28-Year-Old Mom’s Symptoms Dismissed as Hemorrhoids. Further Testing Revealed a Life-Changing Diagnosis (Exclusive)

need to know

• Kalei Martin, a mother of two from Sacramento, started experiencing severe stomach pains, bleeding and other symptoms when she was 28.

• Initially, doctors ignored her symptoms

• After seeking answers, colonoscopy reveals stage 2 colorectal cancer

In early 2024, Kaley Martin began to notice subtle changes in her body that she couldn’t explain.

The Sacramento, Calif., mother of two, who was working in California while also running a photography business specializing in family and newborn portraits, found herself going to the bathroom much more often than usual. Soon after, I started experiencing brief, violent cramps in my stomach.

At first, she thought the symptoms might be related to physical changes that can occur after pregnancy. Martin, who recently gave birth to two children, thinks her body is just adjusting.

But then things began to escalate. While she was using the bathroom, she began to notice something unusual — something she called tissue-like material.

“It was something I couldn’t really explain, but it looked like internal tissue and mucus,” she recalled exclusively to People . “It was weird and I was taking photos to document it and show it to my husband.”

After a week or two, the bleeding started and got worse.

These symptoms are accompanied by stomach pain and irregular bowel habits. She also noticed another worrying sign: She often felt an urgent need to go to the bathroom, but “nothing came out but blood and clots.”

After nearly two months of worsening symptoms, Martin, now 30, finally made an appointment with her primary care doctor.

Her doctor ran blood tests and performed a rectal exam. Because Martin was not anemic—meaning she had not lost excessive blood—she was told the bleeding could be caused by a less serious condition, such as internal hemorrhoids or fissures.

She was referred for a sigmoidoscopy, but the earliest appointment was still nearly two months away.

Then the pain became unbearable.

“The next week my stomach pain got so bad it made me cry, and my pain tolerance is pretty high,” Martin recalls.

Her worried husband drove her to the emergency room. But doctors ran another blood test and determined she was not anemic. According to Martin, the emergency room doctor told her she would just have to wait for her scheduled surgery.

“I remember the emergency room doctor being very dismissive,” she said. “I showed him pictures of the huge blood clot I had that day and he said, yes, it was probably just internal hemorrhoids and you’re not anemic so nothing life-threatening is going on.”

“In hindsight, I now know I should have asked him for a CT scan because a simple scan could have picked up the tumor,” she said.

But after leaving the emergency room, Martin decided to take matters into his own hands.

She called the gastroenterologist herself and described her symptoms in detail. After hearing her story, staff told her she needed to be seen immediately and scheduled a full colonoscopy for next week.

This program will finally provide the answers she’s been looking for.

A colonoscopy revealed devastating news: Martin had colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer begins with the growth of cells in the rectum, and symptoms include changes in bowel habits, abdominal pain and rectal bleeding, according to the Mayo Clinic.

“I knew something was wrong the day I asked my husband to take me to the emergency room,” she said. “We looked up my symptoms online and it always came up ‘colon cancer’ or ‘bowel cancer’ and we kept telling each other that couldn’t be the case. I’m only 28 and healthy.”

Doctors diagnosed Martin with stage 2 colorectal cancer, a T3 tumor, which means the tumor had begun growing through the rectal wall but had not yet spread to nearby lymph nodes.

Her treatment plan was very aggressive.

Martin underwent 25 rounds of pelvic radiation therapy and took chemotherapy drugs twice a day. After completing radiation therapy, she had four and a half months of intravenous chemotherapy using a drug called FOLFOX.

The treatment was physically taxing, but Martin said she did her best to keep her younger daughters, who were 1 and 3 at the time, as normal as possible.

“The chemo days were very harsh on my body,” she said. “I was very sick, but I had a week off between infusions, so I was able to get back to normal and continue my normal life.”

When a scan was taken at the end of treatment, doctors came with hopeful news: The tumor had completely dissolved.

Martin was declared NED – meaning “no evidence of disease”.

Since the cancer appeared to be gone, she did not require surgery and was placed on a “watch and wait” plan, which included MRIs, CT scans and sigmoidoscopy every three months to monitor for recurrence.

But the relief was short-lived.

During her first follow-up scan in March 2025, doctors noticed something concerning: a small, 7-millimeter nodule on her left lung. Her oncologist initially recommended surveillance.

Still feeling uneasy, Martin asked for another scan the next month – the nodule had grown.

Further tests confirmed her fears. The cancer had spread to her lungs and was officially diagnosed as stage 4 colorectal cancer with lung metastases.

Her doctors recommended surgery to remove the affected portion of the lung. But in preparation for surgery, imaging revealed a second tumor on the other side of the lung.

Martin ultimately underwent two lung removal surgeries, just three weeks apart.

Although the diagnosis was scary, she said the experience changed her perspective in unexpected ways.

“This diagnosis has really affected every aspect of my life in the most incredibly positive way that something this horrific could,” she said.

She attributes much of this strength to the support system around her, especially her husband.

“My husband is obviously my number one,” Martin said. “Throughout all my treatments and surgeries, he stepped up without a doubt and took care of everything and everyone.”

Today, Martin is sharing her journey online to raise awareness about colorectal cancer, especially among young people.

Her video quickly attracted attention and she said she had received hundreds of messages from people who recognized they had the same symptoms.

“I had no idea I had colorectal cancer until I was diagnosed with it,” she said. “Colorectal cancer has recently been reported to be the leading cause of cancer death in people under 50 years of age.”

“I’ve received hundreds of messages online from other people saying my video prompted them to see a doctor,” she added.

Now, she hopes her story will encourage others to listen to their bodies and advocate for answers.

“I hope more young people will recognize the symptoms in their bodies and advocate for correct screening before the disease progresses,” she said.

Martin is currently under active surveillance. Although there were some suspicious findings on recent scans, she recently received encouraging news: a Signatera blood test came back negative, indicating that she is currently not at immediate risk of relapse.

“My family and I have been moving through life with a renewed spirit,” she said.

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Martin said that despite everything she has been through, her faith remains her greatest source of hope.

“The thing that gives me hope is Jesus,” she said. “When I struggled with anxiety, worry, and fear, I would turn to my Bible and sit down to pray, and I found peace and sanity.”

Most of all, she hopes readers take away a message from her story.

“Be in tune with your body and pay attention to things that don’t seem normal,” she says. “Ask your doctor questions and try to find answers for yourself, because you are your own best advocate.”

Read the original article on People