Lauren B’s story

Early in 2021 I noticed a change in my bowel habits. My stool was looser, I went from going in the morning to going at night, and when I wiped there was some bloody mucus on the toilet paper.

These were my only symptoms, no pain, no lump. I was tired but I put that down to being a busy mum to a 4-year-old boy.

I ignored them for six months because I was too afraid of hearing that it was cancer. I had lost my mum to breast cancer in 2009 so I know not only how silly it was to ignore it but also what a cancer diagnosis could mean.

In the July I had a bowel movement and didn’t make it to the toilet in time. This scared me enough to make an appointment to see my GP. She ordered bloods and a colonoscopy. The bloods came back showing low iron but nothing else sinister. I had a colonoscopy on the 7th of September and that same day, 20 days before my 40th birthday, I was told ‘you have rectal cancer’.

From there it was a whirlwind of scans, more blood tests, and appointments with my surgeon and radiotherapist. I had five sessions of radiation which made me nauseous within three hours of that first appointment, and I lost a lot of weight. My surgery was the next week, and I had 30cm of bowel removed and a temporary loop ileostomy formed.

The good news was that what was originally thought to be Stage 3 ended up being Stage 1 so no chemo was needed. I managed quite well with the stoma, we named him Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2 to make it more fun for my son, and I was able to be reversed in January 2022.

I had a hysterectomy in 2023 as a precaution because my cancer has a high recurrence rate in the uterus and ovaries.

I suffer from LARS, (lower anterior resection syndrome) a chronic illness, which means that my body doesn’t accept some foods the way it used to. I have trigger foods that I know I need to stay away from, but some reactions/rejections can come out of the blue. This can change from week to week and will be ongoing for life.

I am now living beyond bowel cancer, and I am super proud of my many scars.

My one piece of advice:

Listen to your body. My body was trying to tell me that something was wrong, and I refused to listen. You know what your normal is so when your body isn’t feeling normal get yourself checked. It could save your life.