Haley Pollack had returned from parental leave when she started experiencing extreme fatigue, but she blamed it on postpartum. At the time, she had a 6-month-old baby and a 3-year-old at home. But her symptoms weren’t going away. She was diagnosed with stage 3C colon cancer at 37.

She shares how she learned about her diagnosis, how cancer impacted her as a young parent, and how she launched an organization called the Bright Spot Network to help other parents going through a cancer diagnosis.

Constipation had become pretty debilitating. Finally, my husband was like, “You don’t have to live this way. Go to the doctor.”

I get there and I’m telling my doctor, “I’m constipated,” and he gives me some stuff for that.

But I’m also a little short of breath and I’ve been really tired. I had been basically gaslighting myself and telling myself that it was all related to being recently postpartum. Thankfully, my doctor didn’t. He said, “Let’s just get some blood work.”

»MORE: Read Nadia’s account of medical gaslighting

I got my blood work. I didn’t feel good, but I did not feel sick. If the blood work hadn’t been covered by my insurance, I wouldn’t have gotten it, 100%.

The next day, the lab called me. “Don’t get in a car, don’t drive. You are anemic. We don’t know how you’re standing on two feet.” That’s how it started.

The anemia [was] really what snapped me out of it. When my doctor [requested] blood work, it made me feel like maybe there is something else here. I felt like I was gaslighting myself. Of course, I’m tired. I’m a new mom. But [I’m] not really recognizing how deeply fatigued I was.

I felt like I was gaslighting myself. Of course, I’m tired. I’m a new mom. But [I’m] not really recognizing how deeply fatigued I was.

I think for parents, especially for women, there’s this extra that we put on ourselves that we can do all of these things. We can be [working] full-time at a really intense job, nursing in the middle of the night, and pumping at work. Doing all this stuff, it was easy to write off [the] tiredness. That blood work ultimately saved my life.

At that point, people were just running through the possible scenarios. I knew it wasn’t my period and I knew it wasn’t childbirth, but it wasn’t until they told me, “You have cancer.” I still am shocked about it. I think a lot of cancer survivors and patients feel that.

After my colonoscopy, they were able to tell me immediately that they thought that I had cancer. They saw what looked like bleeding tumor in my colon and that was the cause of the anemia.

Things started to move fast. My mom died from breast cancer. Having cancer in my family, I was shocked but not surprised to hear about cancer, if that makes sense. 

In the weeks, months, and years really since that time, I really thought that I knew what cancer could do to a family. I was 16 when my mom was diagnosed and 25 when she died. But it’s different to be the patient and it’s also different to have little kids. There’s a different level of anxiety.

We have a shared experience that we didn’t have before. I just want to talk to her about her experience. I went with her to get chemo. I just wanted to talk to her about it and about her own feelings. I want to dig in with her.

Treatment

I went with CAPOX because [with] FOLFOX, you get a chemo pump that is on your body for 24 hours. For my family, it just felt like if there was an option where I didn’t have the chemo on my body, [that] is better for my family in terms of having little kids.

Oxaliplatin was the infusion and capecitabine is an oral pill. It was a three-week cycle. I would get the infusion, start the chemo pills on the first day of the cycle, I would have two weeks of pills, have a week off, and then start again.

Side effects from chemotherapy

The worst for me was nausea. I didn’t throw up a lot, but I was very, very nauseous. For me, nausea always was worse when I wasn’t eating and chemo did not make me want to eat anything.

Whatever anti-nausea I was on it, I almost associated it with nausea, if that makes sense. I would take it at the beginning of my chemo cycle. It was like a psychosomatic response to that pill.

I didn’t advocate for myself enough to ask my doctor if there [were] other types of anti-nausea. I was taking a THC tincture that helped to isolate the munchies. I would take that and it would help my hunger.

Walking was really helpful. I experienced pretty serious neuropathy in my feet and my hands, but also just muscle. I don’t know if this is technically neuropathy, but my muscles would basically clench.

Enrolling in a clinical trial

Early on, my doctor said, “We’re going to try to get you into this clinical trial,” to ward off recurrence. It’s a really big trial.

A clinical trial nurse approached me about it. When I signed the initial paperwork to get enrolled, pretty soon after my very last chemo, I started receiving pills that I took every day for three years.

In addition to that, quarterly blood work and then meet with my doctor periodically [via] virtual appointments and in person a little bit more frequently. I’m still on the trial even though I’m no longer taking the pill. I’m still enrolled [and] doing research. The blood work has slowed down as well as the appointments, but I’m still continuing to communicate with the team.

Words of advice

Listen to your body. I really wish I had. 

People are really scared of a colonoscopy because you have the prep. It’s not comfortable. The idea of a colonoscopy makes folks squeamish. It’s not a big deal when it comes down to it. It’s so important.

Colonoscopies are one of the most effective ways to find colon cancer. They’ve now changed the screening age to 45.

Bright Spot Network

I had really, really good medical care. Despite their best efforts, the social workers who were so helpful in so many ways really couldn’t point me to resources for me as a new parent who was navigating this experience and navigating it for my kids.

As we know, being a cancer patient doesn’t just happen to the patient. It’s the whole family, the whole community that’s being affected. If you’re a parent of little kids, then kids are affected, too

I wasn’t able to find the resources. To be fair, it’s not that they didn’t exist, but they existed on sites for other cancer types. I’m a colon cancer patient.

That made the very terrifying experience of being a young cancer patient a really alienating one as well. And that’s so true for young adult cancer patients in general. That’s my entrance into that alienation, I guess. 

Then I had a nutritionist connect me to another new mom with cancer, Aimee Barnes. We became fast friends and reflected a lot [on] how there [weren’t] resources for parents who were navigating a cancer diagnosis, even though we know that this is a key part of the cancer patient experience for young parents. From there, Bright Spot Network was launched.