I am 21 years old and work full time in a nursery school. I'm a fun active (usually) fit and healthy young girl and i enjoy spending time with my long term boyfriend (Toby) family and friends. I have had severe abdominal pains for 3 years before I changed doctor surgery and they actually started to take me seriously that something was wrong (I wasn't just being a hypercondriact.)
After numerous amounts of ultra sounds and blood tests etc someone realised a shaded area in my lower abdomen so I was referred for a MRI scan in early 2012. Then in May I was called into an emergency appointment with the doctors at the surgery ( I thought it was just standard procedure as you do) so off I went and was confronted with 3 Drs. The appointment consisted of them telling me the shaded area was not my gynaecological region but in my bowel. As my mum suffers with IBS I thought the worse thing it could be is that. But the went on to tell me I needed to go to the hospital to have a thorough examination by the colorectal team (didn't even know what that was.) I refused to go straight away as my partner and I were flying out to Gran Canaria in two days time. So after a long discussion they decided I could go but I had to visit the hospital as soon as I was home.
I thought no more about it for that week I just enjoyed our lovely holiday and got very sunburnt (oops) but when I was home the letter of referral was waiting for me Wednesday 6th June 2012 I had an appointment with the colorectal surgeon.
So the day came and I went in to meet with Mr.Lidder and the nurse Sally (who were both very lovely.) Unfortunately I was on my own at first but soon enough I could here my mum and Ka (boyfriends mum) talking in the waiting room. They got there just after I had been assessed by the Dr (which wasn't pleasant.) He told us there was a lot of blood inside my rectum and he would need to do further examination by a procedure called a colonoscopy ( I swear they make these words up.) After 20 minutes I had signed and consented to all the forms and went home. Still none the wiser of how serious things were about to become.
FormerMember
Hi Birdreadyforflight,
Welcome to the Online Community. I had a look at your profile, and I'm so sorry to hear you have had a cancer diagnosis at such a young age. It sounds as though it took a long time to get the diagnosis, and it was a real shock when it came.
I'm glad you've found our site, as many of our members do find that writing a blog here is a helpful outlet for their feelings.
You might also find it helpful to join and post in some of our groups, where you can get support and share experiences from other people who are going through similar things. For example we have bowel cancer group and a group called 16-25 and living with cancer.
Another really good way to get support is to give our team a call on the free Macmillan Support Line - 0808 808 0000 (Mon-Fri, 9am-8pm). They are there if you need to talk, or if you need expert information on medical, practical or financial issues.
