Mom, 35, with colon cancer details the ‘weird’ symptoms doctors dismissed for months

Jessica Wozniak thought that some of the symptoms of norovirus were lingering. They were signs of Stage 4 colon cancer.

March 17, 2025, 10:45 AM EDT / Source: TODAY

By Meghan Holohan

Weeks after grappling with norovirus, Jessica Wozniak’s stomach felt off. She continued experiencing cramps, pains and occasional bouts of diarrhea.

“I was like something’s weird with my stomach, but maybe I still have some lingering effects of the norovirus or the flu, or maybe I ate something,” the 36-year-old from Wheaton, Illinois, tells TODAY.com. “I just kept feeling not very well.”

After an ultrasound, she was diagnosed with a cyst, but her symptoms continued, and a CT scan detected inflammation in Wozniak’s bowel. A colonoscopy found that she had cancer.

“(The doctor) says, ‘Yeah, you have two masses in your colon that are cancerous,” she recalls. “It was quite a shock.” ‘I wasn’t feeling normal’

In February 2024, Wozniak contracted the norovirus.

“It was vomiting, diarrhea,” she says. “It was pretty graphic and bad.”

After Jessica Wozniak experienced stomach cramping for months, doctors found that she had Stage 4 colon cancer. Courtesy Jessica Wozniak

While she slowly began feeling better, she never completely rebounded and “wasn’t feeling normal in my digestive system,” she explains. Wozniak and her husband were planning on having another child to join their daughter, and Wozniak had stopped taking her birth control pills. She wondered if that contributed to how she felt.

“These things all happened at the same time,” she says. “I gave it a couple of weeks.”

Her GI symptoms lingered and worsened. When she had a telehealth visit in April, she mentioned them to her doctor.

“I said, ‘Gosh, I’m getting stomach cramps every morning. While I was eating breakfast, I just doubled over with cramps,’” Wozniak recalls. “They asked me some questions and were like, ‘Oh, it could be ovarian cysts. I think you should go get a CT.’”

Wozniak went to the emergency room, and the wait time was so long that she decided to schedule with one of her providers and went to the midwife group who delivered her daughter.

“They were a little bit dismissive, like, ‘Well, yeah, this is an ovarian cyst. That sounds exactly what it is. It’s going to be a lot of pain. You probably have gas pain, too,’” she says.

They ordered an ultrasound and assured her the cysts would “rupture of go away on their own” and she would be “fine.” The technician detected an ovarian cyst but noticed something on the ultrasound on her left side but felt unsure of what it was.

At one point after that visit, it seemed like the cyst had burst because Wozniak experienced “terrible pain.” But her stomach cramps never improved.

“Every time I had to have a bowel movement, it was pain, it was cramping,” she says.

Her primary care doctor ordered a CT, which found bowel inflammation. That prompted a colonoscopy. Even still, the doctor didn’t seem overly worried.

“The gastroenterologist was like, ‘I don’t think this is cancer,’” Wozniak says.

But when she woke from her colonoscopy, Wozniak learned she did have cancer.

“I was diagnosed early June of 2024 with colon cancer,” she says.

While Wozniak knew her paternal grandparents had colon cancer, they were in their 60s when they were diagnosed. Her paternal aunt learned she had colon cancer at 47, and Wozniak’s father received a colon cancer diagnosis around the same time as Wozniak. It wasn’t until she was diagnosed that she learned there could be a genetic link.

“No one had ever told me that there was a genetic test I could do,” she says. “I was diagnosed with Lynch syndrome.”

Lynch syndrome is an inherited genetic mutation that increases one’s risk of developing a variety of early-onset cancers, including colon cancer.

“It’s still a shock to me that … this didn’t cross anyone’s mind, and here I was at 35 being diagnosed with Stage 4 (colon cancer),” she says. “This really shouldn’t happen. We should have known. There’s things out there to learn about sooner.”

Jessica Wozniak enjoys riding horses and did it as much as she could before her diagnosis. Courtesy Jessica Wozniak People with Lynch syndrome often undergo a variety of cancer screenings in an effort to detect any cancers at an earlier stage, and they also might receive different treatment after diagnosis. For example, Dr. Matthew Yurgelun previously told TODAY.com that immunotherapies — treatments that bolster the immune system to fight the cancer — work “exceptionally well,” in many Lynch syndrome-related cancers.

Wozniak’s doctors recommended a treatment plan that included four rounds of two immunotherapy drugs, which she began in July. A CT scan after those treatments showed that her liver metastases, were shrinking but another mass in her sigmoid colon appeared to be growing. Her doctors wanted to shrink and reduce most of her masses so they could perform surgery with clear margins.

“My doctor’s recommendations was to continue the immunotherapy and add on chemotherapy,” Wozniak says.

But before Wozniak could start the new treatment, her insurance at the time, Cigna, denied it and recommended that she only do chemotherapy.

“They said, ‘No, no, no, immunotherapy is not working,’” she says. “My doctor said, ‘It is. Here’s the scan that shows the liver (masses) getting smaller.’”

Wozniak learned she could appeal, but she felt stunned by her insurance.

“I thought, ‘Who are you to decide that for me? You’re not my doctor,’” she says. “It made me really upset. It made me really angry.”

She and her family took to social media to ask what she could do, and people offered suggestions, including working with her human resources department at work on the appeal, which she did. She also reached out to the pharmaceutical company asking if she could pay for it directly. NBC Chicago covered her story in February.

Wozniak soon learned her treatment would be covered by her insurance.

Jessica Wozniak learned that she had Lynch syndrome, a inherited genetic mutation that causes people to develop certain cancers and at a younger age. Courtesy Jessica Wozniak

Cigna provided TODAY.com with a statement:

“We have developed clinical guidelines to ensure that all patients receive safe and appropriate care. Our guidelines are based on published medical literature, leading clinical experts, and for oncology, the guidelines of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Our physicians work collaboratively with treating physicians to adapt these guidelines to each person’s unique health needs and circumstances. Patients and their physicians can ask for expedited reviews for urgent needs, which are completed within 72 hours. Our processes worked as intended for Ms. Wozniak and her treatment was approved within 24 hours.”

‘You really have to speak up’

Wozniak is undergoing her eighth round of treatment. Afterward, doctors want to perform an MRI to see how the masses have responded. There’s a tumor near her pelvic wall that doctors worry they cannot yet remove with clean margins. Since July, she’s hoped that she could undergo surgery.

“They’ll remove the majority of my colon except a small piece at the end and they’ll re-route my small intestine to take over that bit,” she says. She will likely also undergo a combination of resection and ablation in her liver.

Wozniak has six masses in her liver, but the surgeon believes they can be addressed. At some point, she will have a hysterectomy because Lynch syndrome can cause uterine cancers, and she’ll also have her fallopian tubes removed to protect against ovarian cancer.

Having the support of her family while undergoing treatment has helped Jessica Wozniak grapple with some of the tough things she’s faced. Friends and family provided suggestions on how she could address an insurance denial. Courtesy Jessica Wozniak

While facing Stage 4 cancer feels tough at times, Wozniak hopes her story encourages people to fight for their health.

“I hope people learn that they’re their own biggest advocate. That no one is going to do it for you,” she says. “If you don’t agree with something that’s happening or you’re feeling something in your body that other people are denying or saying isn’t there, you really have to speak up.”

https://www.today.com/health/disease/mom-35-colon-cancer-dismissed-symptoms-rcna195834?cid=eml_thisistoday_20250318

We would rather limp than get an ankle brace. Men don’t want to feel or appear weak in any capacity. The stigma of “having something” is often too great for our Black men who are constantly labeled in society already. In addition to being Black, male, this age, this weight, from this place, you now mean to tell me I have X, Y and Z conditions?

The pressure is too great for our Black men who would rather suffer in silence because of this stigma. Dr. Reed believes part of this stigma is affected by a level of shame in being diagnosed with a condition or disease.

Our bloodline is a gateway to the story of our health’s present and future. If your family has a history of high blood pressure it could help inform you on your next steps to either prevention or maintenance of this condition.

Dr. Reed recommends talking to your family once a year about their current and past medical history to get an overview of what’s going on. Awareness can provide you with some prevention strategies to extend your life.

It’s one thing to go to the doctor, but it’s another to be completely knowledgeable about what your doctor said. Men are often passive participants once they hit the doctor’s office.

A brother can go to the doctor and still walk out clueless as to what happened during that visit. Men don’t know how real things can get until it’s too late, so it’s important to ask questions and understand completely why you’re there.

Find a doctor you feel comfortable with.

Guys don’t like discussing anything that’s too personal. We’re not the emotional beings that will give you our whole life story. We get especially private when it comes to our health issues. Finding a physician that you feel comfortable speaking to about your concerns is one of the most important steps to developing a healthy lifestyle. Men, we have to let that guard down. Find a doctor that makes you feel at ease.

Hold community leaders accountable for speaking up.

Anybody who has a vested interest in the community and has power needs to speak up about the importance of health screenings. Dr. Reed speaks to church leaders all the time about how their voice has the potential to affect the outcomes of their congregations. She believes that if you can get them to tithe, fast and volunteer their time, they’ll also work out and treat their bodies as temples as well.

Stop being a guinea pig.

Dr. Reed says that oftentimes men are too passive when they go to the doctor. Men need to start asking questions about what’s exactly going on at every step of the process during their doctor visits. If you’re unsure of something have the doctor write it down for you. Stop them and ask for clarification if they’re going too fast or speaking in medically exclusive ways.

Make it a family affair

It’s a good idea to take a family member to the doctor with you. Dr. Reed says that bringing someone else to the table who loves you will bring out questions that you might not ask. You can’t rely on the medical summary to tell you everything!

Derrick M. Lane is a columnist for BlackDoctor.org, where this article was originally published.

The consequences of putting medical care off, or keeping information from ones doctor, can be dire according to Djordjevic.

“I think the number one problem is missing the early warning signs of a more serious condition,” he explained. “Especially when it comes to ‘silent symptoms,’ such as diagnosing pre-diabetes and other chronic medical conditions that should be addressed as early as possible.”

The other example he gave was prostate cancer, which can be detected with a simple physical exam. “Patients that are diagnosed at an early stage have a much better prognosis than those who show up too late at the doctor.”

By putting those exams off, men may be in much worse condition by the time a disease is caught than they would have been if they had gone in early and regularly.

Rowe explained, “Unfortunately, due to delays and denials, by the time they come, sometimes the disease is no longer treatable. They may have to deal with consequences like dialysis, limb amputations, and sometimes death.”

Different types of cancer can behave very differently. For instance, lung cancer and skin cancer are very different diseases. They grow at different rates and respond to different treatments. This is why people with cancer need treatment that’s aimed at their kind of cancer.

A tumor is an abnormal lump or collection of cells, but not all tumors are cancer. Tumors that aren’t cancer are called benign. Benign tumors can cause problems – they can grow very large and press on healthy organs and tissues. But they can’t grow into (invade) other tissues. And they can’t spread to other parts of the body (metastasize). These tumors are seldom life threatening.

A tumor is an abnormal lump or collection of cells, but not all tumors are cancer.

Tumors that aren’t cancer are called benign. Benign tumors can cause problems – they can grow very large and press on healthy organs and tissues. But they can’t grow into (invade) other tissues. And they can’t spread to other parts of the body (metastasize). These tumors are seldom life threatening.

The process of cancer spreading is called metastasis.

Cancer cells often travel to other parts of the body where they can grow and form new tumors that crowd out normal tissue. This happens when the cancer cells get into the body’s bloodstream or lymph vessels.

No matter where a cancer may spread, it’s always named based on the place where it started. For instance, colon cancer that has spread to the liver is called metastatic colon cancer, not liver cancer. In this case, cancer cells taken from the liver would be the same as those in the colon. They would be treated in the same ways, too.