Tracy Robert was stretched out on her physical therapist’s table when she learned she had a malignant tumor.
She had just had a routine colonoscopy and thought her abdominal pain was caused by a hip flexor injury, so she put the phone on speaker while her PT kept working. As the doctor broke the news, she remembered the room swirling and closing in. “My heart is just pumping, pumping, pumping,” Robert, now 50, told Business Insider.
She abruptly left the office and drove to a nearby park. Sitting in the car for a long time, she froze, contemplating her next steps. “Do I cry? Do I call somebody? What do I do?” she thought. It wasn’t until she got home that the news began to feel real.
A few weeks later, Robert was diagnosed with stage 2B to 3A colorectal cancer, which meant the cancer had spread beyond her colon.
As a fitness trainer and nutrition coach, Robert was shocked. She ate well, exercised, and regularly saw doctors for issues like bloating, abdominal discomfort, and rectal bleeding. Years prior, she was told that her IBS explained all her GI issues.
Now, she knows she had the most common symptoms of colon cancer in people under 50.
A personal trainer with a clean diet
Robert followed a clean diet.
An athlete growing up, Robert regularly worked out with Pilates and weights. She went to therapy for stress management and did “spiritual work.” Concerned about toxins and microplastics, the mother of three made her own baby food, harvested produce from her garden in Texas, and used natural cleaning products like vinegar and lemon.
She also saw a general practitioner and OB-GYN annually, keeping an eye on her health. At 20, Robert was diagnosed with IBS, but she said she wasn’t given much direction. “They would just say, ‘eat more fiber,'” Robert said.
When she was pregnant with her first son, she said she was diagnosed with an internal hemorrhoid. When she developed rectal bleeding and bloating in the years to follow, she chalked it up to her IBS history and hemorrhoids.
By 40, she started bleeding into the toilet. By then, she knew something was seriously wrong, suspecting celiac disease or ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease. “I didn’t even think of cancer, honestly,” she said.
She cut out coffee and started a 30-day cleanse while booking appointments with her GP and an allergist. For four months, nothing yielded clear answers or cause for concern from her doctors: Robert had no history of cancer in her family and her blood work looked great.
“I was on the hunt, but I also felt like there were no real answers or directions,” Robert said.
In early 2015, when she was finally able to get an appointment with a referred GI, there was an opening for a colonoscopy appointment, something her GI recommended just in case. Afterward, Robert learned her hemorrhoid looked more like polyps and was referred to a colorectal surgeon for more tests and an MRI.
It was after the scan that Robert learned she had colon cancer.
Adjusting to a colostomy bag
Before Robert knew what stage of cancer she had, she Googled all the worst-case scenarios. Mostly, she feared having her intestines removed and using a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.
The first doctor she saw told her she’d need a colostomy, so she went to a second, then a third. By the fourth, she accepted the prognosis: she would need the surgery in addition to chemotherapy.
Adjusting to the colostomy bag was one of the hardest parts of treatment for Robert. “I felt like I lost my sexiness, like I lost my innocence,” she said. “That put me down a really dark hole.” As a personal trainer who also did nutrition coaching, she worried about being judged for her colostomy bag. “I felt a lot of shame around it and a lot of ‘what did I do wrong?'” she said.
As someone who identified as an eternal optimist, she struggled to be the “ray of sunshine” her friends and family were used to. Her sons, seven and nine at the time, stopped wanting to sleep in separate beds and clung to Robert more.
She did just under a year of chemo. Because she was told her cancer had reached stage zero and the chemotherapy “was just so hard” on her body, she said she stopped earlier than advised.
On her last day of chemo, her husband was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease, plunging Robert into a caretaker role before she had fully recovered herself. The stress on their marriage was so great, Robert said, that she and her husband separated for two years before coming back together.
It was a grind that never seemed to end, partly because Robert was diagnosed so late. “I would not have ended up with a colostomy bag if the medical professionals screened me earlier and took my symptoms and concerns seriously,” she said.
The fear that never fully leaves
A decade after getting diagnosed, Robert is cancer-free. In the years since going into remission, she’s taken to social media platforms like TikTok to share her experiences with misdiagnosis with the hope of raising awareness about colon cancer.
“I do feel it’s getting more attention, unfortunately, because more young people are being diagnosed,” she said. Colon cancer in young people has risen in over 27 countries.
She remembers growing up and watching Oprah interview guests who had overcome extreme tragedies. She always wanted to inspire people the same way. “I realized that I can be so grateful because even when things are not good, it’s a gift turned inside-out for somebody else,” Robert said. “If I can keep that perspective, life is beautiful.”
Despite being in remission, Robert said she always thinks about the possibility of having cancer again. “I think that will always be there, but I think it also can be kind of the catalyst that pushes you forward, too,” she said. “That may be so — what else can I do?”
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