Rachel didn’t have to die.

In January 2019, I sat by the bedside of my daughter, Rachel Ellingson, as she was dying of colorectal cancer. At 33, Rachel was living her best life. She was an attorney working in New York City and engaged to the love of her life.

She’d had some symptoms – blood in her stool, abdominal pain, low iron — and she had shared all of that information with her doctors. Because of her age, though, they weren’t concerned about it.

She persisted, however, and in October 2015, she was diagnosed with stage IV colorectal cancer. It had already metastasized to her liver and lungs. Had the doctors been concerned and made a proper diagnosis, her chances of surviving this cancer were 90 percent. At that point, her survival rate was 13 percent. Tragically, on January 6, 2019, Rachel lost her fight, but her legacy lives on through Live Like Rach.

Colorectal cancer is not your parent’s cancer anymore. It’s reached epidemic proportions in individuals in their 20s and 30s. Caught at an early stage, this is an eminently curable cancer.

There are some things you can do right now: If you have symptoms, don’t pass them off. Advocate for yourself. Find out if there’s any history of colorectal cancer in your family. Sometimes, we don’t know. Know the symptoms, advocate for yourself, and help us fulfill the promise that we made to Rachel: Don’t let this happen to anyone else.