When Kierstyn Roberts, then 21, started experiencing chest pains last fall, she thought she was stressed. It made sense – she was a full-time math student and assistant resident at Indiana University during a pandemic. When the chest pain intensified, she went to the hospital and found that anxiety was not to blame: she had stage 4 colon cancer.
“I thought it was something that I could be medicated for, that it would be an easy solution and then I would just go back to being a normal 21-year-old,” Roberts, now 22, from Indianapolis, said TODAY. “The more the doctor explained things, the more I was afraid. I thought I was going to die. “
Roberts is sharing his story to encourage others to be careful with their bodies and seek treatment if something goes wrong.
“Pay attention to what your body is saying to you,” she said. “I’m not saying that I ignored mine. I just didn’t have enough information. “
Pain and pressure in the chest
In September 2020, Roberts began to feel a tightness in his chest, which was “swollen to the point that something was pushing my rib cage”. But it happened so randomly that she wasn’t sure if it was a problem. Then the pressure on his chest intensified on the right side of his body.
“Whenever I talked, laughed, stretched, coughed or something, I felt acute pain instantly,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep for a while without my side hurting and it was strong enough that I knew it wasn’t a pain that I could really ignore.”
Roberts visited a local emergency care clinic and the doctor suspected that the college’s food inflamed Roberts’ gallbladder and gave him a medication to relieve the discomfort.
“I felt better in the morning. I managed to get out of bed, take the medicine and spend the day. But there were times when I still felt that sense of pressure, ”she said. “Acute pain was no longer a problem, but it got to the point where my stomach filled.”
On September 13, she woke up with severe chest pains as she struggled to breathe.
“That’s when I got really worried,” said Roberts. “21 year olds don’t feel chest pain like that. This is not normal. “
She visited another urgent care clinic and the doctor said that she was fine and that little could be done. Roberts did not believe it.
“Chest pain is very serious,” she said. “When I was talking to him, he said, ‘Well, for a 21-year-old, you shouldn’t have chest pain. So, maybe you’re just overwhelmed. ‘”
Stunned, Roberts went to the emergency room for a second opinion.
“I knew for myself how I was feeling that there should be something that could be done,” she said.
Emergency room doctors performed urine and blood tests and did a CT scan of his chest. Blood and urine tests were normal.
“Part of me knew there was something else going on because I kept asking if I could eat,” she said, adding that the nurse said they had to wait. “I always had this feeling that there might be a reason for that.”
When the doctors arrived, she finally understood why.
“They found several tumors in my liver and colon,” she said. “They did not confirm that it was cancerous. They just said that they found many tumors. “
After colonoscopy, Roberts discovered that she had stage 4 colon cancer.
“My mind went blank,” she said. “I thought it was a joke. I literally thought he was joking or trying to make me needlessly scared … That may not make any sense, but that’s what my brain thought. “
Colon cancer and youth
Like many people, Roberts thought of colon cancer as an “old man’s disease”. But colorectal cancer is on the rise in younger people. In 2020, about 18,000 people under the age of 50 were diagnosed with colorectal cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. Since the mid-1980s, adults between the ages of 20 and 39 have experienced an increase in colorectal cancer rates. For people aged 40 to 54, rates have increased since the mid-1990s.
The American Cancer Society notes that blacks experience colorectal cancer at rates about 20% higher than non-Hispanic whites and the death rate is almost 40% higher.
Symptoms of colon cancer include:
- Lack of iron
- Rectal bleeding
- Blood in the stool
- Weakness or fatigue
- Abdominal pain
- Narrow stools, diarrhea or constipation
- Urgent need to evacuate
- Unexplained weight loss
Life with stage 4 cancer
Roberts’s doctor recommended intense chemotherapy to shrink the tumors and she left school in the fall semester to focus on her health. Sometimes it seems overwhelming.
“You stop living your life, you go to college, thinking you are going to graduate, get a job – like all these things that are normal – and then you get hit by this stone,” said Roberts. “You have colon cancer and it is not just colon cancer, it is stage 4. It is not something that was easy at all.”
Chemotherapy was difficult, and some days Roberts felt too exhausted to walk or even sit on the bed. Since finishing, she has had maintenance chemotherapy to help prevent the cancer from spreading further, and she has started to feel better. She was bored and learned to knit. She also enjoys walking, painting and starting a podcast. This semester, she enrolled in online classes.
“I have … spread the word about colon cancer and health in general,” she said. “I have the power to influence the community not just as a younger person, but as someone who is young with the illness of an elderly man.”