My grandmother's cancer story

My grandmother was diagnosed with bowel cancer in the 1950s. Her story is what gives me hope during all of this. I hope it will give others hope as well so I'm going to share it.

We called her nana. She was born in 1898 so in the fifties when she was diagnosed she was in her fifties. She worked as a nurse so possibly it was diagnosed early but I don't know how they'd have found it in those days. I also don't know if bowel cancer is what we now call colorectal but I'm assuming it is. She had surgery to remove it but I unfortunately don't know what was done as a follow up, or was there any kind of chemo in those days, I don't know. And anyone that could tell me is gone now. I suppose I could look it up but it wouldn't tell me what she had done.

Anyway, she had surgery to remove the cancer and a colostemy was done at the same time. She went on to be healthy and continued to work as a nurse. She died within a year of returning from a four month trip to Australia that she'd taken by herself. Her kidneys had failed. She was hospitalized and they checked her out fully and incredibly she was so healthy she was a candidate for a transplant. She refused because she was eighty-four years old and said she'd never take a kidney that some young person could have. She'd been living on her own in an apartment and had been independant and active. I remember shopping with her a couple of months before she got sick and being tired myself while she was still going. The main thing is that she didn't die of cancer. 

I can only imagine how rudimentary the treatment was for cancer in the 1950s and I know her colostomy was old fashioned and required about an hour in the bathroom almost every day but she lived a long life and enjoyed good health right until the end. I was adopted so I'm not related to her by blood but her story is what I cling to when I feel negatively about all of this. It's what keeps me optimistic. I hope it will help someone else, too.