A man diagnosed with stage four cancer reveals the one common symptom he initially ignored. Credit: Bevan Goldswain / Getty

Shawn Michael, a 48-year-old from Springfield, Missouri, has spoken up about the devasting moment he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer, which is a growth of cells that begins in a part of the large intestine.

He revealed last month on The Patient Story’s YouTube channel, where the video has since racked up nearly 100,000 views, that he’d only been experiencing one fairly common symptom before the news hit.

Watch the video below:It all started back in October when Michael began experiencing some mild bowel issues. He assumed it was just constipation and nothing major, but the situation quickly spiraled into a medical emergency.

“Two days later I could still physically feel something inside of me. It hurt so bad,” he said, recalling his return to an urgent care center after getting no relief from over-the-counter treatments.

Initially, he was given what he described as “napalm for your intestines,” which provided some temporary relief, but the pain refused to go away. A CT scan soon showed a mass in his colon, and just like that, everything changed.

“(The nurse) informed me the indications there were for stage four colon cancer,” he said. “I’ve been to hospitals before, when I was a kid I spent a great deal of time in them with my mum, and nothing happens fast in medical unless there’s a problem.”

He added: “The only thing I could think about was how do I tell my wife because she’s sitting at home, waiting for me to come home.”

A CT scan soon showed a mass in his colon. Credit: SDI Productions / Getty

Michael went on to have an operation where surgeons removed a large portion of his colon and discovered several large, cancer-like tumors on his omentum, a sheet of fatty tissue that wraps around the colon.

“[The surgeon] explained that the obstruction that was in my colon at the time was so large he was absolutely shocked that it hadn’t ruptured yet,” Michael explained. “That was actually kind of a lucky break that it had attached to that fatty tissue there.

“That had been able to help slow down the progression to the other organs,” he added.

Despite the stage four diagnosis and the cancer’s spread to other parts of his body, Michael and his medical team are staying positive. His relatively young age and overall health offer a fighting chance at beating the disease.

Doctors were able to remove all visible cancer during surgery, though some remains. He is now preparing to undergo three months of chemotherapy in hopes of eradicating what’s left.