Unique art piece reminds cancer survivor of how far he has come

DALLAS, Ga. - Scott Hullihen's symptoms, back in 2020, might have been easy to ignore.

"I had some cramping in my stomach, some pains in my stomach," Hullihen remembers.  "I saw that my stool was different.  It was painful in the bathroom."

At first, he thought he had eaten something that had upset his stomach.

But, when the symptoms persisted, Hullihen went to the doctor, who referred him for a colonoscopy.

That is when his doctor broke the news they had found a mass in his rectum.

"They found a tumor," he says.  "So, two days later, he called me back, and told me it's cancerous. So, of course, it's scary, and I had, I mean, I was clueless."

Wellstar Health System surgical oncologist Dr. Sahir Shroff says Hullihen's symptoms were not unusual for someone with a rectal mass.  

What was unusual, Shroff says,  was Scott's age: 35.

"That really struck me," Dr. Shroff says.  "A young guy with no significant family history, and no risk factors, had presented with this mass in his rectum that we know now was a cancer."

About 90% of colorectal cancers are in adults over 50, but health experts says they are seeing a troubling rise in diagnoses in younger adults, like Scott Hullihen.

That is concerning, they say, because younger colorectal cancer patients are more likely to be diagnosed in the later stages of colorectal cancer, when it is more difficult to treat and cure.

Hullihen was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer.

A few years ago, Dr. Shroff says, surgeons would typically recommend remove the mass as quickly as possible.

Now, he says, they take a different approach: chemo first, surgery later.

"There is increasing data that giving chemotherapy up front improves long term outcomes," Dr. Shroff says.

The plan for Scott Hullihen was to start chemo, then move on to chemo-radiation, to try to shrink the tumor, then have surgery to remove whatever cancer was left.

The chemotherapy was harder than he expected.

"It definitely changed my life a lot," Hullihen says.  "I tried to say it was going to be fine, and I thought that I would be strong enough.  The first few treatments of chemo, it was tough, but I was okay.  By the fourth treatment, I said, 'I'm done.  I can't do this anymore,'"

Hullihen says his girlfriend, her daughter, and their friends and family urged him to push through the treatment, and, he says, his Wellstar oncology team got him through some difficult months.

"They saved my life," Hullihen says.  

He is reminded of his journey every time he looks at a piece of art hanging on the wall of their Dallas home.

His girlfriend had made for him.

The image was made from the sound waves of a voicemail from his doctor a few days after Hullihen's first-ever scan, telling him the tumor had not spread, that he was going to be okay.

"So, that voicemail, it pushed me to, it made me feel comfortable, to say, 'Okay, I can do this," Hullihen says.

Holding his smartphone over the QR code on the image, Hullihen can listen to the doctor's message.

It is a reminder of how far he has come.

"It pushes me through," Hullihen says.  "It makes me happy.  In case it comes back, (I can) say, 'I can do this again. I can fight this again."

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