.
At this point, I was referred to an oncologist to manage all my care. Luckily, my gastroenterologist's husband is an oncologist. So onto another consult, given it metastasized chemotherapy was strongly recommended along with removal of the tumor later on. I had a port a cath placed on November 30th, (this is a IV line to make it easier access to blood and to receive chemo). Up until them, I was just consulted and tested...this for me made it all very real. I stated chemo on December 5th.
The real battle had begun and I am truly grateful that I have amazing support from my loving family and friends. I couldn't had made it this far without you. I will continue to fight this horrible disease with all I got!