HASTINGS, Mich. (WOOD) — A Hastings woman is sharing her story about how she overcame colon cancer to finish the Chicago Marathon.
March is National Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States. About 150,000 new cases are diagnosed each year between colon and rectal cancers.
Doctors say 10% of colon cancer cases occur in people under the age of 50, but they’re seeing more and more cases among younger people. Kate Barch, who is in her 40s, was one of them.
Barch was never someone who had to go to the doctor often. She would get her yearly checkup, but that was about it. Cancer was the last thing she ever expected.
“I was very active,” Barch said. “I was running marathons, for goodness sake. I never imagined this would happen.”
During the pandemic, she tried donating blood but couldn’t because of low hemoglobin count and an iron deficiency. Later came frequent urination, skin itching, heartburn and acid reflux. By July 2022, she found a gastroenterologist and got a CT scan.
“Very quickly, a 5 cm mass was found in my ascending colon,” she said.
After a colonoscopy, doctors told her she had Stage 2 colon cancer.
“Within 10 days, I had surgery to remove 13 inches of my colon and 66 lymph nodes,” she said. “I was out of work for a full 30 days for recovery.”
She did four months of chemotherapy. By January 2023, doctors confirmed her cancer was gone.
“I’m really proud today to say I’m a survivor,” she said.
When she was first diagnosed, she was halfway through training for the Chicago Marathon. When she became cancer-free, she gave it another go in October 2023.
She crossed the finish line nearly a year to the day when she had first started chemotherapy.
“I don’t think I was confident I was going to make it through my diagnosis and my treatment,” she said. “But as soon as I crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon, it felt like, ‘OK I got through this, I’m going to be OK.'”
While she’s thankful to have survived cancer, Barch said her life has changed forever.
“I think there’s an assumption that everyone goes back to normal, but it’s not really the same life,” she said. “There’s a fear of recurrence. There’s CT scans and blood tests every three to six months.”
Corewell Health colorectal surgeon Dr. Nadav Dujovny did her colectomy in August 2022.
“It’s easy for people to blow stuff off, but listening to their bodies is super important to get checked out,” he said.
He said research has found that more and more young people are getting colorectal cancer over the last decade.
“They don’t know exactly why,” Dujovny said. “Is it lifestyle, is it environment? Those are probably more of the common risk factors people have. You got more sedentary lifestyles, people working at computers all day, not getting out and not being active. All those things can contribute to this.”
Doctors used to recommend colonoscopies for the average person at 50. Now the American Cancer Society has changed that to 45 years old.
“Just because you don’t have a family history doesn’t mean you’re not at risk for it,” he said. “It’s something that should be screened for. Colonoscopies save lives.”
If you have a family history of colorectal cancer, it’s best to get tested starting at age 40.
“Usually it’s if you’re a first-degree relative … and you have to do it more frequently,” Dujovny said.
Barch encouraged people to get tested as well.
“Colon cancer is being diagnosed at very early ages now,” she said. “I think that’s one of the reasons why it’s going undiagnosed because we often think, ‘This can’t happen to me, I’m too young.'”