When Geraldine Levano, 31, was pregnant with her second son, acid reflux didn’t alarm her. But it got to a point where “I couldn’t even stand the pain anymore,” Levano of Houston, Texas, told TODAY.com.
Working as a physician’s assistant, she asked her colleagues and her obstetrician-gynecologist if her reflux was normal. “And of course they say…it’s just the baby, you’re OK,” Levano recalled.
On a few occasions, when the pain became “unbearable,” she went to the hospital. But they simply reassured her that her baby looked perfectly healthy and that her symptoms were normal during pregnancy.
The medications didn’t do much. “Nothing would help,” she said. “It was just like a burning sensation with pain, and it just felt like something was stuck there.”
So she held out until early April 2022, about two weeks after her son’s birth, when she felt a painful bump just under her ribcage, on her left side. And he still had reflux.
She ended up seeing the doctor where she currently works, who ordered an ultrasound. What should have been a 15-minute appointment quickly turned into an hour-long ordeal when it became clear that doctors needed more imaging.
The next day, his pain went from 10 to 20, Levano recalls. “I couldn’t even walk,” she said, “I couldn’t even carry my baby, so I went to the hospital. »
Before even taking his vitals, the doctor took one look at his ultrasound and said, ‘You have cancer. We just need to figure out where,'” Levano recalled.
Tests revealed stage 3 colorectal cancer
After a scan, Levano learned that his cancer was in his colon.
That imaging revealed a large mass, about 8 centimeters, that was nearly obstructing his colon, Dr. Amit Agarwal, a professor and colorectal surgeon at UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann Hospital, told TODAY.com.
He also saw that his tumor was putting pressure on his stomach, which explained Levano’s acid reflux.
“The mass was actually growing on the stomach from behind,” says Agarwal, who was Levano’s surgeon. “Everything she ate wasn’t necessarily digested, so the acid was coming back up.”
Although acid reflux is a common and normal symptom during pregnancy, it should not persist after pregnancy, he says.
Looking back, Levano says she also lost weight, which she attributed to nausea, and “always suffered from constipation,” which also could have been a sign of the cancer. Agarwal notes that she was also anemic, another symptom that could easily have been attributed to her pregnancy or colon cancer.
“But after pregnancy, when you continue to have these things, that’s when the light bulb goes off,” he says.
Having already worked for a gastroenterologist, Levano was able to have a colonoscopy the following week. But because the mass in his colon was so large, “he was too scared to go all the way,” she said. The tumor “practically blocked my entire colon,” she adds.
So she met Agarwal to decide on her next steps. Because of the size of the mass and the near-total obstruction it caused, Agarwal knew Levano needed surgery before chemotherapy.
Surgery followed by months of treatment
Her surgery was scheduled about two weeks later, and she woke up to a surprise: a colostomy bag, which collects waste from the colon.
Agarwal had told her there was a chance she might need it, she said, but he wouldn’t know for sure until after he had the surgery. Of course, she had hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, but that wasn’t how things worked.
“Every time you get chemotherapy, you weaken the tissues,” says Agarwal. So, if he had reconnected her colon during this operation, the chemotherapy she would receive afterwards could have either broken the connection or narrowed it, causing intestinal obstruction.
For safety reasons, Agarwal decided to give him the temporary colostomy bag and wait until the chemotherapy was over to repair his colon.
It was an added challenge for Levano, who spent the next few months in chemotherapy before having the sac removed in December of that year.
Around the same time, her mother was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, adding another dimension to this emotional time. Levano was trying to balance “a newborn, a 3-year-old, and then my mom trying to be a mom to me, and me trying to be a mom to my own kids,” she said. “It was very, very hard.”
Chemotherapy often left her tired and nauseous, with neuropathic pain in her hands and legs that made even walking difficult. During this period, she was able to count on the help of her family, especially her husband and her father. And her sister “was kind of a second mom to my kids for a while,” Levano says.
After chemotherapy, she underwent immunotherapy. Compared to chemotherapy, the side effects of immunotherapy were “minimal,” Levano says.
And in August 2023, she rang to celebrate the end of her treatment.
A surprise diagnosis of Lynch syndrome
Today, Levano celebrates more than three years of remission and is doing “really well,” she says, adding that she just had a clean colonoscopy and endoscopy.
Mentally and emotionally, however, she is still grappling with her experience. “It breaks my heart,” Levano said, to see so many people with cancer, especially young people, who have not received treatment as effective as his.
“I will never question God and I’m so grateful that I’m still here,” she said, “but it makes me feel bad for the people who are still going through this or who aren’t making it.” » Wondering why her cancer was treated when others aren’t so lucky has harmful consequences, she says.
Her recovery was complicated by a diagnosis of Lynch syndrome, a genetic disorder that increases the risk of certain types of cancer, including colon and uterine cancer, at a young age. So after her experience with colon cancer, she decided to have a partial hysterectomy. And she will continue to have additional annual exams, including colonoscopies.
“Yes, the preparation is disgusting,” she said. “But at the end of the day, if it can save you, do it.”
The idea that she might have passed this genetic risk to her sons, now ages 4 and 7, caused her some anxiety about their health. “At the slightest discomfort, at the slightest pain they felt, I took them to the hospital,” she says. Since then, she has “relaxed a bit,” she says, “but to this day it still affects me.”
Ultimately, Levano hopes her story inspires others to stand up for themselves when something goes wrong. “If you feel like something is wrong, never take no for an answer,” she says.
Gn Health
