According to Cancer Research UK, about 1 in 14 men and 1 in 19 women will be diagnosed with Bowel Cancer during their lifetime. For these people, being told it’s bowel cancer will be the start of a very difficult process. A process that not all of them will survive. The good

I said in my previous post that I’d discuss bowel cancer symptoms, because it’s so important to spot them early and do something about it. Something that I probably didn’t do as well as I could have. Main Bowel Cancer Symptoms Blood in the stool This may be bright red and obvious,

Being told you’ve got bowel cancer is a very difficult thing. And even more difficult to take in. Unfortunately, it’s the beginning of a process, not an end. Before a treatment plan can be worked out, the consultant in charge of your case will need to know everything they can about your

Please note that bowel cancer survival rates improve all the time and that this was written in April 2018, and refers to my experiences in Spring 2014. Things may well have moved on. As mentioned in my previous post, not everyone wants to learn about the survival rates after they have, or

To be able to answer the question, ‘What is bowel cancer?’, it’s vital to first know the answers to: What is cancer?, and; What is the bowel? What is Cancer? A good definition of cancer is this: A cancer is an abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or

Having received my diagnosis, I was told that I’d be starting chemotherapy for bowel cancer quite quickly. And quite quickly, it was. I was in front of my oncologist just 8 days later. The meeting with the oncologist was made that much easier because the lead colorectal cancer nurse specialist, who had

My first experience with chemotherapy was far easier than I’d been expecting. I had my intravenous drip, felt some mild nausea and experimented with the cold. Pretty acceptable, really. Little did I know that the side effects of chemotherapy were just waiting for me to let my guard down… The day after

On top of the side effects of chemotherapy, there can be complications. The complications of chemotherapy can be both intense and unpleasant. Not everyone has them, and they’re best avoided. Unfortunately, I was unable to avoid all of them. When I started my chemotherapy treatments, it was explained to me that the

Liver surgery for bowel cancer is a strange concept to get your head around. Stranger, still, in my case, was the decision to do the surgery on the secondary tumours on my liver before the primary tumour in my bowel. I wasn’t involved in the decision making process for this, I was

Complications of liver surgery are uncommon, but they happen. My liver surgery had gone so smoothly that I was home after only two nights in hospital. This meant the surgery for the primary tumour in my bowel was booked for just two weeks later, instead of the four I was expecting. Yes,