Josh Vintner-Jackson first felt some discomfort in his lower left hip in March 2020.
At the time, Vintner-Jackson, who is from the UK, was 29 and worked at a startup in Austin. He balanced his time between work, hanging out with friends, and his active hobbies. He loved running marathons, including one five-day ultramarathon through the desert in Jordan.
Over the next four months, he would occasionally feel a pang of discomfort in the area. By the end of May, he had started to become severely constipated, despite eating what he considered a healthy diet.
After not pooping for eight days, he went to urgent care in June 2020, where an X-ray revealed a buildup in his colon.
His doctor presumed it was poop, gave Vintner-Jackson some laxatives, and told him it was “nothing to worry about,” he told Business Insider.
The medication helped for a few days, but shortly after, the constipation came back. “My stomach started to swell,” Vintner-Jackson said. He returned to urgent care in mid-June and was given laxatives a second time.
His constipation persisted, and his abdomen became painful, prompting him to go to urgent care for a third time in early July. He was given laxatives and told to come back the following day if his symptoms remained.
“I thought my stomach was going to implode. It had pushed out. I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t manage to sleep, I think, for 36 hours,” he said.
The doctor took one look at him and sent him for a CT scan
The next day, he made the 300-meter walk to the urgent care center closest to his apartment, which he said was “the longest 300 meters I’d ever done.”
The doctor on duty took one look at him and his inflamed abdomen, and sent him straight for a CT scan. It showed that Vintner-Jackson had a tumor blocking his colon. The doctor sent him straight to the ER, where oncologists told him he needed urgent surgery to remove the tumor.
The next morning at 9 a.m, surgeons removed a golf ball-sized tumor from his colon, as well as 15 inches of his colon and 15 lymph nodes, seven of which were cancerous. His oncologists confirmed that he had stage 3 colon cancer.
Colon cancer has been rising in people under 50 since the ’90s and is now the deadliest cancer in this age group. Around three in four young colon cancer patients are diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease. National survey data involving 1,000 nationally representative US adults found that in 2025, 45% of Americans who were diagnosed with colorectal cancer under 45 said that their stomach or bowel symptoms were dismissed by a doctor.
“Your age acts as a disguise when you walk in. You just assume you’re young and healthy. It’s probably a cold. Well, no, it might be something way more extreme,” Vintner-Jackson, who is now 34, said.
Researchers still aren’t sure what’s behind the rise, but antibiotic use in childhood, microplastics, weedkiller, and changes to the gut microbiome from high-sugar, low-fiber modern diets are all being explored as possible causes.
The common symptoms of early-onset colon cancer include blood in the stool, abdominal pain, weight loss, loss of appetite, and constipation. He urges young people to get symptoms checked by a healthcare professional, and wants young cancer patients to know that there is support out there for them.
“If you get the diagnosis and you’re young, we are all out here and it is important to reach out,” he said.
The cancer spread to his lungs
Eight weeks after the surgery, Vintner-Jackson started chemotherapy, which he had biweekly for six months.
After 12 rounds of chemo, he was told there was no evidence of disease in his bloodwork. “I thought, ‘OK, this is great. I can go back to living normally,'” he said.
But nine months later, a blood test revealed that there was 0.1% evidence of cancer cells in his body, and the doctors didn’t know where they were located.
It took almost a year of scans and investigation for his medical team to ascertain that cancer cells from his colon had spread to his lungs. In October 2022, he was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
Adjusting to life with a chronic disease
Vintner-Jackson moved back to the UK, where he has since been on an almost constant cycle of chemotherapy treatments, which have so far kept the cancer from advancing.
“It is really unlikely I’ll ever get rid of it because it’s spread to the lungs, but if you can slow it down and keep it chronic rather than terminal, then you can go on and live as normal with the disease,” he said.
Sometimes Vintner-Jackson feels great, and other times the simplest tasks are a struggle. This means he is no longer able to work full-time. He has freelanced between treatments, but is currently not working.
He has adapted his lifestyle to work around his new reality. Last August, he moved from London to Cambridgeshire in the English countryside. His mom and brother live there, and he thought the pace of life would be better for his health.
Vintner-Jackson has also trained as a life coach, specializing in helping people living with chronic illness, and started a community support group for young people diagnosed with cancer called Chat Cancer.
“Now life is very much like gardening, going for dog walks, taking a very peaceful approach,” he said.
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