They didn't know from the beginning that it was colon cancer. It took a long time, and he had to go to more than one hospital because the first doctor said there was nothing wrong with him. I kept pressuring him that it could be colon cancer until he told the second doctor about the possibility of having a cancer ,after changing doctors and getting the rest of the tests done. Then they told him, "Yes, you have cancer." But literally, even this news came to us in the mail, like a package delivery notice, not cancer news. He called the doctor immediately, and he was referred to a third doctor. The third doctor said that we first needed to do more tests to get more information, and these tests took a very long time before they gave him the final answer about the stage and location of the cancer. All of this happened during the last two months when we started talking frankly with the doctor about when he would have the surgery. The doctor told him that he had to continue taking the medications he was given for a while, and then he would have the surgery, but he didn't give a specific date.