Imagine being 18 years old and having to go to the doctor because every time you went to the bathroom you saw blood. When Polly Rodriguez went to the doctor, they told her it was probably Irritable Bowel Syndrome. They continued to tell her this for three years as her symptoms got worse. She became dizzy, and she was exhausted all the time. A college student who’s always tired? Not necessarily something that raises any red flags. She was a junior studying economics at Miami of Ohio who had just come back from a study abroad trip in Barcelona. Then, four days before Christmas, Polly Rodriguez found out her IBS was a misdiagnosis. She had stage III cancer.

It is estimated that nearly 40% of men and women will be diagnosed with cancer at some point during their lifetimes, and three weeks after her 21st birthday, Polly became part of that statistic. Doctors told her she had a 30-40% chance of survival. Despite those dismal odds, Polly is now a 28-year-old entrepreneur taking New York City by storm. To celebrate five years cancer free, the girl who was once too tired to walk up a flight of stairs ran the NYC marathon for the Sloane Kettering Cancer Center. She’s also the co-founder of Unbound, a start-up that seeks to help empower women — a mission of hers ever since her cancer treatment brought on a new challenge: living with early menopause and dealing with infertility, an unfortunate side effect of undergoing radiation therapy.

Teen Vogue met up with Polly and we talked about how she survived cancer, why she's spending her second chance at life empowering other women, and the unfortunate way her doctors dealt with her fertility.

Teen Vogue: What was your diagnosis and treatment?

Polly Rodriguez: I had an adenocarcinoma of the rectum. Yes, a tumor of the butt. There’s no sexy way to say it, trust me, I’ve tried 'em all. I was stage IIIC which meant the cancer had grown through the wall of my rectum and spread to the surrounding lymph nodes, 10 to be exact.

The recommended treatment was two months of radiation and chemotherapy to shrink the tumor, surgery to remove it, followed by six months of additional chemotherapy to prevent it from spreading further. I was told I had a 30-40% chance of survival and an 80% probability of it coming back.

TV: Wow. What was your reaction when you found out?

PR: “REALLY? Of ALL the cancers, I had to get the one of the butt? THE BUTT? That was my favorite part of my body, and now it’s trying to kill me? Great.”

At first, I was naively relieved that it wasn’t something permanent. “Cancer,” I thought, “I can beat.” But as the tests came in and I found out how bad it really was, I became paralyzed with fear. The doctors told me I might have to live with a colostomy the rest of my life and all I could think was, “I can’t live like that. I won’t. I’ll kill myself.” It was a selfish thought, but I was scared at the time.