I was fobbed off... then found I had a tumour

A NEW mum who suspected she had bowel cancer has told how she was ‘fobbed off’ by her doctor for months – before belatedly being diagnosed with the disease.

It then took a year before marketing worker Jenny Carter had surgery to remove a tumour.

The 37-year-old initially tried to get a face-to-face appointment in March last year when she was three months’ pregnant with her first child.

As her mother Christina was seriously ill with bowel cancer and she had an uncle suffering with the disease, she feared the worst when she experienced bleeding.

But her GP told her over the phone that she was too young to have bowel cancer and without seeing her, diagnosed piles – which is common in pregnant women.

The surgery had refused an appointment in person but in July 2020 agreed for her to pick up a stool-sampling kit.

When her sample was lost, Miss Carter, of Hornchurch, Essex, switched GPs – calling it ‘the last straw’.

Her daughter Penelope was born two months later and her mother died in November from the bowel cancer. Although Miss Carter’s new doctor immediately took her concerns seriously, the pandemic backlog meant she could not have a colonoscopy until as late as February this year – almost a year after she first contacted her previous GP.

Medics found a malignant growth and the next month she had a tumour removed, which left her needing a lifealtering stoma to process her waste.

She fears that if she had been she been examined in person a year earlier, she may have been spared the ordeal.

Miss Carter told the Mail how her first fears back in March 2020 were dismissed, despite recognising symptoms due to her mother’s illness.

She said: ‘I started experiencing the same symptoms I knew all too well like heavy bleeding and called my GP multiple times to express my concerns.

‘They said I was too young for bowel cancer despite knowing my family history. They said I had piles, which is quite common in pregnant women, without giving me an internal examination and gave me various creams to try but nothing worked.

‘It got to the point where I knew it was something more sinister. I called my GP in floods of tears but they told me they could not see me and if I had any problems I should go to the antenatal clinic. I was fobbed off the whole time.’

And she explained how devastated she was when the cancer diagnosis came almost a year later.

‘I knew it was going to be bad news when they asked me to come into a side room to discuss my results. My partner, Joel, was there with Penelope.

‘The doctor told me to sit down, but I didn’t want to. I just wanted to pace around the room. The doctor told me they’d found a “large suspected malignant lesion”. The rest was just a blur.

‘I was still grieving for my beautiful mum. I kept thinking I didn’t want to die. I had too much to live for.’

Miss Carter added: ‘It was only two days after my 37th birthday and my daughter was just five months old. I feel like I am on the road to recovery now. But when I had time to think about it after my operation I was very annoyed.

‘I have got a stoma now. If I had been diagnosed back in March 2020, I might not have needed such major surgery.’