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Topics: Celebrity, US News, Cancer, Bowel cancer, Health
Rhianna Benson
Topics: Celebrity, US News, Cancer, Bowel cancer, Health
Nine months on from his colorectal cancer diagnosis, and actor James Van Der Beek is raising awareness of the disease's most commonly-ignored symptoms.
Speaking to press this week, the 48-year-old admitted to being guilty of brushing off a series of signs himself, claiming he put them down to lifestyle factors.
Van Der Beek first revealed his cancer diagnosis back in November, simultaneously issuing PEOPLE with a heartfelt statement and sharing a sweet video on social media.
"I’ve been privately dealing with this diagnosis and have been taking steps to resolve it," the Dawson's Creek actor told the magazine at the time.
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"With the support of my incredible family."
In the caption to his online upload - a video of himself with his children - the TV star went on to write: "It is cancer... Each year, approximately 2 billion people around the world receive this diagnosis. And I’m one of them.
"There’s no playbook for how announce these things, but I’d planned on talking about it at length with PEOPLE Magazine at some point soon... to raise awareness and tell my story on my own terms.
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"But that plan had to be altered early this morning when I was informed that a tabloid was going to run with the news."
Speaking to Healthline this week, the father-of-six opened up on how exactly he discovered he had cancer, admitting he'd ignored one symptom in particular, having not known about its affiliation with colorectal cancer.
The actor began: "There wasn’t any red flag or something glaring. I was healthy. I was doing the cold plunge. I was in amazing cardiovascular shape, and I had stage 3 cancer, and I had no idea.
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"Before my diagnosis, I didn’t know much about colorectal cancer. I didn’t even realise the screening age dropped to 45; I thought it was still 50."
He went on to explain, however, that he had been experiencing changes in his bowel movements, but put this down to coffee consumption.
"I thought maybe I needed to stop coffee. Or maybe not put cream in the coffee," Van Der Beek continued. "But when I cut that out and it didn’t improve, I thought, 'All right, I better get this checked out'."
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After seeing his GP for a colonoscopy, the star received his diagnosis.
Changes to bowel movements are one of the most common symptoms of colon cancer, and caused by tumours growing in either the colon or the rectum, which clogs up these organs.
This, as a result, can lead to constipation, diarrhoea, or both.
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Some patients mightn't feel 'empty' after using the toilet during the early stages - another common indicator that something isn't quite right - or suffering oddly shaped stools.
Pencil thin poops are the most common, having been caused by tumours near the end of the colon or lining its insides.
As Mayo Clinic explains, however, during its earliest stages and being that the cancerous tumours themselves can be rather small in size, most colorectal cancer sufferers mightn't suffer any symptoms at all.
Hence why routine screening tests are so important.
That said, however, as the cancer continues to take hold within the body, the patient may suffer some other, more visible indicators.
This could include general fatigue, as well as unexplained weight loss, pain in the stomach area, and rectal bleeding, or finding blood in a stool.
Other patients might begin suffering an iron deficiency (also known as anaemia), swollen lymph nodes above the collarbone, pain in the back, buttocks or legs, or the feeling of being full soon after eating.
Van Der Beek is now using his experience to raise awareness of the earliest signs of cancer, and issue advice to anyone facing similar diagnoses.
"Find out who you can lean on and ask for help," he told Healthline.
"Really find who your people are and reach out. You can’t do this alone."
The actor continued: "That was the biggest [challenge] for me because I never asked for help.
"And what I realised was just how many people were there to show up for me, how I’d been wronging them of the opportunity to show up because I try to do everything all the time."