Joe Faratzis, a 34-year-old TMZ producer, was diagnosed with stage 4 colorectal cancer at age 28 after ignoring symptoms for months. He recently shared his experience to raise awareness, urging people not to delay medical checkups and to prioritize early screenings.
His symptoms began in 2019 and included night sweats, fatigue, frequent bathroom visits, lower right abdominal pain, cramps when bending over, and blood in the stool—which he initially dismissed as hemorrhoids. The turning point came when he noticed a large amount of blood after passing gas, prompting him to finally seek help.
Faratzis underwent chemotherapy, colon surgery, and treatment for lesions on his liver and lungs. In 2023, he celebrated his first clear CT scan, and a year later, he marked one full year cancer-free.
He now advocates for early detection, emphasizing: “If I had taken my symptoms seriously and gotten a CT scan in 2019, things might have been very different.”
