A patient advocate for cancer research
This is the first part of a guest blog post written by Dave Dubin. Read the second part here. 1997 seems so far away. I’m 29, still a strapping 200 plus pounds, playing soccer, managing the business, recently married with first house and first son. As much as “family history of colon cancer” is written all over the chart, I’m sent away by my primary physician when I have symptoms. A few months later, symptoms of blood in the stool and cramping don’t go away. A gastroenterologist finally confirms stage three colon cancer. I have what will become the first of several surgeries at Mt Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, and the start of what would become much more than a patient-doctor relationship with Gastroenterologist Blair Lewis and Brian Katz, my surgeon. Three years after my surgery, my older brother develops colon cancer. Since he started getting screened by Blair Lewis after my episode, his is caught earlier. Brian Katz is his surgeon as well, and since laparoscopic surgery is now more prevalent at Mt Sinai, his is less invasive and scars are smaller. No chemo. I notice how my parents have a difficult time watching their son go through this. […]