My name is Shantelle. I am 28yrs old, with an 18-month-old and a four-year-old.

My story starts of when I was halfway through my pregnancy with my daughter. I started getting stomach cramps that felt like contractions. I had my daughter and at my six-week check-up my doctor noticed that my blood levels were really low. So, she asked if I had lost any blood. I was unsure, so she did more tests.

The cramping got worse, so she booked my in for iron infusions. I had two of those and then I had to see the blood specialist. He booked me in for a colonoscopy.

Not long after that my cramping got even worse. It had crippled me. I was walking around like an old lady. I was taken to the hospital on the Sunday, they ran further tests and sent me home. The diagnosis was gastro.

Then Thursday afternoon I was resting and Bam I got this excruciating pain on my right side. It was way worse than Labour and I've had two of those. We called the ambulance, and they were giving me the green whistle, plus morphine, and none of that was even working for the pain. He was shocked.

When I got to emergency they could see how much pain I was in. I couldn't move at all. They put so many drugs into my body, I was completely drugged up.

Friday came and the pain was settled by all the drugs I had been given. Then the doctor came in and gave me the devastating news that I had a 5cm tumour on my bowel, which was puncturing the wall of my bowel.

That made me Stage 3b, so in I went for an emergency operation to remove the right side of my bowel.

I came back positive in one lymph node and had to do six months mop up chemo, which I have now completed.

Nearly one year down the track from my operation, I am NED.

IF IT CAN HAPPEN TO ME IT CAN HAPPEN TO YOU!!!