{"id":637369,"date":"2026-10-05T20:26:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:26:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637369\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T20:26:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T20:26:12","slug":"i-survived-colon-cancer-3-times-this-hidden-syndrome-raises-risk-in-young-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/637369\/","title":{"rendered":"I Survived Colon Cancer 3 Times. This Hidden Syndrome Raises Risk In Young People"},"content":{"rendered":"

At 42, Danielle Ripley-Burgess has survived colon cancer three times. She was first diagnosed at 17<\/a>, then at 25 and then again at 39, making her a part of the trend of colorectal cancer rates surging in younger people<\/a>. The Kansas City, Missouri, mom shared her story with TODAY.com and urged others to speak up about their symptoms.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"DanielleDanielle Ripley-Burgess shares her experience with being diagnosed with colon cancer three times and the syndrome that could be behind it all.Courtesy Danielle Ripley-Burgess<\/p>\n

I had a cancer everyone thought old people get.<\/p>\n

Towards the end of my 8th grade year, when I was 14, I started seeing specks of blood in my stool<\/a> when I\u2019d go to the bathroom. I didn\u2019t know what was happening. I downplayed it and tried to convince myself it was no big deal.<\/p>\n

I thought, I\u2019m eating something red and that\u2019s probably what I see. So I put myself on a \u201cno red foods diet\u201d and stopped eating anything that was red in color: everything from candy to pizza to salsa to raspberry Popsicles.<\/p>\n

It took me a while to accept that I was actually seeing blood, but I still hid it from just about everybody I knew. I was already embarrassed about puberty changes happening, so that on top of this thing was just too much. I didn\u2019t want to be sick and I didn\u2019t feel sick at first.<\/p>\n

But it was nagging at me, so about a year or two later, I did mention something to my mom. We looked it up online, and we saw it was probably hemorrhoids<\/a>. She said blood in stool could also indicate something more serious, but it was something for people who were my grandparents\u2019 ages.<\/p>\n

I was like, \u201cgreat, I have hemorrhoids,\u201d and went on with my life. In high school, seeing blood in the stool became something very normal, even as it got redder, darker and scarier. Eventually, I had some intense stomach pain,<\/a> and I was getting fatigued. I couldn\u2019t play volleyball anymore. I just wanted to come home and sleep.<\/p>\n

When I was 16, I told my boyfriend I thought I needed to see a doctor, but I didn\u2019t tell him the details. My mom overheard one of our conversations and realized I was still seeing blood. She told my dad and they called the doctor, who sent me to a gastroenterologist right away.<\/p>\n

Just a few weeks after I turned 17, I was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer. I had chemotherapy, radiation and surgery to remove the tumor. I also had surgery to move my ovaries up into my stomach to protect them from radiation. Doctors wanted to save the ovaries to preserve hormone function, but by elevating them, I couldn\u2019t naturally conceive anymore.<\/p>\n

\"DanielleRipley-Burgess gets treatment for colon cancer as a teenager with her boyfriend Michael by her side. He would later become her husband.Courtesy Danielle Ripley-Burgess<\/p>\n

I thought I had beaten cancer. I was getting colonoscopies<\/a> every three years, and after one of them, I woke up and saw the very same look on the doctor\u2019s face that I had seen eight years prior. He saw a polyp that later turned out to be cancerous. I had no symptoms. At 25, I had Stage 1 colon cancer.<\/p>\n

Mentally and emotionally, it was way harder this time. I got really angry at a lot of things, but deep down just angry at God \u2014 how could you let this happen to me again? By this point, I was married, I had a house, I was working on a career, we\u2019d been talking about adopting a child. All of a sudden, I realized I could lose all of these things.<\/p>\n

\"DanielleRipley-Burgess was back in the hospital, with her husband by her side, when she was diagnosed with colon cancer again at 25.Courtesy Danielle Ripley-Burgess<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t have any family history, and there was no explanation at first, but I found out I have Lynch syndrome<\/a>, a genetic disease that puts you at a higher risk for several cancers, with colon and rectal cancers at the top of that list. I\u2019m the first in my family to have the mutation.<\/p>\n

Knowing that the next target for Lynch syndrome was going to be either uterine cancer or ovarian cancer, I had a hysterectomy to prevent that. <\/p>\n

Part of my cancer story is a story of infertility. Adopting our daughter became our route to start a family. She\u2019s 16 now, and we\u2019ve also adopted a son, who is 5.<\/p>\n

I also underwent a subtotal colectomy<\/a>, which took out all of my colon except about 13 inches. If you don\u2019t have a colon anymore, your risk goes down.<\/p>\n

But in 2023, during my surveillance \u2014 which included yearly colonoscopies \u2014 my doctor found polyps and said, \u201cIt looks like cancer might be trying to come back again.\u201d<\/p>\n

I decided to get a permanent ileostomy<\/a>, where that remaining little bit of colon was removed. They sent it to pathology and found Stage 1 colon cancer \u2014 fortunately, all contained in that tissue.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t expecting it, but I also wasn\u2019t completely shocked. Living with Lynch syndrome, I\u2019m always aware that it\u2019s a possibility. It\u2019s always in my mind: Could this symptom or this pain or this odd thing happening in my body be something major?<\/p>\n

\"Ripley-BurgessRipley-Burgess with her husband. She eventually had her entire colon removed.Courtesy Danielle Ripley-Burgess<\/p>\n

At this point, I\u2019ve had just about every surgery I could have to prevent cancer. I have no colon left. I can never get colorectal cancer again, and that was a relief.<\/p>\n

More and more young people like me are getting colorectal cancer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If I could go back and tell my younger self something, it would be: Don\u2019t be embarrassed about your body.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re seeing something with your body that\u2019s uncomfortable and weird, and you\u2019re not ready yet to tell a doctor, tell somebody \u2014 a friend or family member. Don\u2019t sit in that place of: something is wrong with your body, and you don\u2019t know what it is. Don\u2019t sit there alone. Don\u2019t downplay what you\u2019re seeing.<\/p>\n

This interview was condensed and edited for clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At 42, Danielle Ripley-Burgess has survived colon cancer three times. She was first diagnosed at 17, then at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":637370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[163,85,46],"class_list":["post-637369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}