A Tale of Three Patients

By Mat Edelson

Washington, D.C.

August 19, 2025

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Hi, I'm Mat. My cancer story is really the story of three people. My mom Claire, my wife Deb, and me. And I think each has some bearing here. My mom was my best friend. Unfortunately, she had one flaw. She was scared to death of doctors. I don't think she saw one until her colon cancer was discovered for the last 20 years of her life. And as far as any kind of preventive testing like colonoscopies, I don't think she ever had one. It became kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. She was afraid of going to a doc for so long that she convinced

herself that if she did finally go, they would find something. And so they did.

When an abdominal blockage sent her to the ER and a diagnosis of late-stage colon cancer, treatments weren't as good then as they are now. Mom died in 2003 at age 76, and boy do I miss her.

The lesson to me was pretty clear. Get your colonoscopies. If cancer is found, it's often literally nipped in the bud with little or no follow-up treatment needed.

In 2014, my wife Deb's abdomen was bloated. Deb figured it was nothing more than menopause approaching. Except soon after her acupuncturist, also a nurse, put her hand on Deb's belly and said, "You feel like you're 16 weeks pregnant." Days after that, I touched Deb's belly and it felt hard as a rock. I asked her, "You've been working out?"

Deb's not one to waste time. Within days, she was diagnosed with stage three

ovarian cancer. When it's advanced like this, it's one of the nastiest abdominal cancers around. It's a coin toss. A 50/50 chance of whether you're going to survive.

But my Deb's a fighter. After surgery, she chose the most aggressive chemo possible, something I don't think I'd be able to endure. And 11 years later, she's here and she's doing fine. She's also advocating for women to get checked early, especially because so many doctors mistake ovarian cancer symptoms for something far more minor.

For me, Deb both reinforced the lessons I learned from mom. get checked regularly or if you have symptoms and if you do have cancer, go after it as hard as you can.

Now, we get to me and the reason I call myself the luckiest unlucky guy around. My routine colonoscopy since mom's death had caught some precancerous polyps, but no one could have predicted what came next. One afternoon in 2019, I was feeling off. Some chills, some

pains in my right side. I did what you generally shouldn't do. I went to the Google machine, as my friend calls it, and looked up the signs for appendicitis.

• Fever. Yeah, I had that. A little

  
  

• Nausea. Yeah, that too.

  
  

• And finally, they told me to touch my right side of my abdomen and see if I felt pain. So, I squeezed. I knew I was in trouble.

A quick trip to the ER confirmed the appendicitis. At 5:00 the next morning, the surgeon

walked in. I asked him if he needed a cup of coffee. He left and he said, "Ah, don't worry. I'm awake." And he was. And a few hours later, it was all over.

Yeah. I was minus an organ I didn't seem to need, but I figured that was the end

of it. Not quite. Two weeks later, sitting at my work desk, my cell phone rang. It was the surgeon, and even he sounded shocked. He said to me, "The pathology on the appendix came back. They found something."

My wife always says, "I'm one in a million." Well, turns out I'm even rarer than that. The type of cancer cell they found in my appendix was literally one in two million.

But it looked like I might get incredibly lucky. The cancer was big enough that it set off the appendicitis, meaning the cancer was caught at a pretty early stage, but it didn't mean I was necessarily in the clear. The cancer had gotten right up to the wall of the appendix, meaning there was a chance, the small, that it had spread beyond the appendix. I needed advice, expert advice from a cancer expert on what to do next. Enter Dr. Sardi.

You know, as a medical reporter, I've been around a lot of really good surgeons, and they're a rather confident bunch, and they can get a bit annoyed when a patient like me

asks too many questions. But not Dr. Sardi. Oh, he has amazing confidence because he has great skill, but he also has infinite kindness and patience. And even though his specialty is called high-tech treatment, the kind of chemo used on people with very advanced cancer, he didn't dismiss me as being someone who just needed a less advanced follow-up.

Dr. Sardi realized I personally had a very big decision to make. We discussed it at length. I could be done with any more treatment, no more surgery, as the likelihood was the appendix removal took out all the cancer. or I could be short or at least a lot more sure and get another surgery which he would do. This surgery called a right hemicolectomy would remove the lymph nodes in the colon closest to where my appendix had been. They then

would test those nodes in the lab and that would tell me whether the cancer had spread and I would need chemo or radiation or any other kind of follow-up treatment or if I was truly in the clear.

Dr. Sardi gently explained this option. It was routine surgery done laparoscopically, meaning the surgical tools went in through a small belly incision so they wouldn't have to slice me open. Recovery time and postsurgical risks were minimal. The pathology would come back quickly. And most importantly, I'd had the answer that I was looking for one way or the other.

And that's exactly what happened. The surgery was a breeze and thankfully I got the best

possible outcome. The lymph nodes came back negative. And I heard a phrase that my wife says is the greatest thing a cancer patient can hear. It's called NED, as in no evidence

of disease.

I could end my story here, but I won't because I'd be missing the most important part. Cancer may leave your body, but it never leaves your mind.

Sometimes the reminders are physical, sometimes mental. Like every time you go

for follow-up blood work and scans and worry about the results and boy do I know about that too many times I've seen this cancer patients complete their last chemo or radiation treatment they ring the bell so many cancer treatment centers have and they're told they're

good to go only they're not far from it.

What Dr. Sardi has created with the Abdominal Cancers Alliance is the ultimate support no matter where you are in your cancer journey. You may be at the very beginning, like I was because of my mom concerned that your family history means you are destined to get

cancer. Or you may be newly diagnosed and wondering which treatment options are best for you to survive. You may be in the middle of a chemo cycle or radiation cycle and realizing the toll it's taking on you and your loved ones. You're trying to figure out how you and they can best cope. Whether it's finding food you actually want to eat or just getting transportation to the infusion center. Or you may be trying to move forward after treatment has been completed and your mind and perhaps your body has been changed forever and you just need to talk with a support group. people who can look you in the eye and say, "I know I've been there, too."

All I can say now that I've been there too as well is we all need a team to truly thrive before, during, and after cancer. A team to get us the right diagnosis, the right treatment, and the best odds of survival and living our lives to the fullest.

Dr. Sardi, his colleagues across the country and the Abdominal Cancers Alliance do

exactly that. And the best part is they don't charge a penny. Words cannot express how grateful I am that it exists and it has my full support.

Thank you so much for listening to my story. I hope it helps.