Time is critical - timing is everything
- Abdominal Cancers Alliance
- Jul 1
- 2 min read
By Bo Plantz
Maryland
February 2025
Every day I talk to lots of folks about cancer - about my own experience, about the challenges the abdominal cancers community faces, about Cytoreductive Surgery and Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy (CRS/HIPEC), about the Abdominal Cancers Alliance and the exciting things we’re doing. Invariably, one way or another, those conversations find their way back to the common theme of “time”. For anyone diagnosed with any cancer, time is a precious thing. And it is especially true for folks facing these cancers that spread throughout the abdomen. Time is critical - timing is everything.
For me, getting to an experienced care provider who understood my cancer and could give me the treatment I needed meant that I was able to build a life with my wife and start a family!
My wife and I got married in October 2018. That November I had an emergency appendectomy for what was believed to be a run-of-the-mill case of appendicitis. In early December, I was diagnosed with stage four appendix cancer. That set us on a course that is familiar to so many folks who have faced abdominal cancers: lots of scans, lots of bloodwork, exploratory procedure here-and-there, and CRS/HIPEC in February 2019.
This was not how we planned to spend our first months as newly-weds. In fact, we still make jokes today about how we had to cancel honeymoon plans to adjust for treatment, and instead spent our honeymoon in the hospital recovering from HIPEC! But with more than six years’ perspective behind us now, we are deeply grateful for how our story played out. I’m still here, for one thing(!). My wife and I have been able to build our life together, buy a home, spend time with family, go on trips (no rescheduled honeymoon yet [maybe someday!]), and start a family. Almost four years after I was diagnosed, we welcomed a beautiful baby girl into our lives. Without getting the care I needed, none of that would have been possible and I never would have met my daughter. I wouldn’t get to chase her around, make pancakes with her, catch fireflies, play music together….
We appreciate that our story would have been much different if we were not so lucky to find the right care early in our cancer journey.
Abdominal cancers are often poorly understood by the public and care providers. And many patients are still getting the care they need too late. Unfortunately this is the case for many patients who are diagnosed with different cancers that spread throughout the abdomen. But the Abdominal Cancers Alliance is working to change this. And raising awareness through our stories can be so helpful to make more people aware of these advanced cancers.
