Colon cancers that have not spread beyond a polyp in which they arise are usually cured by simply snipping or burning off the polyp. She should not have described her condition as invasive colon cancer. The cancer can be progressing, but is erroneously represented as slowed or cured. This can fool people whose cancers do not produce symptoms that reflect their seriousness. Even fatal forms of cancer can have ups and downs in their course, so that the patient may feel better on some days than others.
Doctors sometimes give too pessimistic a prognosis.
A patient who tries an unorthodox remedy and lives longer than predicted by a doctor may credit the unorthodox remedy instead of realizing that the doctor's prediction was too pessimistic. Anyone who treats large numbers of cancer patients will encounter some whose survival is much longer than average but still within expected variations. Rarely, cancers can even disappear for no apparent reason. But only quacks use these people to lure other cancer patients to their facility. Patients who have died of their cancer or are lost to follow-up are represented as cured.