I was diagnosed on the 5th of September and the next week, on the 12th of September, I had surgery to remove the tumor. I started chemo on the 5th of October had 12 rounds of chemotherapy with FOLFOX. I didn't do radiation. Since treatment ended, I do blood tests every three months, CT scans every six months, and colonoscopy every year to monitor for cancer recurrence.

I remember before I started chemo, I was in fear. The oncologist mentioned, just when I was recovering from surgery, that I would go through chemo. Until then, I believed that they would just remove the tumor and I'd be fine, because for me, chemotherapy was a big word.
 
I had seen pictures on TV and in the media of people having chemotherapy, and I couldn't imagine myself going through that. And while waiting for chemo, I remember just how uncertain I was. I felt like I needed somebody to sit down with me and explain this process to me. I remember personally approaching my oncologist and asking for an appointment and he was kind of surprised. He said, “You’re only starting chemo on the 5th" and I said, “That’s exactly the point. I'm starting chemo, but what is chemo? What does chemo mean to me? What's going to happen to my body during chemo? Will I survive chemo? What is this?” And he was taken aback. He seemed to interpret my fear as anger.

But I was scared. I needed someone to prepare me because, whether I liked it or not, I had to go through this process. And that is when he gave me information about the chemo that I would be doing, FOLFOX, and all the changes that my body would go through.