Andrew Ciardelli’s annual brothers’ hunting trip in Idaho took a turn for the worse when the stomach issues he had lived with for years suddenly became unbearable.
Years before the trip, a urologist told Ciardelli that the cause of his pain and the blood in his stool was hemorrhoids.
“They told me as long as the blood doesn’t get worse, you can live with it,” Ciardelli remembers.
On the trip, he hoped that perhaps the stress of being away from his kids, eating a camping diet of oats, jerky, and coffee, traveling, or some combination of the three, was the cause of his increased pain and constant bowel evacuation. A health enthusiast who regularly runs, cycles, and lifts, Ciardelli doubted something serious was going on.
But his symptoms persisted when he returned to his home in New Hampshire. So, Ciardelli scheduled a gastrointestinal appointment, which led to a colonoscopy in January 2024 and the shocking revelation that an 11-centimeter tumor had grown within the wall of his rectum.
At 42 years of age, just three years before he was due to start regular colonoscopy screenings, Ciardelli was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
A team of specialists
Ciardelli’s is a familiar story to many young people with the disease, many of whom are diagnosed after months of symptom misdiagnosis. A Colorectal Cancer Alliance survey of 1,000 young adult patients found that 54 percent of respondents were initially misdiagnosed.
For treatment, he came to Dana-Farber’s Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center, where he had a multi-disciplinary consultation with medical oncologist Doug Rubinson, MD, PhD, and surgical oncologist Joel Goldberg, MD.
Chemotherapy and radiation began on Valentine’s Day and just recently ended. Now that his tumor has shrunk from the treatments, Ciardelli is ready for surgery in October.
His 10-year-old son, Danny, and 7-year-old daughter, Parker, were a driving force through the long months of treatment.
“I wanted to be healthy for them,” Ciardelli explains.
The three of them are obsessed with baseball, and although Ciardelli took a step back from the family fuel delivery company, he never took a day off from coaching his kids’ teams. There were days where he went straight from a chemotherapy appointment to a game.
“I didn’t always feel 100 percent, but you see those kids out there and you are relied upon as a coach, you just kind of forget about what you’re going through,” he says.
Ciardelli Fuel Company did not forget about him. On Father’s Day, his brother, who runs the company with him, unveiled an oil truck that had been painted blue and decaled with yellow ribbons for colorectal cancer awareness.
“It was an emotional moment,” Ciardelli recalls. “People are going to see this blue oil truck and naturally ask questions. I think that’s amazing for awareness.”
It is a cause that is gaining urgency as more young people than ever are diagnosed with colorectal cancer. The Young-Onset Colorectal Cancer Center is one of the only treatment centers in the country with a focus on this cohort of patients.
“These are not 60-something year olds: These are people, like Andrew, who often have young families or are in the middle of their career,” Rubinson, Ciardelli’s oncologist, explains. “There are different needs and so we as a group try to provide supports that will meet those needs.”
Researchers in the center are also working to find out why patients like Ciardelli develop cancer early, how to catch it earlier, and how to prevent it.
“The message that we need to get out to patients and providers is that there are too many examples of patients having rectal bleeding being dismissed,” Rubinson says. “The presumption that people in their 30s or 40s don’t get colorectal cancer leads to a delay in diagnosis. It took too long for Andrew to get the appropriate diagnostic management.”
Today, Ciardelli tells his friends and family, “If you have symptoms, go get a colonoscopy now.”
Rubinson has recommended that Ciardelli pursue genetic testing to see if he has any known mutations that are linked to cancer. The results may impact screening recommendations for Ciardelli’s family. Already, his family members and children should begin screening when they are 32 (ten years prior to the age of Ciardelli’s diagnosis).
He’s grateful for his family, notably his brother and best friend, who shuttled him to chemotherapy appointments, took up the slack at work, and recently gifted Ciardelli a hunting rifle painted blue with yellow ribbons. The two of them hope to return to Idaho next year.