Shawn Michael, a 48-year-old father of one, posted a YouTube video in which he opened up of his bowel cancer diagnosis and health condition, which has since been seen by over 100,000 people.
Sadly, what he believed was a simple constipation turned out to be a bowel cancer that has since spread to other of his organs. Michael, however, believes his genetics and general good health would give him a “fighting chance” following the treatments he’s been receiving.
Michael experienced troubles passing stools in October 2024 and reached to some over-the counter pills, but when nothing worked, he visited a doctor.
He was sent home with a treatment, but still, something didn’t feel right and he could feel there was something inside his stomach, the Daily Mail reported.
“Two days later I could still physically feel something inside of me,” he said, as per the publication.
Believing he had faecal impaction—a condition where stool becomes stuck in the colon, blocking waste—he attempted to relieve it with a fizzy drink, hoping it would help.
Unfortunately, he was met with unbearable pain. “I took one sip, and it felt like someone shot me in the gut—it was excruciating.”
A CT scan soon revealed a mass in his colon.
“[The nurse] told me the signs pointed to stage four colon cancer,” Michael recalled.
“I’ve been to hospitals before—when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in them with my mum. Nothing happens quickly in medicine unless something is seriously wrong.”
He added: “The only thing I could think about was how do I tell my wife because she’s sitting at home, waiting for me to come home.”
Michael was taken to surgery during which a large part of his colon was removed. Doctors informed him they had also found large cancer-like tumours on his omentum.
“That was actually kind of a lucky break that it had attached to that fatty tissue there,” Michael said.
He continued: “That had been able to help slow down the progression to the other organs.”
By the time the cancer reached stage four, it had spread to his liver, lungs, and spleen. While doctors successfully removed the colon cancer, he is now undergoing chemotherapy to combat the cancer in his other organs.
In a recent social media update, he shared encouraging news—a scan showed “no evidence of disease or active tumors.”
Unfortunately, research indicates that colon cancer cases among people under 50 have been rising in recent years.
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