Hi all
My wife recently developed symptoms of bowel cancer. She noticed some white mucus on toilet paper last sep. She has pain in her lower back. Not enough to take pain killers. She has recently been told she is low in b12 and folate (is this a marker of cancer). She is worried its too late now and loooking at certain death. There is no blood visible. Her stools not what they were but are not pencil thin and is still regularish. These symptoms came on suddenly 3weeks ago. She was constipated for a full week then started going again. Her crp fbc and iron are normal as far as we know. So worried
Hi cpat and welcome to the board. There are a lot of conditions that can cause similar symptoms to bowel cancer such as piles, colitis, diverticulitis, ibs and only 1 in 10 colonoscopies results in a bowel cancer diagnosis. Has your wife been to the doctors and been referred for a colonoscopy? - this is the first step to investigate what may be causing her issues. The bowel produces mucus to help move the stools through the system and it may be that she’s just not noticed it before? The back pain and weight loss may be caused by the stress and worry that she’s under.
When I was diagnosed I was having very loose pencils stools with blood as well. Bowel cancer is slow growing but very treatable and if, and it’s a very big if at this stage, it does turn out to be bowel cancer then there is a lot of treatment available and it’s not a ‘certain death’ diagnosis. I was diagnosed in 2016 and I’m still cancer free as are the 2 ladies I was diagnosed with.
Ive attached a link to a diary symptom diary which might be useful for your wife to complete and she may like to ring the support desk in the number below for a chat too
https://bowelcancerorguk.s3.amazonaws.com/Publications/SymptomsDiary_BowelCancerUK.pdf
I hope this helps to reassure your wife a bit as the more she worries then the more little niggles she’ll notice and then it becomes a vicious circle. Try to keep your head where your feet are and try not to let your minds and imagination run away with you.
Take care
Karen x
I don’t mind you asking at all cpat I was stage 3 - no spread to other organs but 2 out of the 17 lymph nodes that were removed had cancer cells. If I’m honest I’d had a change in bowel habit for a couple of years but convinced myself it was due to a life style change (out of work for a few months)or piles and only went to the doctors because I was going on holiday and knew my bowels would be even looser.
If you click on my name then you can see my treatment timeline although it’s a little different nowadays as trials have shown things like shorter chemo is just as beneficial and having chemo before surgery rather than after is better for the patient
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