Despite living an active, busy life, Sydney Stoner was plagued by worsening digestive issues.
Around 2019, when she was in her mid-20s, she started cycling between constipation and diarrhea. “I just thought it was just regular stomach issues that people had,” the now 32-year-old told Business Insider.
For a while, Stoner was able to go on living her life in Little Rock, Arkansas, with her husband, two cats, and two dogs. Stoner worked as a professional theater actor, juggling roles with her part-time retail job. In her free time, she loved cycling and CrossFit.
In the meantime, she bounced around from different doctors, including a primary care physician and a holistic doctor, thinking they would diagnose her with IBS. She tried elimination diets, including cutting dairy, gluten, and sugar. Some doctors told her to “watch her weight.”
Nothing worked.
She said she had blood in her stool to get screened sooner
Within a year, the discomfort became more severe. Stoner only felt relief when she used the restroom, which resulted in intense cramping throughout. “I felt like my insides were twisting,” she said.
One day, the pain became too great for Stoner. It hurt to eat, and the cramps wouldn’t stop. “I was like, ‘Someone needs to see inside my body,'” Stoner said.
She called a gastroenterology care center and started listing her symptoms to the woman on the phone. When she was asked for her age and was told she’d need a referral to get screened, Stoner improvised.
From Googling her symptoms, she read that having blood in her stool, one of the most common signs of colon cancer, was typically considered more dire than stomach pain or changes in bowel movements. After she lied and said she had the symptom, she was scheduled for a colonoscopy right away.
Stoner knew something was wrong once she started waking up from the sedation used in a colonoscopy. “I’m pretty sure I heard them say ‘cancer,'” she recalled, adding that the doctors brought her husband into the room with her. “I knew that that wasn’t a good sign.”
She learned that the colonoscope, the long thin medical device used to navigate through the rectum and colon, couldn’t even get a foot inside her colon due to a mass.
Stoner was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer at 27. Because she was still coming down from the anesthesia, she didn’t really respond.
“I was just in shock. I didn’t really say anything,” Stoner said. “When I finally ate some foodShe was scheduled for PET and CT scans as well as a tumor removal surgery one month later. after the colonoscopy, the tears just started flowing.”
Almost two years into married life, Stoner struggled to make sense of the diagnosis. “We went on trips often, hung out with a lot of friends, loved going to live shows,” she said. “I just really never thought that cancer would be a part of that.”
Grieving her life before cancer
Stoner was scheduled for PET and CT scans as well as a tumor removal surgery one month later. She woke up from her surgery with an ileostomy, a bag attached to her abdomen to collect waste that allows the colon to heal. A year later it’d be reversed.
Initially, she was told by doctors that she had stage 3B cancer, and that it had only spread to a few lymph nodes. But once she moved to St. Louis and started care there, her scans found that the cancer had spread to her liver and lungs, making it stage 4.
Stoner did 12 rounds of chemotherapy, which caused her cold sensitivity. “I had to wear gloves to even get into the refrigerator,” she said. “I had to microwave all of my drinks.” After that, she did three rounds of radiation per lung, which led to no evidence of disease.
Two months later, her blood work showed signs of cancer, so she underwent 12 additional rounds of a different chemo medication, which led to dizziness and nausea, common symptoms. “It’s kind of like being drunk on a cruise ship, but not the fun drunk,” she said.
Since 2023, for over two years, she has been on a lower-dose maintenance chemo pill. But when her recent scans in October showed more progression of disease than her oncologist was comfortable with, she was put on more rounds of the second chemotherapy drug again.
The near-never-ending treatments caused both financial and emotional strain. Because Stoner and her husband had just been kicked off their parents’ insurance, Stoner struggled to get scans or treatments approved until she could apply for disability in 2021. Now, she’s on Medicare.
Stoner, who legally can’t work over a certain number of hours ,also works part-time at a cat café. Her husband is a self-employed barber, and they pay for some of Stoner’s treatment through a GoFundMe.
“You just wake up and just grieve your old life every day, which sounds really depressing,” Stoner said. “But you’re just not the same person after you get news like that.”
She’s advocating for more research funding
Stoner said her friends and family have been a great support throughout treatment. So has the colon cancer community she found.
In 2023, Stoner discovered the nonprofit Fight Colorectal Cancer (Fight CRC), which connected her to others diagnosed with colon cancer. She learned about opportunities to present her story to Congress and to advocate for more funding for colon cancer research. It’s timely as colon cancer is now the leading cause of cancer death in people under 50.
For young people with potential colon cancer symptoms, Stoner urged listening to your body.
“Especially young women, we are dismissed a lot, and you have to find a doctor that will do the test that you need, or even try Cologuard,” a stool test that can detect existing cancer and requires a colonoscopy after a positive result, she said. “It’s better to find out early because colon cancer is so preventable.”
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