Battling bowel cancer at age 32: ‘I just cried’
Rachael Ferguson now wants the screening age lowered to 35
Rachael Ferguson had the next stage of her life planned out. The 33-yearold got married in November 2020 and planned to start trying for a baby with her husband.
She’d had an “unsettled and stressful” year and thought: “We’ve got through the worst of everything.”
But that December Ferguson got news that made her wonder if she should start planning her funeral.
Diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, she was left “shocked” and “numb” after discovering she had what she thought was “an old person’s disease” at 32.
The next day: “I went home and I just cried and I cried like I’ve never cried before”.
She recalls looking at herself in the mirror, telling herself everything was going to be okay. “Whether I knew that or not, I had to believe that.”
Nearly 18 months later, after having surgery and chemotherapy, Ferguson is pregnant and says life is “pretty much” back to normal.
In light of her experience, she believes the age for the national bowel screening programme in New Zealand needs to be lowered to 35, instead of 60 to 74.
Bowel cancer is NZ’S secondhighest cause of cancer death. More than 3000 people are diagnosed with it and more than 1200 people die from it each year. But if found early, it can often be treated successfully, the Bay of Plenty District Health Board said.
Ferguson said: “I just know so many people in their 30s being diagnosed. “This can affect absolutely anybody at any age at any time. There should be no age bracket.”
Her views are supported by Tauranga man Brett Morrison, who lost