Jordan’s Story

“So my story starts back before Christmas of 2022 with some mild abdomen pain that I wrote of as just being nothing, fast forward to June of 2023 the pain stepped up a notch one weekend, so I booked a GP visit for the following Friday.

Monday morning come about and I woke up feeling really tired, sick and sore. I did some googling before heading to work and google indicated that it could be appendix so I rung the Healthline on my way to work. They said I should see a doctor within 24hours so I went straight to Nelson ED. ED did blood tests and my results come back with really low haemoglobin, and I was anaemic. They told me to book in for my GP and talk to them about getting a colonoscopy I rung my GP and got in the same day.

When I had my meeting with the GP they didn’t believe my blood count could be that low and I must of heard the doctors at the hospital wrong. So when she got the report, they were really shocked. I said I had medical insurance and wanted a referral for a private colonoscopy which they said they would do it took me 2 weeks of phone calls to even get that letter through as the GP never sent it.

In the meantime, I had 2 other trips to ED with more pain and more blood in my stool, each trip though they would never put me through for a CT scan because of my age which is super frustrating.

When I finally got my private colonoscopy, it was found that I had cancer so I was booked for surgery and a month later had it removed. I was unlucky enough to have my first operation burst and I ended up back in hospital for emergency surgery and a lengthy stay.

All in all, everywhere I have been the recurring theme is everyone comments that I’m just too young. But I’m hearing of more and more young people getting it and it’s a lot more common than people would like to admit.

I was fortunate enough to have Dai Henwood as one of my supporting roles; he was absolutely amazing. Honestly, I don’t think mentally I probably would have come through it the way I did without his help.”

Jordan spoke to StuffNZ about his bowel cancer journey, read more HERE