When Gabby Zappia started experiencing blood in her stool for the first time, her obstetrician quickly reassured her. She was six months into her third pregnancy and was told the symptom was likely caused by pregnancy-related hemorrhoids.
So, Zappia returned to her busy life. Caring for her two kids, ages 4 and 5 at the time, involved nonstop carpools, lunches, laundry, and dishes.
“I still have a little bit of a hard time slowing down,” Zappia, 37, told Business Insider.
The day before her due date in June 2024, Zappia, who’s based in Mission Viejo, California, saw significantly more blood in the toilet, describing it as “blood diarrhea.” She immediately went to OB triage, where she said the staff seemed in disbelief, asking her if she’d taken any photos. After a vaginal exam found nothing wrong with the baby, they decided to induce labor.
After her son’s birth, Zappia wanted to focus on being with him. But when the bleeding persisted, she called her primary care physician and was put on a three-month waiting list to see a gastroenterologist. In December 2024, six months after she gave birth, Zappia was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
Zappia, who had no family history of colon cancer, had expected a diagnosis like polyps or Crohn’s disease. “I’m still shocked, honestly,” she said. “I was just heartbroken. I thought that I was invincible before this.”
A baseball-sized mass
Zappia said her GI was the first time she felt her symptom was being taken seriously. While she was in the office, he gave her a guaiac-based fecal occult blood test (gFOBT), performed on a card that turns blue when stool samples contain blood. The entire card turned blue, indicating a higher amount of blood.
He scheduled her for a colonoscopy, which involved another monthlong wait. It was then, in November 2024, that Zappia learned she had a mass so big that it nearly blocked her whole colon. She was scheduled for a colon resection surgery, a procedure to remove part of her large intestine, one month later.
“The mass was the size of a baseball when she ended up taking it out, which is absolutely insane because I’m a small person, too,” Zappia said.
It put in perspective how much discomfort she brushed aside in the prior months, including the extreme fatigue she chalked up to pregnancy. “The days when I felt the most sick, like I was in thick mud just trying to get my day started, were the days that I pulled myself together the most,” she said.
Zappia would always put on makeup and try to be her usual bubbly self — something she wonders may have made it harder for doctors to believe her. “If I was kind of looking sick, maybe they would’ve been more concerned,” she said.
Balancing motherhood with treatment
After her colon resection and a biopsy on her liver, where the cancer had spread, Zappia was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
After she had healed from the surgery, Zappia underwent a second surgery for her chemotherapy port, which provides a convenient access point for chemo treatments, before starting a chemotherapy and immunotherapy regimen. In between those treatments, she also underwent a liver resection and ablation surgery to remove tumors. Zappia also had a hepatic artery infusion (HAI) pump installed in her abdomen to deliver concentrated doses of chemo directly to her liver.
The mom of three young children said the hardest part of her diagnosis was being a patient while continuing to be an engaged parent.
“When you’re a mom, you don’t get to pause,” she said. “Your kids still need you. They still want snacks. They still want you to be there for bedtime.” While she said they pushed her to stay active, forcing herself to get up on days when she was recovering from chemo side effects such as bone pain and flu-like symptoms, it still made her experience extra challenging. For example, she was afraid to hold her kids out of fear of them accidentally pulling the tubing of her chemo pump out.
It was also difficult to find childcare on days she was at the hospital. Still, she had her husband.
“I am so incredibly lucky to have an amazing husband,” she said, who handled nearly all of her household and childcare responsibilities throughout treatment. “We’ve tried to tackle this as a team and work hard to normalize life as much as possible for the kids, keep things routine, celebrate the little things, and just make sure our home still feels safe and full of joy.”
Friends, family, neighbors, and people from Zappia’s church also chipped in to help with carpools and meals. “It really does take a village, and we’ve really needed to lean on them throughout this whole experience,” she said.
Bumps in treatment
After her liver resection, Zappia finished chemotherapy and rang the bell in September 2025 after having no evidence of disease. “It was an incredible milestone in my journey, but early,” Zappia said.
Three months later, a PET scan found some cancer activity in her liver. After the initial shock of her new diagnosis wore off, Zappia said she realized she’d have “bumps in the road.”
“It’s just important to focus on what I can control,” she added.
Zappia underwent a robotic liver resection at the end of 2025 to remove the affected area. But after an MRI revealed a new tumor nearby, she had the procedure again in March 2026 — marking her third liver surgery overall.
After multiple surgeries, her blood tests found no signs of disease as of April 2026.
Because colorectal cancer is now the deadliest cancer for people under 50, Zappia believes people should be on the lookout for symptoms like bloody stools, which is one of the most common signs of colon cancer.
“Sure, it might be hemorrhoids, and that would be awesome, but confirm that,” Zappia said. “Don’t just take the possibility that that’s what it is.”
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