Midland schoolteacher Curtis Lynd drove 300 miles across Texas to get the lifesaving care he needed to beat “early age” colorectal cancer at Methodist Dallas Medical Center.
“There are people out there who can do amazing things,“ says Curtis, who does something amazing himself, teaching special-needs students in West Texas. “The doctors and nurses were just really there for me. And I appreciate that.”
Diagnosed with stage III rectal cancer at age 42, years before most people even consider screening, Curtis is now in remission a year after surgery and hoping to spread the word that his case is part of a worrisome trend.
“I just see more and more people who are getting this cancer younger and younger,” he says. “Another month, and my cancer could have been stage IV.”
While colorectal cancer rates are dropping for seniors — thanks in part to outreach campaigns that ramp up each March for Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month — the rates for adults younger than 50 have doubled since 1990, according to the American Cancer Society.
“This has really inspired me to encourage other people to get checked out,” Curtis says.
SCREENING CAN’T WAIT
Curtis first knew something was wrong after suffering with painful constipation and other more worrisome changes in his bathroom routine. He sought help from his primary care physician, a longtime friend, who quickly ruled out hemorrhoids and encouraged Curtis to get a colorectal screening.
“I called to set up a colonoscopy, and they told me it would cost $1,400 because insurance won’t cover it until age 45,” he says. “So I decided to put it off a month, but it just got worse from there.”
Waiting was no longer an option, so Curtis and his wife, Alicia, made the screening a priority and later got the results from Anand Lodha, MD, colorectal surgeon on the medical staff at Methodist Dallas.
“Mr. Lynd had a very complex rectal cancer,” Dr. Lodha says. “It was locally advanced and very low in the rectum.”
Curtis says his wife, Alicia, was his “rock” during treatment, driving him to Dallas and back home.
MORE YOUNG PATIENTS
When cancerous polyps lie extremely low in the digestive tract, it makes the surgery more complicated because the goal is to preserve bowel function so the patient won’t need a permanent colostomy. That’s why Dr. Lodha presented his case to a nationally accredited rectal cancer tumor board.
“Cases like his require all of our folks to come together, all the radiologists and oncologists, to give patients the best outcomes,” Dr. Lodha says.
That team effort has made Methodist Dallas a destination hospital for underserved parts of the state that need premier cancer care.
“We’ve been able to build this really successful relationship with our gastroenterologists out there in West Texas and give hope to their patients,” Dr. Lodha says.
That’s especially important now that doctors like him are diagnosing more people with colorectal cancer in their 30s and 40s, often without the risk factors that accompany the disease.
”We are seeing a real increase in folks that don’t have the risk factors,” Dr. Lodha says. “These are just regular average-risk people.”
Chemo was a rollercoaster for Curtis from Day 1 (left) to ringing the bell after his final treatment.
LIVING A NORMAL LIFE
Before surgery, Curtis would go through six weeks of chemotherapy and daily radiation treatment, a regimen that could be grueling at times. Through it all, he kept teaching his life skills at Midland High School, taking comfort in his work with students with special needs.
“I kept on trucking to work. That really kept me going, just loving my job and the people I work with,” Curtis says. “They were really supportive.”
He also credited his wife, Alicia, his son, Kylan, and the support of his West Texas community, which raised over $20,000 to help with his care.
“The community support in Midland was just amazing,” he says. “But I couldn’t have done it without my wife, Alicia, who drove me back and forth to Dallas, and my son, who’s autistic and was always there to help at home.”
By the spring of 2024, it was time for Curtis’ surgery, although several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation didn’t shrink the tumor as much as doctors had hoped. Even so, Dr. Lodha told his patient he could get the job done, and that gave Curtis confidence.
“I had to ask myself, do I live with cancer? Do I live with a colostomy bag,” he says, “Or do I go back and try to live a normal life?”
Curtis loves his job and was eager to get back to the classroom after his surgery last spring.
‘ALWAYS THERE FOR YOU’
In the end, there was no question, and Curtis returned to Methodist Dallas for surgery in March 2024. When he woke up in the recovery room, Dr. Lodha shared the good news.
“We were able to resect the tumor, have negative margins, and reconnect his bowel,” he says. “For us, it was really something special.”
Now a year removed from that surgery, Curtis is grateful for all the support he received during his journey, his family, his fellow teachers, his West Texas community, and the fellow survivors he befriended along the way.
But he saved his highest praise for the medical team at Methodist Dallas who was there to help when stage III rectal cancer struck “out of the blue.”
“The staff is always there for you, even when I was freaking out and needed to text my nurse at 9 o’clock at night,” Curtis says. “That just meant the world to me.”
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