When Anastasia Sevriukova archetypal noticed blood in her stool at age 25, she didn't inform anyone at archetypal — not her then-boyfriend or her mom.
Her Google hunt narrowed the logic downward to either colon malignancy — which seemed extremely improbable because of her deficiency of family former — or hemorrhoids.
"I Googled 'I had oysters. Did the casing cut my intestine?'" Sevriukova, now 27, told Business Insider. She tried hemorrhoid creams that didn't work.
When the bleeding persisted for months, she saw a chief attention doctor in September 2024, who put her on a four-month waitlist to see a GI.
In the meantime, Sevriukova kept living her existence in St. Louis, Missouri. She worked as an engineer for Boeing's armed forces branch. In her liberated time, she learned to watercolor and had one of her paintings displayed at a local exhibition.
Even at the end of 2024, whenever she was told that she'd be laid off from Boeing in mid-January 2025, things were looking up. Shortly after, Sevriukova, who is Ukrainian, was offered a stance at a San Francisco startup evolving drones to be used by Ukraine in the ongoing war — a aspiration job. Weeks later, she got engaged.
"The entire duration was a rollercoaster," she said. Between plans to commencement the new job, move to a new city, and eventually build a family alongside her now-fiancé, Sevriukova was enthusiastic concerning the future.
Then, four days following the engagement, she was diagnosed alongside stage 4 colon cancer.
"Everything had to beautiful much halt since I was very, extremely sick," she said. "It was really difficult to obtain that I need to obtain a interrupt for now."
She idea she was tired since of work
In the months foremost up to her scheduled GI project in January 2025, Sevriukova frequently felt extremely fatigued. "I was akin 'I'm fair tired from work, I have to do a lot,'" she said.
Then there was the date night a week before the doctor's visit. She and her fiancé went to a wine-and-pizza bar. Suddenly, Sevriukova felt drunk from one glass.
After her diagnosis, she learned that she had anemia, a average indication of colon cancer. She had a hemoglobin flat of 8 g/dL (a normal range for women is 12 to 15.5 g/dL).
A CT scan revealed her phase 4 colon malignancy diagnosis, and explained her emotion drunk off one drink: It was a sign of her liver not functioning properly, since the malignancy had dispersed to it.
Given her diagnosis, Sevriukova declined her job offer. The brace moved to Rochester, Minnesota, anywhere Sevriukova's mother lives. Upon seeing her new oncologist, she was put on an metal infusion before starting malignancy treatment. She additionally underwent familial evaluation and learned she had no inclination for cancer, specified as Lynch syndrome.
"It was a blow of bad luck," she said.
A breakneck decision concerning her forthcoming fertility
Sevriukova's oncologist told her that she would most apt endure her capability to have kids following flank effects from chemotherapy.
Because he wanted to commencement her care correct away, he gave her two weeks to recover and freeze her eggs. Sevriukova was referred to the Mayo Clinic and decided to go through alongside the procedure.
"It was extremely physically and emotionally demanding," Sevriukova said. "I was additionally trying to procedure at the identical time, the fact that any eggs they can get, that's all they got." She had her egg extraction in March 2025. Two days later, she started chemotherapy and antibody therapy, which her doctors selected following a liver biopsy identified features of her tumor applicable to treatment.
By that point, she was exhausted from two weeks of hormone therapy to create as many eggs as possible, affirmative the common bloodwork and ultrasound appointments during the monitoring phase. The egg retrieval itself was additionally achy and led to spotting by the period she began malignancy treatment.
"Yet, I do not regret it at all," Sevriukova said. "It was the finest decision I've made."
She took a interrupt from the two treatments in June 2025, whenever she was prepped for operation on her colon and the facility of a hepatic artery infusion (HAI) pump, which channels chemotherapy medication immediately into the liver.
There were complications alongside the surgery. She had a rare bowel leak since the incision in her colon was not sealed properly, foremost to an contamination in her abdomen. "That is likely the most ache I have informed in my life," she said, spending 20 days in the hospital. The resulting operation remaining Sevriukova alongside scars and a stoma bag, a discarded gathering pocket exterior of her abdomen.
"I could not halt crying for days, and the nurses didn't equal cognize what to do, how to console me," she said. "My build doesn't appearance akin what it used to appearance akin a twelvemonth ago, and build depiction is a huge, huge aspect of a young woman's life."
She needed a liver transplant
From the beginning, Sevriukova had "too many tumors to count" on her liver. Even whenever her scans were clear, the tumors would quickly resurface the instant she stopped chemo. "I never cognize whenever the malignancy decides to mutate and obtain over," she said.
Sevriukova was eventually capable to get a liver transplant in June 2026, which remaining her cancer-free for three months. Then, in August 2026, a CT scan revealed a few small tumors on her lungs. She volition shortly resume chemotherapy and antibody therapy.
Sevriukova has gradually adjusted to her new normal. She stated that whenever she's in treatment, her mom, sister, and fiancé obtain turns staying alongside her at the hospital and talking to doctors on her behalf.
The side effects of treatment have been so debilitating that Sevriukova can't activity — item she established devastating at the commencement of treatment. Instead, she's taking a complete semester of device discipline courses from a local community college, alongside the aim of getting her master's and advancing her career.
Still, she can never get completely used to the nausea and appetite defeat correct following all chemo treatment. "You fair have to continually rotate alongside the punches," she said. "Right now I'm a small additional used to those punches than I was at the beginning, but it's motionless really, really difficult."
She stated the cognition changed her emotionally. It's additionally made her acknowledge how taboo colon malignancy is, from talking concerning symptoms akin rectal bleeding to living alongside a stoma bag.
"Even correct now, it's a small uncomfortable to say," she said. "It's so susceptible and makes it so difficult to conversation concerning it, to bring it up to friends, to family, but it have to be done."
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Julia is a elder health newsman at Business Insider. Julia covers a broad range of topics, including the rise of colon cancer cases among young people, the distinctive challenges modern parents face, and the expanding trend of Gen Zers abstaining from social media. She additionally writes concerning fitness, nutrition, longevity, and the routines of extremely prosperous group for Business Insider’s Power Hours series. She’s published interviews with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Serena Williams, Esther Perel, Bill Nye, Naomi Watts, and James Van Der Beek.Julia's activity has appeared on the BBC, CBS, Bloomberg Radio, Morning Brew, Fast Company, and the Daily Flash. She has additionally moderated panel discussions at Nasdaq and Duke University, and appeared on the podcasts Open to Debate, Airtalk, The Evan Bray Show, and The Last Show alongside David Cooper. Prior to this role, Julia was an learning and individual betterment publishing company on the Business Insider Reviews squad and a sex and relationships publishing company at Cosmopolitan and BuzzFeed, respectively. You can say hi to Julia at [email protected] and inspect out additional of her activity on her website.
