Below is an article from the Lincoln Journal Star:
Abbey Schnell remembers texting a friend before her
colonoscopy. “I’ll be fine,” she wrote. “This is what old people go through...”
And Abbey was young. She’d just had a baby. Remy was 2 weeks old; her son
Urijah was not quite 2. The 25-year-old woke from the procedure that day in
2012 to news she never expected. The blood in her stools wasn’t caused by
hemorrhoids after all; she had stage 4 colon cancer. Abbey had chemo and
radiation and surgery to remove her rectum and 13 inches of her colon. She had
a permanent colostomy. She had more chemo. She’s still having chemo, a
maintenance drug and not a cure, after discovering two years ago that the
cancer had spread to her lungs. It’s Tuesday, the day before Abbey’s
every-other-week chemo, a three-hour appointment that will leave her down for
days. Which means she’ll work long hours early in the week from home in her job
in insurance underwriting so she doesn’t get behind. And she’ll plan meals
ahead so her boys can still eat well. And on Sunday, she’ll play sand
volleyball at Spike’s with her husband, Adam, like always. She’ll be good.
She’ll be Abbey. That’s her goal: To live her life. She wrote about that in a
third-person essay last year. “Abbey wants to provide the most normal life she
can for her boys while she is still here and that is one reason she continues
to work and fight …” She sent her story to The Colon Club, a nonprofit focused
on colon cancer patients younger than 50 with one goal: to educate as many
people as possible, as early as possible. For 10 years, the organization had
published the Colondar, a calendar featuring 12 colorectal cancer patients --
all younger than 50 at their diagnosis.
The calendars showed the faces and scars of survivors,
taking away the stigma, said Krista Wilson, president of The Colon Club’s board
of directors. But they wanted to do more, and in 2015 began publishing in-depth
stories of survivors in an annual magazine, Colondar 2.0. Twelve four-page
spreads with plenty of photos and the hard details of life with colon cancer.
Abbey got a phone call this spring, telling her she had been selected, and in
June she was on a plane to Nashville. It was easy to choose the young mom from
Nebraska, Krista says. “She is amazing. People can connect with Abbey by
looking at the way she handles things … and seeing there is hope for me.” Abbey
spent five days with 11 other colon cancer survivors at a retreat in the woods
outside of the city. “It was really weird, the bond we already had even though
we were strangers, it felt like an instant brotherhood.” She pauses. “And
sisterhood.” It was her first time away from her sons, she says from the living
room of a cozy ranch with a garden out back in the middle of Lincoln. Urijah,
5, is on the carpet playing with his Happy Meal toys. Remy, 3, is watching
YouTube videos. Two boys who love to wrestle with their dad, who's home from
work and on the couch with his family. And Abbey, Abbey looks healthy. She
looks happy. She calls herself the “momager” of the household. She calls Adam,
the man she met while she was a junior at Southwest High School, her
researcher. And her rock. His wife is the strong one, Adam says. “Through the
whole thing, it’s not got her down.” Abbey doesn’t look down. Or sick. She
wears extensions in her dark hair. Her toenails are painted pink. Her life’s
philosophy is inked across her right ankle: Hope for the best. Expect the
worst. Take what you get. Her grandpa’s words, she says. Tattooed before her
diagnosis. He died of colon cancer, an old man. She’d never thought about her
family history or worried about symptoms.
She wishes now she’d worried more. Pushed
her doctor to do testing when she noticed the blood during her pregnancy.
Pushed her oncologist for a biopsy when the spot on her lung -- so small,
probably nothing -- showed up in early testing. “Really push your doctor and
know your family history,” she says now. “I really wish I would have kept on my
doctors more.” Instead, she shares her story, at the zoo on National
Cancer Day, during Colon Cancer Awareness Month at CHI St. Elizabeth, any time
anyone asks. Her oldest son knows she has cancer, Abbey says. She’s not sure he
understands what that means. Her dad died of lung cancer while she was sick,
and he knows Papa Jeff is gone. You have cancer, he says. Why didn’t you die?
Abbey has an answer to that: Because she is living. She is creating memories.
She has a message: Know your body. Know when something isn’t right. Cancer
isn’t the end. Learn from it. Take what you get. “Don’t give up. Keep going and
living the life you still have.”
One
in 10 colorectal cancers is diagnosed in people under 50. Colorectal cancer is
the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States.
Know your body:
Signs include blood in stool, weight loss, severe abdominal cramping, change in
stool (constipation or diarrhea).
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Things to take from this article:
- Know your body
- Investigage
- Push your doctor
- Investigate
- Obtain a 2nd opinion
- Investigate
- Ask questions
- Investigate
- Never stop learning
- Investigate
- Never, ever give up
These are the things I did and they all helped me find Proton Therapy at ProCure and I'm so glad I did. See you all real soon.
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