MY SHOCK CANCER DIAGNOSIS AT JUST 33
WHEN Rachel Reed was suffering with stomach pains and rushing to the toilet she treated her symptoms as IBS.
She thought she was reacting badly to food and drastically changed her diet, which helped, but symptoms persisted.
“Even going over bumps in the road my stomach was killing me,” said Rachel.
As well as this, Rachel said she was always unbearably tired, even after a good night’s sleep.
At the time 35-year-old Rachel from Pencoedcae, Pontypridd, was also being treated for severe psoriasis and there were possible sideeffects to the medication she was on.
But after raising her concerns with her dermatologists, she was finally referred for a colonoscopy.
After 18 months of suffering pains, Rachel found out she had bowel cancer. “I had a colonoscopy and I could see it on the screen. In a way, seeing that reassured me – I thought I was going nuts. I owe my life to my dermatologist.”
Before that Rachel had visited the GP several times and a hospital admission in April and May 2018 discovered she had an ovarian cyst. A CT scan, MRI scan and ultrasound found nothing else.
As a public health practitioner for the NHS, Rachel has an excellent understanding of how to keep a body healthy, which helped her to recognise that things were not right.
The colonoscopy in November 2018 found a lesion on Rachel’s appendix and two weeks later she was told she had bowel cancer.
She said: “I was shocked – I just could not believe it. At the time they thought they had caught it early. But that was not the case. It had spread everywhere. Two weeks after my diagnosis I had an operation. It was very difficult to get my head around.”
As doctors were working under the assumption that Rachel also had an ovarian cyst, they planned a dual operation with a gynaecologist and gastrointestinal surgeon.
Before Rachel went into theatre she gave doctors her permission to “take it all away” if they had found the cancer had spread outside of her bowel. “It was lucky that I did. They found the cancer had spread – it was under my uterus in my womb.”
Rachel had a full hysterectomy as well as the removal of two sections of her bowel and a stoma created.
I was shocked – I just could not believe it. At the time they thought they had caught it early. But that was not the case. It had spread everywhere. Two weeks after my diagnosis I had an operation. It was very difficult to get my head around
Rachel Reed
“I didn’t know until I woke up but they passed a sheet over my head and I could see it on the sheet,” she said. “When I was taken out of theatre I said, ‘Mam, I think I have had a hysterectomy.’
“When they told me the extent of what they did, it was horrendous. I could not get it into my head. I wanted to cry but I was in so much pain.”
Rachel, who is stepmother to 16-year-old Jac and auntie to “amazing” nieces and nephews, said the children all gave her a reason to smile and laugh again.
She added: “It was in my mind to have children – I was putting my career first though. I was 33 when I was diagnosed and I thought in the next year I will look into having children.
“I was starting to think about having children – I will never have that option now.”
While Rachel was offered the opportunity to consider freezing her eggs before the operation as a precaution, it wasn’t something she considered and retrospectively she wishes she was given more advice.
Rachel’s brother and sister had babies around the time she was diagnosed and she said being around them really helped her get through the cancer.
She hopes that in the future she and husband Dean Reed will be able to adopt but first she has to focus on getting the all-clear.
Following her operation in December 2018 Rachel started chemotherapy but suffered severe side-effects.
“When I breathed in cold air it was like I was choking, and simply washing my hands felt as though I plunged my hands into a bowl of needles. I couldn’t eat or sleep and had sickness for days.”
Her treatment plan was changed but in September 2019 the cancer had spread to her lung. A second surgery followed along with further chemotherapy treatment, which lasted until April this year.
A recent scan while on chemotherapy came up clear, but Rachel will need to be monitored every six months with scans, blood tests and appointments until she is given the all-clear after five years.
It is then that she and Dean, who she has been with for 15 years, can look at adopting. Rachel explained that people who have had cancer cannot adopt until clear of the disease for five years.
“They want to make sure the person they are giving the child to will not bring further trauma to that child,” she said.
One of the most difficult aspects of going through cancer is how it affects your mental health, Rachel said.
“When you go through a traumatic experience your brain will shut down to protect you.
“It still doesn’t feel real when I talk about it – it is hard to believe I have been through all that.”
Rachel said she received excellent mental health support from Rowan Tree Cancer Care as well as Maggie’s Centre in Cardiff.
For now Rachel is focusing all her efforts on raising awareness of the disease among young people, especially in the South Wales Valleys, following the coronavirus lockdown.
She is also raising money for Bowel Cancer UK.
Rachel believes her age played a big part in the delay of her diagnosis as not only did she not consider something like bowel cancer, neither did her GP.
“If I can get one person to get checked after hearing my story and save that person’s life, that is what matters.
“I speak to other young people who have gone through it and we all get told it is rare.”
Rachel has found comfort in connecting with other young people online who have also had bowel cancer. Recently a friend she met died, which she said “hit me like a ton of bricks”.
Rachel added: “I thought, ‘That could be me,’ which makes me even more determined to share my story and help people.”