I have suffered from constipation periodically, ever since I was young, so I did not regard it as unusual. My father died of cancer in 1995 in the UK. He told me a few years earlier he had had some polyps removed but he had played down the seriousness of his condition when I spoke to him on the phone. I now know he eventually had open abdominal surgery but still not much more information than that. I had assumed his cancer started in his lungs because he was a pipe smoker.

No one ever told me he had bowel cancer – in the mid nineties I had never even heard of bowel cancer. I knew that my mother had Crohn's disease. When I had constipation, I thought I might have Crohn's too and believed there was no treatment to cure this apart from surgery so didn’t want a diagnosis. 

In June 2015, my brother Andrew was treated for diverticulitis (with antibiotics), a condition where pockets that develop in the lining of the intestine become infected or inflamed. A few years prior, he was hospitalised for over a week with similar symptoms, these included severe pain in the abdomen.

My beloved brother Rob was diagnosed with metastatic stage 4 bowel cancer in October 2017, just before his 44th birthday.  His was diagnosed with the disease after having an unusual pain in his abdomen, which led to urgent CT scans.  Rob had surgery and chemotherapy, and sadly lost his life in June 2018, 8 months after diagnosis.

With symptoms including blood and blood clots in my stool, fatigue, nausea, light jaundice and abdominal pain, I visited the emergency room in August 2018 and had to wait for nearly 7 hours. I was turned away.

I just wanted to share my story with you and anyone who would be interested to not only raise awareness, but to show that people can get through the worst of things and there is always a positive side to things.