Elise’s Story

At 24 weeks pregnant I was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in my sigmoid. I have since had 3 months of chemo, birthed the baby, surgery, and now have 3 more months of chemo a head of me. In June 2023 a group of us were heading up to blenheim for a funeral which was a 4 hour drive. We had a few gins in the car, then headed home that night, The next morning i woke up and had blood in my poo. I thought it was a bit odd, and the left side of my tummy was a bit tender but i thought that perhaps all the sitting from the car journey and the few gins i had, had annoyed my bowels. The next few days there was still some blood but not as much so i decided to go to the GP. She addressed the elephant in the room and suggested either an inflammatory bowel disease or cancer. She booked me in for a colonoscopy.

A few weeks later I got pregnant. A few weeks after that, the hospital rang to book my appointment for the colonoscopy. I mentioned that i was pregnant and after that I never heard back from anyone about the next steps despite many phone calls. I decided that the public system was not going to get back to me so i went to a specialist. I explained my symptoms which at this stage the blood had stopped but my poo and farts were super stinky, like clear the room stinky (previously i didnt really fart that often), and my poo was not a normal sized poo. They were small, pebbly or runny, and i was going to the loo about 7 times a day. The specialist wasnt super helpful either and said it was too dangerous to get a colonoscopy during pregnancy (at this stage i was in my second trimester), and he also said im young fit and healthy so its unlikely to be cancer.

The inflammation markers in my poo wasnt particularly high (max 400), so he didnt come across too concerned. He did a small biopsy in my rectum area and it came back clear so he thought perhaps i wait until im no longer pregnant before getting a colonoscopy. We had a follow up phone consult and it wasnt until i said that i have 2 other kids that i would like to continue for them to have a mother that he finally suggested a MRI scan. I had the scan and it was here that they saw a 5cm leision on my bowel and i was urgently rushed to have a colonoscopy the following day. This showed a stage 3 tumor in my sigmoid! I was finally back in the public system (after spending $2500 of my own money trying to get diagnosed as i don’t have health insurance), and from there we started treatment.

Normally to treat my cancer would have been surgery followed by chemo but the doctors decided that 3 months of chemo followed by surgery after birth and another 3 months of chemo would be a good treatment plan. The chemo was safe for pregnancy. I had minimal side effects despite being DPD deficient. My chemo treatment finished 3 weeks before birth to ensure i was healthy, i was then induced at 38 weeks, had my darling wee girl, then 20 days later I had the surgery in my bowels removing the cancer.

We had discussions around the different drugs id be receiving during and after surgery that were all considered safe for breast feeding, but the lack of food and having no appetite post surgery resulted in me having no milk anyway, which is hindsight wasnt a bad thing as it meant my husband could take her home with him and bottle feed her and i could focus on my recovery.

I am now 1 month post surgery and am about to take on more chemo soon as 9 of the 68 lymph nodes taken from my bowel had cancer in them. Heres hoping the next 3 months mops up any yukkie stuff and i come out clear. Ive tried to be really positive in this “journey” and kept life as normal as i can. A key part of my recovery is trying to move my body everyday, eat a healthy diet, drink lots of water, saunas, ice baths, grounding sheets, and not letting myself be seen as a patient – being social and setting goals for the future.