Brendon W’s story

On the 22nd of May this year (my 39th birthday day) I presented to my local doctor with some abdominal pains and blood in my stools, for him to tell me ‘it’s possible diverticulitis (inflammation of the bowel) but we are going to send you for blood works and a CT scan of you abdomen just to make sure’.

I left there and booked in that day. Had my scan done by midday, to get a phone call from my doctor at 3pm to tell me they have found some sort of lesion in my colon (large bowel) and I would need a colonoscopy done to determine what it is.

Getting in quickly, it took just over a week to get that done. I met in recovery by the gastroenterologist and woke up to the words ‘you have bowel cancer’. My heart stopped and the world came crashing down.

39 years old and I have bowel cancer. That can’t be true, but yes, it is.

The gastroenterologist told me that she seen a colorectal cancer surgeon that had just come on shift in the corridor on the way down to see me and she showed him the report. Minutes later he came to see me and said, ‘it has to come out’.

Eight days later I was on the operating table having a laparoscopic subtotal colectomy, removing 1.1m of my colon (we only have 1.5m) and 33 lymph nodes. Lucky enough leaving me with about 40cm left and not having to have a colostomy bag. Thank God.

I spent five days in hospital to recover enough to go home. That was tough. 13 days later I headed into the surgeon’s room for results, to him telling me it all went well, and it’s all been removed with all the 33 lymph nodes coming back clear from cancer. What a relief. But to also tell me that it had grown to the outer layer of the bowel wall and possibly into the blood stream, which meant I’d need three months of chemotherapy, and they staged me as just in a Stage 2.

My heart sank again another hurdle to challenge. They gave me six weeks rest to heal up before they started treatment. I’ve had a port put in my chest to administer the chemo. Round 1, 2 and 3 of chemotherapy went well until after round 3 I become unwell and woke up with a rash all over me.

Back to ED I went. To be put in an isolation room to try and work out what I had. I spent three days in there with my temperature pushing the 40 degrees mark, which was not nice, and was told on day three that I had caught chicken pox. Seven bags of anti-viral medication and a weeks’ worth of tablets, I was allowed to go home to have three days rest before I was in for round 4 of chemo. Thankfully rounds 4, 5, 6 went as best as they could.

For now, it’s time to live my life and move on with regular blood work and scans. This post is not all about me, it’s to encourage people to go get checked and if you have any symptoms do something about it, don’t delay it. Early detection is the key. I’m very thankful for my GP acting and sending me for tests and a CT scan.

My one piece of advice:

If something doesn’t feel right act on it and push for the right test to be done by your GP.