When that ‘funny tummy’ is cancer
In New Zealand,
1200 people die each year from bowel cancer. An estimated
120 of those are under 50.
In one turbulent year Sarah Lambourne was diagnosed with bowel cancer, had IVF treatment, five weeks of radiation, major surgery to remove cancerous tumours from her bowel, a hysterectomy and six months of chemotherapy.
The 41-year-old is acutely aware she dodged a bullet, surviving a deadly cancer on the increase for under 50s.
Lambourne is joining nine ‘‘young’’ Kiwis in the Never Too Young campaign, which aims to raise awareness of bowel cancer among younger people.
The campaign also targets GPs to ensure they take young patients with symptoms seriously.
Lambourne, who is also a Bowel Cancer New Zealand ambassador, wasn’t always so happy to talk about the disease.
‘‘I remember thinking: oh man, I’ve got the most embarrassing cancer. The one where when you say: I’ve got bowel cancer and they look at you and say: isn’t that an old man’s disease? ‘‘That’s what I thought.’’ After realising the information vacuum around the disease, she changed her mind.
‘‘I just thought I’ve got to do something because we’re just this embarrassing topic that no-one wants to talk about.’’
In New Zealand, 1200 people die each year from bowel cancer. An estimated 120 of those are under 50.
World-leading research published two years ago showed the disease had increased by 13 per cent among women and 18 per cent among men in the under 50 age group in the previous 20 years.
Research lead at Otago University, Christchurch, Professor Frank Frizelle said it was an area that had been ‘‘ignored for too long’’.
Campaign organiser Chelsea Halliwell, who was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer at 39, decided she needed to do something to help stop more young people dying from the disease.
She had noticed more young people joining a bowel cancer support group, including some who had a terminal diagnosis, because they did not recognise the symptoms or had not been referred for a diagnostic colonoscopy earlier.
Lambourne said she had always had a ‘‘funny tummy’’ but put it down to a food intolerance.
It wasn’t until she noticed blood in her stools that she went to her GP.
‘‘If you had told me two months prior to that, that I had cancer I would have just laughed ... I absolutely had no idea.’’
She credits her GP’s swift referral for a colonoscopy and her private health insurance for catching a tumour the size of a small apple in her colon, before it spread and became terminal.
‘‘Anyone who has bleeding should go straight for a colonoscopy like I did, but a lot of GPs don’t act that quickly.’’
Treatment included five weeks of radiation to shrink the tumour, surgery to remove it and 33 lymph nodes, and a hysterectomy because the tumour had stuck to Lambourne’s uterus.
She underwent a procedure to keep her ovaries safe during the radiation to protect her fertility and IVF with a sperm donor.
Through IVF she now has two embryos ‘‘on ice’’.
Ministry of Health referral criteria says patients under 50 years with rectal bleeding will not be accepted for a colonoscopy but a GP can consider referring the patient for a specialist assessment or another investigative procedure called a flexible sigmoidoscopy. Medical director of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of GPs Dr Richard Medlicott said the ministry’s referral criteria for colonoscopies seemed outdated in the light of Frizelle’s research.
He said there ‘‘could well be’’ a gap in service provision to that age group and it was important GPs were aware of the risk in younger patients.