Mom, 31, Recalls ‘Unbearable’ Colon Cancer Symptom That Doctor Dismissed in Pregnancy

When Geraldine Levano, 31, was pregnant with her second son, the acid reflux didn’t alarm her. But it got to a point where “I couldn’t even take the pain,” Levano of Houston, Texas, tells TODAY.com. Working as a medical assistant, she asked her co-workers and OB-GYN if her reflux was normal. “And of course they’re like ... it’s just the baby, you’re fine,” Levano recalls. A few times when the pain became “unbearable,” she went to the hospital. But they just reassured her that her baby looked totally healthy and her symptoms were normal during pregnancy. Medication didn’t do much. “Nothing would help,” she says. “It just felt like like a burning sensation with pain, and I just felt like something was stuck there.” So she toughed it out until early April 2022, about two weeks after her son was born, when she felt a painful lump right under her ribcage on her left side. And he was still having reflux. She ended up seeing the doctor whose office she works in now, who ordered an ultrasound. What should have been a 15-minute appointment quickly turned into an hourslong ordeal as it became clear the doctors needed more imaging. The next day, her pain went from a 10 to a 20, Levano recalls. “I couldn’t even walk,” she says, “I couldn’t even carry my baby, so I went to the hospital.” Before they even took her vitals, the doctor took a look at her ultrasound and said, “You have cancer. We just need to figure out where,” Levano recalls. Testing Revealed Stage 3 Colorectal Cancer After a CT scan, Levano was told her cancer was in her colon. That imaging revealed a large mass, about 8 centimeters, that was nearly obstructing her colon, Dr. Amit Agarwal, professor and colorectal surgeon with UTHealth Houston and Memorial Hermann Hospital, tells TODAY.com. He also saw that her tumor was putting pressure on her stomach, which explained Levano’s acid reflux. “The mass was actually pushing up on the stomach from behind it,” explains Agarwal, who was Levano’s surgeon. “Everything that she would eat was not necessarily being digested, so the acid would come back up.” While acid reflux is a common and normal symptom during pregnancy, he says, it should not continue after pregnancy. Looking back, Levano says she’d also lost weight, which she’d attributed to nausea, and had “always suffered with constipation,” which could have also been signs of the cancer. Agarwal notes that she was also anemic, another symptom that could have easily been attributed to her pregnancy or colon cancer. “But after pregnancy, when you still continue to have those things, that’s when the light bulb goes off,” he says. Having previously worked for a gastroenterologist, Levano was able to get a colonoscopy the following week. But because the mass in her colon was so large, “he was too afraid to be able to go all the way in,” she says. The tumor “was blocking pretty much my whole colon,” she adds. So, she met with Agarwal to decide on her next steps. Because of the size of the mass and the near-total obstruction it was causing, Agarwal knew that Levano needed surgery before chemotherapy. Surgery Followed by Months of Treatment Her surgery was scheduled about two weeks later, and she woke up from it with a surprise: a colostomy bag, which collects waste from the colon. Agarwal had told her there was a chance she might need one, she says, but he wouldn’t be sure until he did the surgery. Of course, she had hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but that wasn’t how things went. “Anytime you get chemotherapy, you weaken the tissue,” Agarwal explains. So, if he had reconnected her colon during that surgery, the chemotherapy she was going to receive afterward could have either broken down the connection or narrowed it, causing a bowel obstruction. For safety purposes, Agarwal decided to give her the temporary colostomy bag and wait until after she went through chemotherapy to repair her colon. It was an added challenge for Levano, who spent the next few months going through chemotherapy before having the bag removed in December that year. Around that same time, her mom was diagnosed with endometrial cancer, adding another layer to an emotional time. Levano was trying to balance “a newborn baby, a 3-year-old baby, and then my mom trying to be a mom to me, and me trying to be a mom to my own kids,” she says. “It was very, very hard.” The chemo often left her feeling fatigued and nauseous, with neuropathic pain in her hands and legs that made it tough to even walk. During that time, she leaned on her family for help, including her husband and dad. And her sister “was pretty much a second mom to my kids for a while,” Levano says. After chemotherapy, she underwent immunotherapy. Compared to chemo, the immunotherapy side effects were “minimal,” Levano says. And in August of 2023, she rang the bell to celebrate the end of her treatment. A Surprise Lynch Syndrome Diagnosis Today, Levano is celebrating more than three years in remission and doing “really good,” she says, adding that she just had a clean colonoscopy and endoscopy. Mentally and emotionally, however, she is still grappling with her experience. “It does break my heart,” Levano says, to see so many people out there with cancer, especially young people, who haven’t had treatment as successful as hers. “I’ll never question God, and I’m so grateful that I’m still here,” she says, “but then it hurts me for the people that are still going through it or that don’t make it.” The weight of wondering why her cancer was treated while others aren’t so lucky takes a toll, she says. Her recovery was complicated by a diagnosis of Lynch syndrome, a genetic condition that increases the risk for certain types of cancer — particularly colon and uterine cancer — at a young age. So, after her colon cancer experience, she decided to have a partial hysterectomy. And she’ll continue to get additional yearly screenings, including colonoscopies. “Yes, the prep is disgusting,” she says. “But at the end of the day, if it can save you, do it.” The idea that she may have passed this genetic risk onto her sons, now 4 and 7, has caused her some anxiety about their health. “Any little sickness, any little pain that they’re having, I was taking them to the hospital,” she says. Since then, she’s “relaxed a little bit,” she says, “but to this day, it still affects me.” Ultimately, Levano hopes her story inspires others to advocate for themselves when something feels off. “If you feel like something is wrong, never take no for an answer,” she says.