Bianca Harvey started having stomach cramps in early 2023. Soon, the elementary school science teacher’s pains became unbearable. The single mom went to the ER four times before being diagnosed with colon cancer at 33. “For me to get it so young, everybody was just like, how? But it’s happening to people younger and younger,” says Harvey, now 36. “Early screening is so important.”
The location of the tumor meant surgery was not an option. “No one could remove it surgically. I begged and pleaded and asked many times,” says her oncologist at Duke Health, Dr. Nicholas DeVito, assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. Instead, Harvey did 16 months of chemo followed by immunotherapy. “She’s been through a lot,” says Dr. DeVito, “What’s particularly impressive about her story is how unbelievably healthy she is overall. This can really happen to anybody.”
Harvey shares her fight to survive with PEOPLE’s Wendy Grossman Kantor.
In January 2023, I started having a lot of small stomach pains. They weren’t anything too crazy. At the end of 2022, I had fibroids removed. I thought, “I’m probably still healing.”
At first, it felt like cramps. Soon it felt like somebody was stabbing me in the stomach constantly. It was really bad. I went the ER multiple times, but they kept giving me the runaround. They thought it might be ulcers or GERD. I had an endoscopy, but they didn’t see anything.
I was teaching sixth-grade science in Colonial Heights, Va. The pain would literally be so bad, sometimes I would ask my teacher’s assistant, “Can you watch the class for me?” And I would go to my car and cry.
In June, my principal came to observe me teaching, and when she came into my classroom, I was bent over. I was trying to teach, but I couldn’t stand up anymore.
I met with my principal and explained my situation. I said I was in excruciating pain. I told her I was taking ibuprofen all day, I’ve stopped working out, I’ve stopped doing all the things that I used to do.
I used to work out all the time. I started running when I was 13. I went to Appalachian State University on a track & field scholarship. Then I worked as a personal trainer and a kickboxing instructor. I started teaching full time after my daughter, Keilani, was born in January 2016. I still did body sculpting and personal training.
The pain was so bad, I told my clients, “I’m going to take a break until I find out what’s going on.”
I was losing weight, losing weight, losing weight. I didn’t have an appetite.
In June, her doctor ordered a CT scan. She called me the next day and said, “I know why you’re in excruciating pain. We see a tumor in your stomach. We don’t know if it’s benign or malignant, so now you need to get a colonoscopy.”
I called my mom immediately, boo-hoo crying. She and my dad immediately drove 200 miles from Fayetteville, North Carolina.
I had my colonoscopy, and then that’s when doctors told me, “You have colon cancer.”
I was diagnosed June 19th, 2023. I was 33 years old. Keilani was only 7.
But this wasn’t the first case of colon cancer in my family.
My dad, who is a track coach, was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2019.
When my dad was diagnosed, they told him that my brother and I didn’t need to get colonoscopies and get screened until we were 37.
My dad beat his colon cancer. He had surgery, doctors removed it. They had said he was one of the healthiest people that they ever seen go through it. He’s 64 now.
So when I initially got my diagnosis, I’m like, okay, this is just another hurdle because my dad had it. I’ll be fine. I’ll be down for about six, seven weeks like my dad was, and then I’ll be good to go.
My doctors in Virginia talked about wanting to do surgery, but I’m very close to my family, and I wanted to go back home to North Carolina. At that time, I couldn’t do anything for myself. My daughter’s dad and I are not a couple but he was checking in on me every day. He was helping me take care of our daughter when I could barely take care of myself.
It felt like my life was diminishing, like a downward slope.
One of my dad’s assistant coaches told him to take me to Duke. She used to be an oncologist there and thought it was where I would get the best care. It was about 90 minutes from my parents’ house.
At Duke, I learned my cancer was stage 4. We all were just taken aback.
The first thing that came to my mind was, “Am I going to die?”
My oncologist Dr. DeVito was so calm. He was like, “I have a plan and this is what we’re going to do. This is how we’re going to move forward.” That comforted me and gave me hope for my future. A lot of stuff I couldn’t process because I was on pain meds all the time, so my parents were always there because I couldn’t make decisions for myself.
The reason why I was having so much pain was that the cancer had spread to my pancreas.
We talked about surgery. But Dr. DeVito said that because it had spread, there was no way to get it all out. He was like, even with surgery, that doesn’t necessarily dictate your lifespan or if it’s going to come back.
So I started with chemo. I did 16 months of chemo every two weeks. Then I would also go home with a chemo bag, so I was still being administered chemo for another 46 hours.
Dr. DeVito and my family, we talked about taking me off chemo because I was doing so good. My body was reacting so well to it. Then my last CT scan back in November 2024 showed that I had a tumor that was near my lungs. I had started feeling pain again.
The chemo wasn’t working anymore. Dr. Devito said we needed to find a different drug.
So now I’m on immunotherapy.
Chemo kills your good and your bad cells, but with immunotherapy, your body uses itself to fight back with the infusions that you get. In the beginning it was really hard. I felt like I was kind of back at stage one when I used to be in the bed all day. I used to be extremely sick. But now that my body is starting to get used to it, I feel better. Immunotherapy isn’t as consistent as chemo was. I go every three weeks and I go for a day and then every other three weeks I go for two days.
I constantly pray to God. I constantly ask Him to let me be here with my daughter, and I feel like I showed Him that I wanted to be here. I kept fighting.
When I first came to North Carolina for treatment, my daughter stayed with her dad, then my mom ended up moving to Virginia temporarily to help take care of my daughter. Sometimes I would spend weekends in Virginia with them, and other weekends it would just be me and my dad at home in Fayetteville. It was chaotic.
I was really sick. My mom was just so strong throughout all of it because she was still finding time to make sure I was okay, doing things with my daughter, making sure that she didn’t see me too bad. Because I lost a lot of weight. I didn’t look good.
My mom takes me to all my appointments. I haven’t driven more than 20, 30 minutes since I got diagnosed. She makes all my food. When I was really sick, I couldn’t feed myself, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t walk. I would have a bell that I would ring because I couldn’t barely talk. She would just come and cater to whatever needs. Anything I needed, she was right there. Mother’s love for sure. She sacrificed a lot to help me. It was very, very hard.
She was trying to keep me uplifted, keep me upbeat. Both of my parents are veterans, but mom is different from dad. He’s a little tougher, but mom is like, “I’m going to love on you, I’m going to be right there with you every step of the way.”
In fall 2024, my mom said she had to get back to NC. I was like, “If you’re going home, then I’m going home.” So I packed up all my stuff and my daughter and I officially moved to North Carolina.
In the beginning, I explained to Keilani the symptoms that I would have, how sick I would be, and I would tell her, “I’m going to be here for you as much as I can, but mommy is very sick, so there’s a lot of things that I can’t do. There’s a lot of places that I can’t go with you. My immune system is very low.” I try to love on her and explain it to her in a way that a kid can understand.
It was a lot for her to deal with because I wasn’t there — and she’s used to me being there all the time. She was with my mom or with her dad, and it just wasn’t the same.
I love my baby. She’s 9 now. I don’t want her to have to grow without a mom. And when I think about that, I do my best to push through, I do my best to have more good days than bad days. And I know she looks up to me, I know she depends on me, and that’s one of the biggest things that keeps me here, is her.
People ask, “How many treatments do you have left?” And it’s not that easy for me because my cancer has already spread, so I’ve got to keep going.
I feel like the biggest thing that I want people to take from my situation is to just always make sure you advocate for yourself. You know your body better than anybody else. If you feel like something isn’t right, speak up.
The biggest thing is, if you feel like something isn’t right, get checked. Don’t be afraid to ask the hard questions. If somebody says no, they don’t think you need a colonoscopy, go to somebody else. If you’re in pain or think something is wrong or you have a family history, get a colonoscopy.
In September 2024, I made my first post about my cancer on social media. I post that stage 4 cancer will not stop me on Instagram. I do TikTok dances while getting treatments, I share my story on Facebook and YouTube.
I did not realize how much love I would receive and how my story would inspire other people. They also inspire me by saying things like, “I’ve been cancer-free for this long.”
They also send me helpful tips about cancer. I knew I had God and my family, but I didn’t know I would have such a huge community. The outpouring of love that I received is really amazing. It warms my heart. It makes me want to cry when I think about people that don’t even know me that donate to my GoFundMe because I’m no longer able to work. I love when people send me words of inspiration and encouragement. It means everything to me. And it reminds me that I’m not in this fight alone.
I pray every day. I pray to be cancer-free every day. And I know I am going to be. I know. Maybe not today, but over time, eventually I’m going to get there.
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