I am not a physician nor a cancer expert, so I can’t speak to the “clear” colonoscopy and 18-month-later cancer with mets diagnosis other than to say this: My layperson understanding of colon cancer is that it tends to be slow-growing, especially in older people. This is why the guidelines for colonoscopy recommend that it’s done every 10 years — that’s the time considered adequate, for people at general risk, between a clear screening and catching something you’d want to remove.

As the daughter of a cancer patient, I’ve often managed (and questioned) my mother’s medical care. If my mother had had a “clean” screen and a stage IV diagnosis 18 months later, I’d have serious questions too. I would ask for the reports of both her original “clean” colonoscopy and the diagnosing colo. I would ask for any additional reports from her diagnosing and treating physicians. Those physicians can best tell you how long the tumor had been growing and whether/why it might have been missed on the “clean” colo. In addition, I would consider any other signs or symptoms my mother had leading up to her “clean” screen, and whether and how they were addressed by her physician(s) before the cancer diagnosis. Again, this is just my personal reaction, how I consider things as an information seeker. Everyone is different and many people might feel differently.

Earlier this year there was news about gene discoveries in relation to Type 1 Diabetes, but no test is clinically available yet. You can be sure, however, that as soon as there is one, we’ll be talking about it here