An Interview with Crime Journalist Taihei Ogawa! “It Was Excruciatingly Painful”: His Harrowing Experience from the Diagnosis of Colon Cancer Through Post-Surgery Recovery
There were no warning signs
“The surgery is painful. It’s no joke. I’m not trying to scare anyone, but it really hurts. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. That’s why I urge everyone aged 50 to 60 and older to definitely get a colonoscopy.”
These are the words of crime journalist Taihei Ogawa (65), who revealed in July on his YouTube show, “Taihei Ogawa’s Crime Analysis Room,” that he had stage 3C colon cancer. He underwent surgery on August 5 and was discharged from the hospital on the 21st. That same day, during a live stream on his channel, he said,
“I’m not completely cured yet, but for now, I’m being discharged today. I spent a total of 23 nights and 24 days in the hospital—one week before the surgery and two weeks afterward. Since I’ve been cooped up in the hospital the whole time, it feels hot out here—my first breath of fresh air in 24 days,”
he reported, appearing in good spirits. As mentioned at the beginning, Mr. Ogawa spoke candidly about the period from the discovery of his colon cancer through to the surgery, as well as his post-operative recovery.
“I don’t want anyone else to go through what I did. To prevent that from happening, I felt it was important to share my story clearly.”
Filled with a sense of mission as a journalist, Mr. Ogawa’s confession as a “cancer survivor” was truly something that could only be described as “harrowing”—
“There weren’t any specific warning signs.”
Mr. Ogawa said he had been completely unaware of any warning signs until two weeks before his colorectal cancer was diagnosed.
“There were no warning signs, but looking back now, I do have a hunch. At some point, I started alternating between constipation and diarrhea.I’d always been prone to diarrhea, but before I knew it, I’d become constipated. So I started drinking more water. But then I’d get diarrhea. That went on for a while, and one day, after using the restroom, I wiped and saw blood. But since I tend to strain quite a bit, I figured maybe I’d torn something and that’s why there was blood. Even so, I didn’t think it was serious enough to go to the hospital.”
If only I’d had a colonoscopy a few years ago…
However, one day, he said he suddenly lost all strength just as he was trying to stand up. So, when he described his symptoms to a doctor he knew,
“When I mentioned the blood in my stool and the loss of strength, he told me, ‘That’s anemia. It’s because you’re bleeding.’ In other words, I was bleeding so much inside my intestines that it was causing anemia. I also noticed that my stools were abnormally thin,”
he said. He was only passing about three stools a day, each about 5 centimeters long and no thicker than a ballpoint pen.
“I think the cause varies from person to person, but in my case, a tumor in my colon had grown so large that I could no longer pass stool,”
Mr. Ogawa went to the hospital and underwent a colon cancer screening. From there, things moved very quickly leading up to the surgery.
“I went to the hospital on Friday, July 24, and had a CT scan. The next day, Saturday, I had another CT scan with contrast dye injected to obtain more detailed images.At 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, I took a laxative and drank over two liters of water, and on Monday, I had a colonoscopy. They found a tumor about the size of a child’s fist. I had a follow-up appointment on Tuesday and was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday. I had the surgery the following week, on Wednesday, August 5. It all happened in the blink of an eye.
The doctor told me, “Tumors don’t grow suddenly. Even if you’d had a colonoscopy a few years ago, the tumor would undoubtedly have been there.”
In addition to the colon cancer, metastases were found in 16 lymph nodes, and all of them were removed. Although the surgery was a success, I’ve been undergoing chemotherapy since October 1.
“I just happened to catch it before it was too late. I was simply lucky. Once you’re in your 50s or 60s, you really should get a colonoscopy. You absolutely must get one every few years. I don’t want to go through that pain again, and I don’t want anyone else to either. That’s why I really want everyone to go get screened.”
Mr. Ogawa’s battle with cancer has only just begun.
[YouTube] On “FRIDAY TV,” crime journalist Taihei Ogawa also talks about the agony of taking laxatives before his surgery and the excruciating pain he experienced afterward.