Shannon’s story in memory of her sister Brooke

My sister Brooke went for a colonoscopy on 3 Feb 2025 after having a lot of bloating, constipation and just not feeling right in her stomach. The doctor at first was like ‘let’s just keep an eye on it and try taking some drinks to help loosen up things’. But nothing was working so she went back, and the doctor booked her on for her colonoscopy.

When she woke up the nurse told her that the doctor would come speak with her. They had located an 8cm tumour and wanted to do a PET scan to check for any further cancer spread.

The following is a timeline of what followed from this diagnosis:

+ Official diagnosis 6th Feb – PET test found cancer cells in her liver as well.

+ First chemo treatment 19th Feb.

+ Third chemo treatment 2nd April.

+ In hospital Sunday 13th April with a perforation in the bowel near the tumour.

+ Sunday 20th April – removed tumour, bowel, uterus and would now have a stoma bag for life.

+ Sunday 27th April – still in lots of pain and not going home anytime soon. Brooke’s skin colour

was a pale-yellow colour. Brooke’s liver was causing fluid build-up so they operated to add stents to help with the blockages.

+ Friday 16th May – Brooke’s skin colour is bright yellow and she doesn’t look well. Brooke was told that the stents were not working and that it looks like the cancer in her liver is way past fixing with chemo. They told Brooke that she will need to go to hospice, they will remove stints and there will be no more chemo. They gave her only weeks to live.

+ Tues 20th May we took Brooke to look at a hospice ready for her to go on Thursday. They removed stents Wednesday 21st.

+ Sunday 25th May – we all had a catch up in the park next to the hospice.

+ Tuesday 27th May – Brooke started getting chest pains and her breathing had become shallow.

They gave her on an oxygen machine and pain meds.

+ Wed 28th and Thurs 29th May Brooke was unresponsive and has what they call The Death Rattle. She is on some heavy-duty pain meds and just lying there. All we can do is talk to her and give her heaps of love.

+ Friday 30th May 2025 @5:40am Brooke grew her angel wings.

Brooke was on 39 yrs old who had a loving husband and two beautiful children Juliet 9 and Ashton 5.

My one piece of advice:

If anything doesn’t feel right in your body, go get checked by your doctor.  A young 39yr old should not have passed away from bowel cancer so we need so much more awareness.