Melissa’s Story

I was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer on May 2nd 2018. After months of back and forth to my GP, I was starting to wonder if I was a hypochondriac.

Being told to try gluten free, try dairy free, might be a upset tummy – after months of bloating, horrific night sweats (in the middle of winter) it got to the point where I demanded for someone to look “inside” me. I didn’t care how, just have a look because I KNEW something wasn’t right.

First appointment was a sigmoid colonoscopy, it was awful, embarrassing and damn right uncomfortable! I remember the doctor who did it saying “there’s a few polyps but nothing concerning”, then patting me on the knee and saying “it definitely won’t be bowel cancer, you’re too young”.

Unhappy with this result, I told my GP and he booked a colonoscopy, the public health system was overloaded so they sent me private (very nice). That’s the day I met Doctor John Jarvis, the man who saved my life and I will always be thankful for.

Did the lovely prep, went off to my appointment thinking “yay finally an answer, will be something simple, worst case I might be coeliac and have to go gluten free”.

Sitting in his office, eating a sandwich (so happy to finally be eating) he comes in, sits down, looks me straight in the eye and says “we found cancer”. I don’t know what happened from there as my world crashed. All I could think about was my daughter (I’m a solo mum) and what would happen to her, what if I die? And omg I’ll have to do chemo, she will have to see me so sick.

Next day, straight in for staging CT, was stage 3. Surgery booked for a week later, next day a 2 hour meeting with John to discuss my surgery and the outcome.

Turns out I have sessile serrated polyposis syndrome. This resulted in me loosing my entire large bowel. I woke up from a 9 hour surgery with an ileostomy bag (much to my horror). John informed me the bag would only be for 4-6 weeks to let the join heal and then they’d reverse it. Not the case as it was then decided I’d need to do 12 rounds of chemo, meaning no surgery till that was over. So me and the bag had to become friends.

Chemo port was then inserted into my chest and off to my first session I went, absolutely terrified of how I was going to feel! I managed to continue working full time through chemo, just having every second Friday off for my “spa day” as we nicknamed it.
Countdown was on to get that bag gone!

April 5th 2019 (my daughters birthday) the bag was reversed, what an experience that was – learning to poo again! They gave me a list of do and do not eat, I laughed and said “no way!”
I have continued to eat as I normally would (to a degree). I got back into the gym and now 4.5 years from diagnosis am living a very full, happy and healthy life.

I am thankful EVERY day that I met Mr Jarvis, he didn’t muck around. He got me in and sorted ASAP but also took into consideration the fact I was a young female with a life ahead of me, so did every he could to make sure I could carry on as normal as possible once every thing was done.

Anything I can do to help spread awareness and also give people hope that there can be a good outcome I will do.

Mel x