Colon Cancer Survivor Uses Foundation To Help Cancer Patients

Tammy Figg was 27 years old and six weeks away from getting married when the symptoms she thought were just hemorrhoids became difficult to ignore any longer.

She had lost some weight, but thought it was from exercising. She was tired all the time, but felt that was probably from working three jobs. But when the abdominal pain and rectal bleeding didn’t go away, Figg knew it was time to go to the emergency room at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Peters.

The physicians told her she was bleeding internally and told her she would need a colonoscopy. Afterward, the doctor told her it looked like cancer and that she should go to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis tomorrow. 

"'Not three weeks from tomorrow, tomorrow,’" Figg remembers him telling her. "I remember walking out of there going, ‘He’s probably wrong – there’s no way.’ I’d just never heard of that (in a person so young). We had no family history of that kind of thing."

While Figg was seeing one physician, her fiancé at the time, Bryan Figg, got the biopsy results from another doctor and told her the news. 

"Well, I’m getting married in six weeks. How’s that going to work out?’" She said. "I remember that phrase coming out of my mouth."

She went home to consider the options. Bryan told her she needed to rid her body of cancer. Neither of them considered postponing the wedding.

"I just thought, ‘That’s the one thing I can control, is when I get married,’" she said. "Everything else is spiraling out of control, and all these decisions are coming at me. I just thought, ‘There’s no way I’m postponing it. If I have to be in a wheelchair – whatever.’ Initially, I don’t know that I had a lot of time to be scared, quite frankly, because all I kept thinking in my mind -- and maybe it was a blessing -- was I had a day to look forward to."

She had surgery Aug. 7, 2002, and learned she'd need additional chemotherapy and radiation treatment. The Figgs were married on Sept. 7, 2002 and immediately began looking into harvesting eggs for in vitro fertilization (IVF) to have a child, a process that would have to be done before the cancer treatments started.

Figg’s ovaries had been moved during surgery, making them inaccessible for harvesting. But in what she calls a "miracle," a CT scan done three days before the start of chemotherapy revealed one of the ovaries had moved back into a position where the eggs could be harvested. The fertility doctor was able to get 12 embryos. After a difficult pregnancy during which Figg was hospitalized nine times, Ayden Michael Figg was born September 28, 2005. Ayden is now 5 and has an adopted sister, Makena, who is 2.

The Figg's friends and co-workers raised money to help defray the cost of the expensive IVF procedure. Insurance did not cover the IVF, so without the $15,000 raised by friends, the $24,000 total cost would have been prohibitive. After this experience, the Figgs decided to change the mission of the Figg Tree Foundation, which started in 2002, to focus on helping colon cancer patients financially as well. 

"I just thought to myself, what if there are other people doing that?" she said.  "What if other people are making very poor decisions (based) ... on finances? What if someone says they can’t go to treatment and they need it, and they decide they’re not going to get it anymore because they can’t afford their $500 co-pay?That’s just not right."

The Figg Tree Foundation  awards grants to help pay medical bills or pay for colon cancer screenings. It has also established "entertainment centers" at several local hospitals where patients and their families can watch movies, listen to music and relax during treatment.

Part of the Foundation’s goal is to increase awareness about colon cancer by making it more comfortable to talk about. Their slogan is, "Get Your Rear in the Clear."

"It’s so curable, and preventable, if people just go and get the screening," she said.

Figg tells people to watch out for the symptoms of colon cancer, which include rectal bleeding, abdominal pain, sudden weight loss, change of bowel habits and extreme fatigue. Figg, now 36 and in remission, gets a yearly colonoscopy.

More than $140,000 has been raised to support colon cancer patients, Figg said. The Foundation has distributed $99,000 in grants to patients with a diagnosis of colon cancer who need help paying medical bills that aren't covered by insurance. 

Figg said there are about 175 people on the waiting list. 

"There are days when I feel really defeated because I can’t help them all at one time. But I just have to keep it in perspective that it’s one patient, that I’m helping one family at a time."

Figg's Foundation has organized a Texas Hold-Em Poker Tournament scheduled for 5 p.m. Saturday at the Grand Opera House Banquet Center in St. Charles.

Registration for the poker tournament starts at 3:30 p.m. Saturday. For more information about the tournament or the Figg Tree Foundation, call 636-240-5949 or contact the Foundation at figgtree@hotmail.com. A registration form for the poker tournament is available at http://www.figgtreepoker.blogspot.com/.