My journey to MD Anderson began in November 2012, when I came down with what I thought was a 24-hour stomach flu. My doctor referred me to a gastrointestinal specialist, who prescribed a probiotic.

When my upset stomach still hadn’t gone away a month later, he scheduled a colonoscopy. That’s when he discovered a tumor in my intestines so large that he couldn’t complete the procedure. A CT scan confirmed the presence of a tumor...