Cancer was once thought to be a disease of the old. More young patients are dying from it now

CLINICAL TRIAL WAS NEW LIFELINE

For Spill-Bonito, now 31, she jumped at the chance to undergo a clinical trial for a drug which could activate her immune system to fight the cancer without the need for surgery, chemotherapy or radiation.

She was treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York – the first hospital in the United States to open a centre specifically for young onset colorectal cancer patients.

“We’re asking about risk factors, exposures, diet changes, antibiotic use, other things that we were thinking about that have changed throughout this time,” said Dr Robin Mendelsohn, co-director of the facility’s Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers.

“I think in the end, it’s probably not going to be one thing because I think we would have figured it out by now and it’s probably a combination of factors together,” she added.

By the ninth round of treatment, doctors told Spill-Bonito that her disease had completely disappeared.

The treatment not only saved her life, but gave her a future.

Against all odds, she gave birth again – this time to a daughter – a year ago.

“I didn’t want to let her go, like, ever. I could cry right now just thinking about it – and it didn’t only change my life, it impacted my husband’s life, my son’s,” she said.

“So going on this clinical trial – it’s completely changed all of our lives.”