July of 2017, Laurie noticed a lump on the right side of her stomach but didn’t think much of it until her husband noticed it too. He advised her to see her primary care physician and she ended up going the next day. After the initial visit, she was then sent in for CT scan because her blood work results raised concern. The scan revealed a tumor on her colon that had spread to her liver.

Laurie recalls feeling disbelief because of how well things were going for her in May of 2017 – she had just obtained her naturalization certificate and had started to lose weight with less effort. She says it was difficult to accept, but she knew everything would be okay because of her faith. Her treatment, chemotherapy and 5 sessions of radiation, began a few months later in August of 2017. Overall, she’s had no major issues and has been able to take some breaks from treatment, the longest being 12 months last year.

Colorectal cancer is the third most commonly diagnosed cancer in both men and women, excluding skin cancers. According to the American Cancer Society, there will be an estimated 106,970 new cases of colon cancer in the United States for 2023 and 46,050 new cases of rectal cancer.

Marios Gianakis, MD, PhD is a medical oncologist and clinical investigator at the Dana-Farber Gastrointestinal Cancer Center and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gianakis conducts his own clinical research at Dana-Farber and the Broad Institute of MIT and
Harvard to better understand the formation of colorectal cancer on a molecular level and works on developing immune-based treatments for various types of gastrointestinal cancers. He has also researched the association between colorectal cancer and certain dietary habits, including red meat consumption.