My Story – Bowel Cancer  

GP’s Never Ignore blood in stool!

Looking back at this very unflattering photo now fills me full of dread to be honest. Fighting for your life (bowel cancer with sepsis from a perforated colon) is a terrifying journey for anyone. Also saying goodbye to your family in A&E before being rushed into emergency surgery to save your life, and knowing its a 50/50 you might not make it, is also horrible (and for your loved ones!).

However, I’m choosing to share my personal story in the hope that it might inspire others to fight on no matter what the odds may be! Of course, my initial emotions were of overwhelming doom. However, I later discovered that an increasing number of people are managing to survive bowel cancer as long as they manage to catch things early enough. I believe having a positive mental attitude really helped me in my fight against the disease (and the amazing skills and care of my surgical and aftercare nursing teams/doctors and consultants). So please don’t give up on your personal journey, fight your best fight!

MY FIRST SIGNS OF BOWEL CANCER – Looking back and taking stock, my cancer journey started back in 2022 when I started passing bright red blood in my stool every morning. Of course, I naturally made an immediate appointment with GP in order to try and find out why this was. Being an IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome) sufferer since my early teens, I was aware that I had to be careful with my diet, and was also aware that I had developed early stage diverticular disease. My GP reassured me that he thought it was just a bleeding polyp within my colon wall, which was apparently not that unusual in middle age or older people. However, he failed to do the right thing, which was to refer me for a colonoscopy. If he had then they would have discovered that I had a malignant rectal tumour. But he didn’t, so I progressively got sicker and sicker over a two year period. Finally, I felt so unwell that I went back to my GP practise and asked for a second opinion. I was then referred for an urgent colonoscopy where they immediately found a 5cm bleeding rectal tumour. 

NHS STAFF SHOUT OUT! – Let’s be honest, the NHS (people within) provide an incredible service for UK citizens. I know this from first hand experience when I was treated for bowel cancer back in early 2024. In short their quick intervention (also dealing with sepsis from a perforated colon), followed by weeks of high dependancy intensive care definitely saved my life. So to all the Surgical teams, Nurses, Doctors, Consultants, Clinical Staff…. “A MASSIVE THANK YOU!”.

Hence, why I feel compelled to try and help other stoma patients with my ‘Stoma AirClip’ invention, which helped me avoid the very common stoma pancaking daily despair on my personal stoma journey.