Jenny C’s story

Three weeks before my 35th birthday, bowel cancer was not on my radar at all.

I was busy with work, as I have been for most of my life, but I considered myself healthy. I ate well, trained at the gym four to five times a week, and looked after myself. Cancer felt like something that happened to other people, later in life. Not to someone like me.

I had been experiencing lower right abdominal pain that lingered for a couple of months. I visited my GP, who referred me for an ultrasound. At the time, I assumed it was something minor. Six months earlier I had undergone egg freezing, so I thought the pain might be related to my reproductive system.

The ultrasound results were mostly normal, but the report noted possible inflammation in my ileum. To be safe, my GP referred me for a colonoscopy and endoscopy, and I booked the procedure for 1 April.

When I woke from sedation, the doctor pulled the curtain around my bed and told me he had found a reasonably sized, ulcerated polyp. It would be biopsied and sent to the lab. The following day, he called to tell me the results. The polyp was cancerous.

I had the phone on speaker beside my partner. We looked at each other in complete shock as we heard the word cancer. Everything that followed felt blurred. I cried as the doctor spoke, struggling to process what I was hearing. It felt surreal, as though it was happening to someone else and I was watching from the outside.

Things moved quickly. I had a CT scan the next morning to check for any spread. When the results came back clear, it was a huge relief. A few days later, I met with a surgeon who explained I would need a right hemicolectomy to remove the affected section of bowel. Only after surgery would the cancer be fully staged.

What shocked me most was learning that the tumour itself had likely caused no symptoms at all. The pain that led me to the doctor in the first place turned out to be unrelated (which I now know is endometriosis). Had I not undergone a colonoscopy, the cancer would have remained undetected.

Looking back, I had very few symptoms that felt concerning. Fatigue that seemed normal for an adult with a full-time job. Fluctuating iron levels that many women experience. IBS-like symptoms I had lived with for most of my life. I had even had a colonoscopy ten years earlier that showed nothing abnormal.

I had surgery on 24 April. I remember feeling terrified as I was wheeled in to be put to sleep, knowing I had no control over what came next. When I woke and saw my partner’s face, I felt overwhelming relief. My recovery went well and I was home within two days.

Three days later, I received a call to tell me the cancer was Stage 1, my lymph nodes were all clear, and I didn’t need any further treatment.

The relief was indescribable. Physically, I was done. Emotionally, the aftermath was harder to navigate.

In the weeks that followed, I struggled with a sense of guilt and disbelief. After reading stories of others diagnosed with early-onset bowel cancer, I felt like a fraud at times, as though I hadn’t suffered enough for my story to matter. It took time to realise that finding bowel cancer early is not something to minimise. It is exactly the outcome we should be striving for.

Life had been on track. A career I loved, a new home, plans to start a family. Suddenly everything paused. My partner temporarily became my carer, and our plans were put on hold while I focused on healing.

The support I received from the Bowel Cancer Australia nurses was invaluable. Their nutrition and mental health support helped me process not just the physical recovery, but the emotional impact of being diagnosed with cancer and then being told, almost as quickly, that it was gone.

This experience has given me a perspective I never expected to gain at this age. Whilst I don’t necessarily believe everything happens for a reason, I do believe meaning can be found in difficult moments. It has changed how intentionally I move through life and how closely I listen to my body.

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My piece of advice:

If there is one message I want to leave others with, it is this – listen to your body and advocate for yourself. Bowel cancer does not always announce itself loudly. It can show up as a layering of small, easily dismissed symptoms. Do not ignore them. Do not assume you are too young.

I did not look sick and I wasn’t sick, until I was. An incidental finding because of thorough medical professionals and persistence in seeking answers, saved my life.