Molly McMaster:
The Woman Behind “The Colossal Colon Tour”
Finding innovative ways to heighten the awareness of colon cancer, this young
survivor is putting her crusade in the spotlight.
By Molly McMaster
I was living in Colorado, attending Colorado State University. It was a warm morning in July 1998 when I first felt like something was wrong. In the middle of a neighborhood-wide water war while babysitting, I remember telling the oldest to keep an eye on things while I ran into the house. My belly was aching like I really had “to go.”
I ran into the bathroom as quickly as I could, sitting down with no time to spare. Nothing came out. I waited and waited.
Still nothing. Finally I gave up, but when I stood to flush, the bowl was bright red.
I called my doctor immediately and told the nurse about the abdominal pain and blood, but she quickly settled my nerves. “Probably just hemorrhoids or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Nothing to worry about. Come in tomorrow and we’ll have a look anyway.” I was relieved to know that it was nothing serious and went back out to play with the kids.
The next morning, feeling much better, I cancelled my appointment. Who wants someone poking around back there anyway?
As the months wore on, the dull ache in my belly turned into a sharp piercing sensation, and I became a regular in my doctor’s office. “Molly, I don’t know why you’re crying,” she’d said while shooting me up with Compozine during one my visits when the pain had been excruciating. “You’re just constipated.”
Her diagnosis eventually turned into IBS, and she finally sent me in for X-rays to “rule out anything more serious.”
They showed substantial stool build-up in my large intestine.
By early 1999 I could hardly walk from the pain in my belly. I was always tired and my appetite had diminished to practically nothing, which was fine because I threw up anything solid that I ate anyway. Being a female who’d put on the “freshman 15”, I was thrilled to finally be losing weight and didn’t think much about only drinking water and one milkshake per day.
Finally, I was referred to a gastroenterologist who felt my belly and back, and confirmed IBS. I gave in. My stomach burned and ached, and no one would help. I wanted my Mommy’s cold wash cloth and ginger ale, so I drove home to upstate New York in hopes it would help.
Nine days after being told by a gastroenterologist that I had IBS, I found myself on the operating table to remove a total blockage from my large intestine. My surgeon removed a tumor the size of two fists — colon cancer, stage II. I was 22 years old. I was devastated. Why me? But my sadness turned to anger every time someone said, “You’re too young to have colon cancer,” and eventually my anger turned to motivation. I wanted to show the world that anyone could get colon cancer, and I wanted to do it in such a crazy way that no one could forget. In the summer of 2000, I inline skated back to Colorado — 2000 miles, 71 days and 100 wheels.
During my trek, dubbed “Rolling to Recovery,” I received an e-mail from a young woman in Little Rock, Ark. Her name was Amanda and at 24, she had been diagnosed with stage III colon cancer. I had found a sister. Until the day I received her e-mail, I hadn’t known anyone else as young as I was with the disease.
Amanda and I became Internet buddies, e-mailing a few times a week. We didn’t always write about colon cancer, but we seemed to understand each other better because of it.
One day in late 2001, I got an e-mail from another stranger. “You don’t know me, but my name is Hannah. I’m Amanda’s cousin.” She said that Amanda wasn’t doing well. Her doctors weren’t giving her much hope, but more than anything she wanted to meet me. Would I fly to Little Rock?
I was stunned. Through all of her e-mails, Amanda had sounded so upbeat and because I would survive, I had just assumed she would too.
I spent three days with Amanda, sharing stories and comparing our diagnoses. At times, I felt guilty that I was the one surviving while Amanda, who had two beautiful young children, was losing her life. “I wish I could be right there next to you raising awareness,” she told me one night. At that moment, I promised her that I would continue to do it for both of us.
The following week, we appeared together on “The Today Show” to prove that anyone could get colon cancer. After the show, Katie Couric told me that if I could think of anything crazy for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, let her know and she’d have me back on the show. The wheels in my head began to turn.
Amanda died on Jan. 1, 2002, and she left behind a friend with a renewed passion to fight. I wanted to do something crazy again, but this time it had to be even bigger, and funny, so people would remember and talk about it — the first step to getting them screened. I also wanted it to be geared toward young people so that they could push their families to get screened when they turned 50, but also arm themselves with the knowledge they would need if they were one of the unlucky young ones — an advantage that neither Amanda nor I had. One morning in the shower, the Colossal Colon was born.
Together, Hannah and I built the Colossal Colon in Amanda’s honor. It was a 40-foot-long, four-foot tall, crawlthrough replica of a colon, complete with various colon diseases, polyps, cancers and even hemorrhoids.
In March 2002, Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month, Katie Couric made good on her promise and had me, Hannah and the Colossal Colon on the show.
“CoCo,” as we like to call her, has been touring all over the country since then, educating millions of people, and Hannah and I have started The Colon Club, a nonprofit organization with a mission to teach people about colon cancer, especially young people, in crazy, out-ofthe- box ways. We continue to come up with stunts to make the public look once, twice and again, and learn that anyone can get colon cancer — the disease that can be stopped before it even starts.
Our latest project, the 2005 Colondar, is a calendar of beautiful young women under the age of 50 who have all been affected by the disease. Many of the women show their scars, wearing cutoff shirts or bikinis, and all of them show that you can get colon cancer at any age and any stage, and you can go on to live a wonderful life. The 2005 Colondar can be purchased at www.colondar.com, and 100 percent of our profits from sales will be sedo further the educational projects of The Colon Club.
In our lifetime, a million people under the age of 50 will be diagnosed with colon cancer. Many will be misdiagnosed, because the most common myth is that you have to be a 50-year-old white guy to get it. Please remember my story, and Amanda and the hundreds of other young people who have e-mailed their stories to me over the years. There are so many of us out there. And if you happen to hear about a giant colon orbiting the moon to educate the solar system about colon cancer, don’t be surprised if The Colon Club has something to do with it!