Colon Cancer & Its Devastating Impact on My Family

I was 8 years old when I walked into my father’s room in the hospital as he laid there coma-stricken in his final days. I told him I had gotten an A on my Science test, hoping in all my innocence that an A would make him so proud that he would wake up from his coma. He passed a few days later and I was heartbroken.

My father, Dr. Moti Aswani, had long-standing Crohn’s Disease which turned into stage IV colorectal cancer 13 years into his diagnosis at the age of 37 (see An Ode to My Father & Fellow IBD Warrior). You see, Daddy had been told to have his colon removed at the age of 25 but the stigma was too great for him to live with a permanent ileostomy. As a result, he ended up taking Prednisone for years because there weren’t many options in the 1970s and 80s to manage Crohn’s. The thought of having regular colonoscopies resembled hell on earth for him so for years, he did what many of us do. He brushed the disease under the rug until he couldn’t anymore. 

When I was 6 years old, I remember him going to the doctor’s office regularly. The hair on his head began to fall as all his steroid weight quickly shed from his body. He had become emaciated. And all I heard in my home was chatter about chemotherapy and radiation as my family and extended family coordinated his care and his appointments. I remember no longer being able to sit on his lap to eat breakfast or run and play cars and fly toy helicopters with him the way I used to. Even when we visited Disney World, I remember feeling helpless as he stayed back spending much of his vacation time in bed or in the bathroom sick.

As a child, it took a toll far greater than I had realized in that moment. In the wake of his passing, he left behind not only beautiful memories of a family that once was. His cancer left behind a devastation that my family never quite recovered from.

As a grown woman who came to share his IBD diagnosis in my adult years, I often look back at those hazy years of colorectal cancer trauma. For one, after his passing, my family lived on poverty lines for the remainder of my childhood. For another, I had to suddenly face the world without my Daddy. I think back to me graduating summa cum laude in my school years, getting the job of my dreams in my young adult years and walking down the aisle on my wedding day all without him. (In Hinduism, it is known as “performing the daughter’s kanyadaan,” an honor only parents have when they give away their daughter in marriage). How much better would life have been to have my father be a part of all these momentous occasions?

I also think back to my first surgery and then the long list of surgeries that followed. Would my experience have been better knowing that I shared my diagnosis and my ostomy with someone in my family who actually got it inside out?

With each and every one of these memories, I have resurrected him in my mind hoping he would be standing proud. But in each and every moment, I have always felt that void, a deep stabbing wound that could never heal or scab over. His was a life taken too early, at just 39, a life distraught by colorectal cancer, and his was an existence that left grooves in the hearts of his family members.

But the thing is colorectal cancer (CRC) is now considered an ailment that can be treated and often is preventable via regular colonoscopies and detection methods.[1] There was hardly any education or awareness back then about colorectal cancer. And now the proof is in the pudding. We now have tools to detect early signs of colorectal cancer, to remove polyps, to treat the earliest forms of cancer before they get out of hand like my father’s did. We now have a chance to save lives and keep families intact. 

So my hope today and forever is that no child should have to live with such a void or witness what my family endured. This Colon Cancer Awareness Month I urge you and your loved ones to have a colonoscopy if you’re 45-50 years old. If you have inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s or ulcerative colitis), please be screened according to your doctor’s instructions every year or two as IBD increases the risk of CRC after 8-10 years.[2]  And if you have a family history of CRC like mine, please mention it to your doctor and consider early screening per his/her recommendation. Please don’t wait. You don’t know how many lives this one life may be intertwined with and how many loved ones CRC may affect. 

So, own your Crohn’s, own your ulcerative colitis, and take charge of your care by advocating for regular screenings and preventing colorectal cancer. 

RIP, Daddy. Love, Light & Peace Always.

As always, I hope you found this post informative. Please feel free to share any feedback with me. I love hearing from you all! <3