Claire’s story

I found out I had bowel cancer on January 7th 2025 after a scope/colonoscopy. I had been suffering with upper abdomen pain since June 2024 and thought it was a food intolerance and when that test came back negative, I just thought it would go away.

Come November, and I had my partner take me to emergency in the middle of the night and they asked me ‘why did I bother coming’ as there was no one on overnight to scan me and basically said it was my gall bladder and to attend the ultrasound I already had booked the following week which of course showed nothing.

My iron levels were 2 and the doctors couldn’t work out why they were so low after having an infusion at the end of May. I was sent home from work a couple weeks before Christmas and my local GP sent me back to emergency where they finally did a CT scan and it showed inflammation in my lower intestine.

A scope/colonoscopy was the only way to work out what was going on, I had this booked for the 23rd of January. I was then sent back to emergency by my GP in the hopes the gastro team could fast track that procedure, but my bloods/results weren’t enough for them to say yes.

Luckily my mum called the surgeon’s rooms and pushed to have my procedure moved forward and they got me in on the 7th! Two days later I had surgery and had 20cm of my bowel removed along with 59 lymph nodes. All results came back clear!!! No chemo required!!!

I just need to do genetic testing and have regular appointments/scans.

As they say, trust your gut!! I knew something was not right and I’m so glad we pushed for answers. It certainly wasn’t the answer I was expecting but was glad to have an answer.

My one piece of advice:

You know your body. If something isn’t right, keep pushing.