Welcome to Mosaic, your Novant Health podcast for diversity, inclusion and equity. You'll learn more about the mosaic of similarities and differences that make us stronger, and how health equity benefits us all. Piece by piece, we're telling the stories of the beautiful mosaic of Novant Health.
One critical piece of the Novant Health mosaic is our Business Resource Groups are BRG's. They are voluntary groups of team members united around a common identity and their work positively impacts our patients, our organization and the communities we serve. With me on this episode is Lauri, a Novant Health team member and BRG member here to share about her cancer journey. We are in the midst of Colorectal Cancer Awareness month, and a few weeks ago was International Women's Day where the theme was "choose to challenge" and I can't imagine a much bigger challenge to face than cancer. So Lauri, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story. Can we begin with you telling us a little bit about yourself?
Sure, thank you. My husband and I moved down here to North Carolina about three years ago as we were searching for warmer weather. I began my career at Novant Health at that time, I am also the Secretary to our Native American BRG, and I really enjoy that. We've been married for 23 years. We don't have any children, but we do have three dogs. In my spare time, I like to go golfing, camping and help rescue dogs find their forever homes.
Wonderful
I'm also a colon cancer survivor of almost nine years.
Yeah, so tell me more about that. You know, in researching this and being Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, I just found out that colon cancer is a lot more prevalent than I expected and a lot more deadly. And it's actually, when you look at men and women combined, it's the third most diagnosed cancer and the second leading cause of cancer death. So what was that like to hear that you were diagnosed?
Yeah, I don't know that I could ever truly explain the feelings that overcome you when you get a cancer diagnosis. But I have to say first, I was shocked. I was only 42 years old. And I thought colon cancer only happened to the elderly. The only symptoms that I was having was I was having some episodes of diarrhea, which actually was unusual for me. And then I started having some abdominal pain. So at that point, I did go to my primary care doctor, she referred me to a colorectal specialist. She thought that I had irritable bowel syndrome. But in order to get that diagnosis, you have to have everything else ruled out. So that was obviously not the diagnosis that I got. So after I met with the colorectal surgeon, he did tell me that I had stage three colon cancer, and that it was nearly obstructing my bowel and that I needed surgery right away. And I honestly don't think I heard anything he said after he said that. It took me... it took a while for the initial shock to wear off. And then I was definitely scared. I wasn't sure what to expect as I embarked on this new cancer journey. It was definitely a scary time.
Wow. Yeah. And like you said, you think of it as something that happens, you know, to older folks, and the median age is 68 for men and 72. For women, though, the median age for onset is getting earlier and earlier. So yes, so some of the shock of not only the the diagnosis, but to feel so young and to have something so significant happen.
I have to say they have found that younger people are getting colon cancer much more than they had in the past. And there are some organizations that now recommend starting your colon cancer screening at age 45 instead of the age 50 that it's always been.
Yeah, and when African American Actor Chadwick Boseman. When it came out in the news that he had died last year of colon cancer. He was only 43. Did you have any reactions when you heard that news?
Yeah, when I heard the news, of course it brought back all the feelings I had when I was diagnosed. I wondered why I lived and Chadwick, who was a superhero, had to die. I thought about how strong he was as he continued to work through his multiple surgeries and chemotherapy. I also felt very sad for his family and everything that he must have had to go through during the last three years of his life. I also tried to think about anything positive and then I realized that his high profile death has definitely raised awareness of colon cancer. I hoped that with that increased awareness that would encourage others to get screened, because I cannot stress how important early screening is because the survival rate is significantly higher the earlier that you can catch colon cancer.
Yes, screening is so important. And I wanted to look at the data too. I mentioned earlier that colorectal cancer is the third most diagnosed cancer among men and women combined. But when we look deeper into that data, we do see there are racial disparities. You shared that you're involved with the Native American business resource group, and one of the goals of our BRG's is to work on reducing health disparities. So looking at the data on Native Americans, they are more likely to get diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Their diagnosis occurs later in the progression of their cancer, and they experience higher colorectal cancer death rates compared to the US as a whole. And while the incidence rates are declining for white Americans, they remain unchanged for indigenous populations. So it's vital that we recognize the disparities and work to close the gaps because everyone needs and deserves access to lifesaving screenings, and treatments. And speaking of treatment, you mentioned how Chadwick worked during the last few years as he was battling cancer. I imagine he must have had people close to him, supporting him through such a difficult and demanding time. What was treatment like for you? Did you have a lot of support during your treatments?
So my journey began, of course, when I got the colon cancer diagnosis, and then I started with I needed to have a colon resection where they removed the tumor and they also removed about 12 inches of my large intestine. Unfortunately, on the fourth day after surgery, I developed fevers and the pain became unbearable. So I had a CT scan, which showed that I had an ns an osanastomosis leak, which is a leak where they had reconnected the two ends of my colon during the previous surgery. So I had to go back to surgery. They also had to create a temporary ileostomy so that the surgical repair would have time to heal. Even though I had been a nurse for 20 years, I have to say learning to manage my own ileostomy bag was more than I ever imagined. I just would have never thought that I would ever have to do that for myself. The progress through the remainder of my hospital stay was slow, but I was finally able to leave the hospital after 18 days. The normal time in the hospital after the surgery is maybe five or six days. So I have to say while I was in the hospital, it was probably the first time I thought I might not survive this. I went home after my hospital stay and I recuperated from surgeries and worked on regaining my strength. And then about a month later I started my chemotherapy regimen which was supposed to be about six months, I would go in for chemotherapy every two weeks, and each dose would take about five or six hours to deliver. And then I would go home with another chemotherapy medication that would infuse over the next two days, my family was instrumental. Somebody always either one of my family or friends always drove me to chemo and stayed there the entire time with me while it was infusing, I had a lot of help. They would offer to drop off food, take me to chemo or just do whatever I needed. So at one point, I did end up having to shave my head because my hair was thinning. And this was a very difficult time for me as I adjusted to my new image of a 42 year old bald woman with an ileostomy bag. But finally after eight months, I completed my chemotherapy and I had a follow up CT scan that showed that I was cancer free.
What a challenging time in your life. How does that affect you now when you look back, you know hearing news of someone else who's been diagnosed or just having gone through this challenge does it affect how you live today?
I realized how important life is and my new motto is dream as if you'll live forever and live as if you'll die today. I've tried to spend more time with family and friends because you never know what the future holds. And if you'll get a chance to do those things that you put off until tomorrow. I like to openly tell my story because colon cancer can be very difficult to talk about and I just always am interested in encouraging everyone to get screened because it is so important.
With the pandemic, like so many things people, are not getting screened. And the numbers have plummeted. So what would you say to someone who is in the the age bracket or family history where they should be getting screened, but they're hesitant or they just don't want to think about it and they avoid it.
I challenge everyone to not be afraid to speak up if you experience any of the signs of colon cancer, such as changing bowel habits, blood in your stool, abdominal pain, unexplained weight loss to name a few. Routine screening is so important because in the early stages of colon cancer, there may not be symptoms. And if you can identify polyps at that early stage, they can be removed before they even turn into cancer. I would say, don't be afraid to get a colonoscopy. The endoscopy centers they use moderate sedation or anesthesia, so you'll not have any discomfort during the procedure. You may not even remember the procedure at all. I wanted to tell my story today because as you mentioned earlier, March is Colorectal Cancer Month and I hope those that hear my story will get the courage to talk about symptoms and to get screened so that one day we can be free of colon cancer.
Lauri, thank you so much for sharing your story with us here today and for reminding us why preventative screenings are so important. We are so thankful to have you on the Novant Health team and in our Native American business resource group and we wish you many more years of good health.
Thank you Becky.
Thanks for listening to mosaic your podcast for diversity inclusion and equity a Novant Health. Stay tuned for our next exciting episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai