![[Beating Colon Cancer] Facing a 9cm Tumor in My Mid-50s: A Journey Back from the Brink of Death](https://khealingtable.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/IMG_0535-1100x450.jpeg)
“Is my stomach just getting weaker? Or is this a symptom of menopause?”
For several years, I suffered from chronic, debilitating bouts of enteritis. Once diarrhea started, it wouldn’t stop for two to three days, and I would spend 48 hours straight gripping the toilet bowl, violently vomiting. When I barely survived another severe episode last spring after getting IV fluids in the emergency room, I felt nothing but guilt toward my family. Then one day, after using the restroom, I noticed red, mucus-like blood in my stool. Even then, I brushed it off, thinking, “My skin must be irritated from all the diarrhea; I’m sure it’s fine.” I had no idea that this was my body’s final distress signal.
## 1. Waking Up in a Hospital Ward: The Thunderbolt Diagnosis
My exhaustion had already surpassed its limit; my body had gone completely numb to it. No matter how fatigued I was, I had to keep pushing forward with work to make a living, leaving me completely oblivious to how rapidly my health was deteriorating. On the day of my long-overdue routine health checkup, I underwent a routine endoscopy and colonoscopy performed by a professor of gastroenterology at a general hospital.
On the cold procedure bed, the sedative was administered, and my consciousness cut to black. When I finally opened my eyes, I wasn’t in the examination room—I was lying in a strange hospital ward bed. Standing beside me was my daughter, who had come as my guardian, her face completely pale with shock.
“Mom, why are you in here?”
As I blinked in confusion, a resident doctor approached me. His voice was cold, clinical, and stripped of all emotion.
“It’s colon cancer. The tumor is massive, and you need immediate surgery. Fortunately, one of the nation’s leading experts on colon cancer is at our hospital, so we have scheduled your surgery for three days from now.”
Cancer. I had cancer. I was a person who had maintained a highly disciplined routine my entire life. I took pride in eating clean, non-irritating, and small-portion meals. I couldn’t fathom how I, in my mid-50s, was suddenly facing cancer.
Right then, a friend called me.
“From what I’ve seen around me, you should never get cancer surgery. It’s much better to heal through natural remedies. My father had colon cancer surgery, but when they opened him up, the cancer had already metastasized everywhere. They just had to stitch him back up, and he passed away a year later. Do not let them cut you.”
Hearing those words sent a shiver down my spine. Changing into the coarse hospital gown, the sheer terror of having a knife cut into my body made me tremble. I didn’t want to accept reality; anger, unfairness, and profound sorrow suffocated my chest.
## 2. The Morning of Surgery: An Encounter with Serene Extinction
The morning of the surgery began with a grueling bowel prep to completely empty my intestines. At 5:00 AM, right after taking the bowel-cleansing medication, just as the nurse was about to check my vitals, it felt as if a lightbulb suddenly shattered inside my head.
It wasn’t panic, nor was it pain. It was an overwhelmingly quiet, serene sense of “extinction.”
“Ah, just like a broken filament in a lightbulb, am I about to vanish from this earth without a trace?”
With that final thought, I lost consciousness and collapsed onto the bathroom floor.
When I opened my eyes again, I was surrounded by a swarm of doctors and nurses. They were frantically searching for a vein in my lower leg to insert an IV. I felt as though I was waking from a profound general anesthesia. The nurse told me that I had been completely unresponsive, losing my breath and consciousness for four agonizing minutes—a state close to cardiac arrest.
Once my vitals barely stabilized, I waited for my afternoon surgery. A nurse walked in and explained, “Depending on the surgeon’s judgment during the procedure, you may or may not wake up with a stoma (an artificial anus).” At the time, I had absolutely no idea how that single word, *stoma*, would completely upend my life. All I remember from being wheeled into the operating room was the bone-chilling cold that seeped into my skin. Soon, the anesthesia took effect, and I fell into a deep sleep. Everything was happening in such a whirlwind that, ironically, I didn’t even have the luxury to despair.
## 3. A Strange Plastic Bag on My Stomach: My Battle with a Stoma
When I finally emerged from the anesthesia, my hand instinctively went to my abdomen. I gasped in absolute horror. Right next to my belly button on the right side, a strange, opaque plastic bag was dangling from my flesh.
I was speechless. It was the very thing I had dreaded: a **colostomy stoma**. My skin was wrapped in bandages here and there, my abdomen was severely bloated, and PCA (patient-controlled analgesia) tubes were intricately tangled across both of my arms. The surgeon visited and informed me that they had successfully removed 30 cm of my cancerous colon. Later, I learned that inside my gut lay a **monstrous, tightly packed 9 cm tumor**.
Relying heavily on pain medication, I spent a few days before my first meal arrived. It was *mieum*—a traditional Korean liquid diet made by finely grinding rice and boiling it down until it is almost entirely water. It came with nothing but a side of clear, chilled radish water kimchi (*dongchimi*) broth.
After enduring three days on liquid rice and kimchi broth, I gradually transitioned to a light porridge, and that was when the true nightmare began. The food I chewed and swallowed bypassed my natural anatomy entirely, pouring directly through the stoma on my abdomen and leaking onto my skin. The slightest wrong movement would rupture the stoma pouch, soaking my clothes and bedding. Because stoma output is highly acidic, the moment it touched my skin, it caused raw, chemical burns that felt like my flesh was on fire. Dressing myself became a monumental task, and concealing the distinct odor was a constant source of anxiety.
“Ah, how profoundly blessed and grand is the life of a human being who can use a healthy colon and a normal anus to eliminate waste.”
I realized, with a heavy heart and a plastic pouch taped to my stomach, just how tearfully grateful we should be for the ordinary routines of daily life.
Post-surgery, dietary management was everything. To allow the reconnected colon to fuse and heal properly, the digestive tract needed absolute rest. Every single vegetable had to be thoroughly steamed or boiled to soften the fiber. I consumed only lean meat with zero fat, finely minced in a blender and seasoned with almost no salt. While the stoma was an incredibly uncomfortable device that stripped away my dignity, it was a vital, life-saving bridge that protected my healing colon. After enduring two months of this personal purgatory, I successfully underwent a second surgery to reverse the stoma and reconnect my digestive tract.
## 4. Walking a Tightrope: The Terror of Pulmonary Metastasis
Going through two major surgeries caused my weight to plummet drastically, leaving my body increasingly frail. To prevent infection and recurrence, I minimized my physical movements as much as possible. To cope with the mind-numbing boredom and to keep dark thoughts at bay during the long daylight hours, I began to oil paint on canvas. For someone who had been buried in work her entire life, this brought a strange, ironic sense of long-awaited peace. I completely cut out coffee. I missed the aroma so dearly, but on the days I succumbed and drank even half a cup, my heart would race so violently that I would spend the entire night wide awake.
During the first year post-surgery, I underwent agonizing cancer screening checkups every three months. Then one day, a devastating piece of news struck. **An abnormal cellular nodule was detected in my lung.** My oncologist expressed grave concern that the colon cancer cells might have traveled through my bloodstream, resulting in distant metastasis. He suggested a biopsy for an accurate diagnosis.
However, a lung biopsy was a high-risk procedure that required a sharp needle to pierce through my ribs and puncture my lung tissue, carrying immense pain and potential complications. Hearing that prognosis, my vision went completely dark. It felt as though I was walking a thin tightrope over a windy abyss without a single safety net. I was pushed to the absolute edge of a cliff with nowhere left to retreat.
## 5. “I Am Healthy”: Tricking My Brain with Radical Visualization
From that day forward, the moment I opened my eyes every morning, I prayed with fierce conviction: “I am not a cancer patient.” I began to think, act, and perform as a perfectly healthy human being.
“My colon and my lungs are as clean and pristine as a newborn baby’s. They are completely whole.”
I visualized the vibrant, life-filled state of my internal organs with absolute clarity, as if painting a vivid oil landscape on a blank canvas in my mind.
I turned toward the universe and made a desperate, unwavering declaration:
“When the universe sent me into this world, it must have had a mission for me to complete. Please save me. I will survive this and fulfill my life’s purpose. I will build a happy home with my beautiful children and my steadfast husband, and I will dedicate my life to serving and giving back to society with the miracle I receive. Thank you for already granting me my health.”
I wanted to prove my affirmation. Refusing to be confined by the passive label of a ‘cancer patient,’ I put on makeup every morning and dressed in my most beautiful clothes. I returned to the office and worked passionately from morning till night, managing countless tasks. Of course, when fatigue hit during the day, I allowed myself a sweet, restorative nap on the couch to honor my physical limits, but I never let go of my life or my work.
## 6. Epilogue: A Hard-Won Triumph—Thank You
Three months passed, filled with relentless prayer, meditation, and a strict oncological diet. The day arrived for my follow-up oncology scans. I completed an intense battery of tests: an MRI, abdominal CT, X-rays, and blood panels.
When the day came to review the results, my surgical oncologist delivered incredible news: “The surgery was a flawless success and your recovery is excellent. We can skip preventative chemotherapy and continue with monitoring.” Even more miraculous was the verdict from my thoracic surgeon regarding my lung: “The nodule is located too deep for a safe biopsy, and there is a very high probability that it is a simple benign nodule (like a past tubercular scar) rather than metastasis. Let us cancel the biopsy and simply track it for a year to monitor its size.”
The moment I heard those words, tears welled up and poured down my face in the hospital corridor. I knew with absolute certainty that my deepest desperation, my bold declarations to the world, my rigorous routine, and my strict nutrition had successfully altered my cells.
Since then, I have flawlessly passed every single cancer screening—every 3 months for the first 2 years, and every 6 months for the next 3 years. Today, I am living a vibrant, happy life with **zero recurrence and in a state of complete remission.**
I have ultimately won the war against the monster called cancer. I bow my head in profound gratitude to the medical team who never gave up on me and treated me with utmost devotion, to my loving family who stood steadfastly by my side at the brink of despair, and to the universe that answered my prayers. Thank you. Thank you so deeply.