00:00We are back and we're back with a very important and very personal message from one of our own NBC
00:05News correspondent Antonia Hilton is, well she's used to telling other people's stories, but this morning she is opening up
00:11about her own health journey. We're going to talk to Antonia in just a moment, but first, here's her story
00:16in our own words.
00:18It's always been my dream to be a journalist, to travel the world telling people's stories. But two years ago
00:24I started having constant inflammation in my stomach while out on the road.
00:28It was easy for me to just write it off every time. I travel, I'm on planes, maybe I don't
00:33have the best diet, but I love what I do, so it's worth it and I'm not going to let
00:36these symptoms hold me back.
00:38But in August, I watched Craig retell the story of his late brother Lawrence, who was diagnosed with colon cancer
00:44at the age of 39.
00:46Something about that really stuck with me. And then I saw a second video and that was a TikTok of
00:51a girl who was 24 talking about how she was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer.
00:56Black Americans have the highest rate of colon cancer in the U.S. And I've got a family history. So
01:02I went to see a specialist who sent me for a colonoscopy.
01:05Three weeks after my screening, on my 30th birthday, I flew home from a story to find a bunch of
01:11messages from my doctor.
01:12I pulled up the portal and I look at this document that they've uploaded and I can see a lot
01:20of words I don't recognize.
01:21But I do recognize that red bold text is not a good thing.
01:26A polyp they'd found was a neuroendocrine tumor, a rare form of cancer that affects cells that release hormones into
01:33the bloodstream.
01:34I was panicking. It really wasn't until I saw my doctor face to face that I started to feel that
01:40sense of relief and also a sense of empowerment of you took action. You did something.
01:46The good news, they caught it early. I had a series of procedures to remove tissue and screening tests to
01:52see if the cancer had spread. The last scan showed I'm all clear.
01:58Yes. We're joined now by Antonia and her doctor, Nushin Hosseini. Dr. Hosseini, thank you so much for being here
02:05as well.
02:05Thank you for having me.
02:05Antonia, let's start with you. I mean, you look great. You sound great.
02:09How are you feeling?
02:10I'm feeling really, really good. I mean, not only have most of the symptoms gone away, I have so much
02:15less inflammation.
02:16I'm not waking up in the morning and the first thing I'm thinking about is what's wrong with my abdomen?
02:20What's wrong in my stomach?
02:21But I'm also feeling so blessed and relieved in large part, thanks to you, Craig, because I learned a really
02:28important lesson at 30 to listen to myself and to put myself first.
02:33I love my job. I worked hard here at NBC and I'm not going to stop doing that.
02:38But I've learned the lesson that I really need to put my health first and not not push these things
02:43off.
02:44And so it's interesting in this particular job because you are bouncing all over the place.
02:48You're eating weird food. You're kind of not living the healthiest lifestyle when you're on the road all the time.
02:53When did you hit that point where you're like, OK, this is not because of travel.
02:58This is not because of work. There's something actually wrong that I need to advocate for myself.
03:02I think the moment I realized I might have to do something, I actually was covering the Tyree Nichols case
03:07in Memphis.
03:08And that's a great city to give yourself some excuses, right, because you're eating barbecue.
03:12You maybe haven't seen a vegetable in a couple of days.
03:14So you can blame, you know, everything else. But I was waking up.
03:18My face was swollen. I was having trouble going to the bathroom for days on end.
03:23Sometimes it feels a little funny to talk to my colleagues about that.
03:25But I think it's important that people know, you know, it's not that's not OK.
03:30You shouldn't be going days and days feeling that way.
03:32You shouldn't wake up feeling sick all the time.
03:34And so that's when I thought, OK, maybe something is going on here.
03:38So let me bring you in here as a physician.
03:41What she has is that or had was that a rare type of cancer?
03:45And it seems like, you know, a lot of people say, well, she's so young.
03:48Right. So neuroendocrine tumors are a very rare type of tumor.
03:51They're only about 8000 cases diagnosed in the U.S. every year.
03:54They tend to occur. They can occur anywhere in the body, but they tend to occur more commonly in the
03:58gastrointestinal tract.
03:59And even then more commonly in the small intestine in the area around the small intestine.
04:03For reference, there are about two million cases of colon cancer diagnosed every year.
04:06Only one to two percent of those are neuroendocrine tumors.
04:09And to put this into further perspective, your lifetime risk of getting colon cancer or any type of colon cancer
04:15in the U.S.
04:16without a family history is only about five percent, which is still fairly high.
04:20And so therefore, you know, your lifetime risk of getting a neuroendocrine tumor is a fraction of a percentage point.
04:27So Antonio, you're talking about in the story about your family history.
04:31What does that mean for you and for others, doctor, that would have this kind of history?
04:36What was your history?
04:38Well, I had some history on both sides of my family.
04:40So on my father's side, the more classic colon cancer and the symptoms you typically think about had affected some
04:47members on my father's side of the family.
04:49And then on my mom's side, my grandmother, my grandmother, Estella O'Brien, she actually had a neuroendocrine tumor as
04:56well.
04:56One of these very rare cases.
04:58And so, you know, I'm grateful that I have a family that talks about these things.
05:02I was armed with that information so I could tell my doctor not just the symptoms that I was feeling,
05:07but the broader context here.
05:10You know, I come from a black family that has this history here.
05:13And I think that, you know, many of us in this community, they, you know, are worried about going to
05:18the doctor sometimes.
05:19Maybe there's a lack of trust.
05:21But I'm here to tell you it can make all the difference if you just have that conversation with the
05:26doctor.
05:26What are the symptoms we should be looking at?
05:28So the symptoms of a neuroendocrine tumor vary widely depending on what type of tumor it is, where in the
05:34body it is.
05:35Some of them are benign.
05:36Some of them are malignant.
05:36Some of them release hormones.
05:37And as you mentioned earlier, it can cause symptoms of diarrhea, facial flushing.
05:45But in the case of those that are found in the colon and the rectum, they tend to present very
05:50similarly to a typical type of colon cancer.
05:52They don't secrete hormones.
05:53So in the typical symptoms of a colon cancer to look out for, if they present with any symptoms at
05:59all, are blood in the stool, change in bowel habits, unexplained weight loss, abdominal pain, and sometimes fatigue.
06:06Doctor, thank you.
06:08And Tonya, thank you for listening to your body.
06:10Thank you to you, Craig.
06:12Really, to you and to Lawrence, it was your voice in my head that made me call this doctor.
06:18So I cannot thank you enough.
06:20Wow.
06:20Hopefully you're going to help other people.
06:22You're saving lives right now.
06:23You don't even know it.
06:24You're saving lives.
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