MSI Press Blog

  Poop is one of the body’s earliest alarm systems, and different cancers can alter stool in different ways. Pencil‑thin stool is the classic red flag for colon cancer, but it’s far from the only pattern worth knowing about. The changes below come from how tumors block, bleed, or interfere with digestion and bile flow. 1. Colon & Rectal Cancer Why stool changes: Tumors narrow the passageway, bleed easily, or disrupt water absorption. Key stool patterns: Pencil‑thin or ribbon‑thin stool — narrowing from a tumor blocking the lumen. Pebble‑like hard pellets — obstruction causing excess water absorption. Blood in stool Bright red → lower colon or rectum. Black/tarry → bleeding higher up. Mucus in stool — especially with mucinous tumors. Alternating constipation and diarrhea — partial obstruction. 2. Pancreatic Cancer Why stool changes: Blocked bile duct → no bile reaching the intestine; lack of pancreatic enzymes → fat malabsorption. Key stool patterns: P...

  Cancer is often spoken of as an ending. But for many, it becomes a chapter — not the whole book. A diagnosis is not always the final word. Life continues, sometimes for years, even decades, filled with purpose, creativity, and resilience. Ruth Bader Ginsburg survived multiple cancers over two decades — colon, pancreatic, and lung — while serving on the Supreme Court until age 87. What she said : “Cancer was part of my life, not the end of it.”  For other Cancer Diary posts, click  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informative, cancer-...

  It seems that the most commonly shared experience by most cancer patients is that they miss the signs of cancer until often it is too late (stage 4 or 4) when discovered. That is because the signs do not leap out, generally. The following article does a good job of sharing the signs as well as providing a list of risk factors (if you have those, best to keep an eye out for signs) for one of the most deadly cancers: pancreatic cancer. Pancreatic cancer (msn.com) For other Cancer Diary posts, click  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The CCC is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog will carry an informati...

  A recent article brought back a raw memory:  Dad died 44 days after his cancer diagnosis. He never received the chemo he was promised (msn.com) . That was pretty much what Carl experienced. He fell February 23, was diagnosed with late stage 4 cancer in five organs, and was set up for testing to determine the primary (never was found, and the diagnosis became cancer of unknown primary ). He had to wait to begin chemo until he could receive the second covid shot (remember back then?). Once all the tests and shots were over, it was the end of June. He received three rounds of chemotherapy before falling again on July 23, at which time, tests showed that chemotherapy was not working. From that point, it was only 23 days until he died. It felt like chasing after water as it was flowing over a waterfall. No way to keep up. Would those original 4-5 months have made a difference had he started receiving chemotherapy earlier? It is impossible to know. Could those early tests have be...

  Looking back on Carl's cancer, our cats' cancers, and cancers among friends and family, we should have seen the signs, which would have led to better decisions and, likely, better outcomes. But they were small changes, slow changes that we got used to gradually without thinking back to what things used to be like.  One day, Carl forgot where the brake on the car was and pushed the gas pedal instead. Scary! Could happen to anyone, right? That was a few months before his late stage 4 metastatic cancer diagnosis, with hypercalcemia (which really messes up the brain). A small sign, but we missed it. His growing tendence to leave dishes to do until the next morning of plants to water the next day. Lazy, right? That started maybe a year out before the cancer diagnosis, likely about the time his organs were being attacked and overwhelming his immune system -- and likely his energy. A small sign, but we missed it. There were more. If we even noticed them, we dismissed them all as...

  I have read a number of new articles about advances in understanding pancreatic cancer in the last few weeks. Probably the best way to share the information is simply to link the  Pancreatic Cancer Signs Scaring Doctors Most (msn.com) Habits Secretly Increasing Your Pancreatic Cancer Risk, Say Physicians (msn.com) 13 Warning Signs of Pancreatic Cancer You Should Know, Doctors Say (bestlifeonline.com) Read more about Cancer Diary posts  HERE . Blog editor's note: As a memorial to Carl, and simply because it is truly needed, MSI Press is now hosting a web page,  Carl's Cancer Compendium , as a one-stop starting point for all things cancer, to make it easier for those with cancer to find answers to questions that can otherwise take hours to track down on the Internet and/or from professionals. The web page is in its infancy but expected to expand into robustness. To that end, it is expanded and updated weekly. As part of this effort, each week, on Monday, this blog wi...

As with Carl, many people have "signs" of cancer that can be interpreted either as something else quite mild or dismissed entirely as just a bad day or maybe I ate something bad yesterday. Otherwise quite healthy people simply ignore them as an annoyance. (Before cancer, Carl was sick just one day in his life -- 50 years earlier he threw up, once, on the lawn, from unsuspectingly drinking stagnant water the day while carrying out his Forest Service employee duties, Seriously. Never again did he ever throw up even after three rounds of chemotherapy, but he died, healthy, from cancer!)  This is the insidious nature of cancer. Often, you just do not know you have it because the signs are so innocuous until it has taken over your body and is in the winner's circle -- and you have an incredibly difficult battle to get your body back -- and many people lose that battle every single day. This is especially true of "toilet information." Change in bowel movement is prett...