IN GOOD HEALTH I was planning my funeral… now I could have years to live
When Ruth Wilkins was told she had inoperable colon cancer, her dreams for the future disappeared. Then a medical emergency offered her an unexpected lifeline
As Ruth Wilkins came round from the anaesthetic, she couldn’t believe what the surgeon was saying – she was free of all visible signs of cancer. Three months earlier, she’d been told she had a tumour in her colon so large it couldn’t be removed. Even with chemotherapy, she would only have a few years to live.
But incredibly, after being admitted to hospital for an emergency operation to relieve pressure on her digestive system, the surgeon had managed to remove all visible traces of cancer from her body.
“I’d been planning my funeral, and suddenly I was told I could have years to live,” says Ruth, 56, a retired executive coach.
“It was amazing and I am so grateful.” Looking back, Ruth can see there was a change in her bowel habits about three years before her diagnosis.
“I was quite constipated and only went to the loo a couple of times a week,” she says.
But she wrote off the symptoms as a sign of getting older. “It never occurred to me that I could have cancer.”
Then, in June 2020, she started to have excruciating pain in her stomach. At first the pain was on and off, but as the weeks went by it became more persistent.
In August, she made an appointment to see her GP, and a test found a small trace of blood in her stool sample. Ruth, who lives in Castle Eaton, Wiltshire, with husband Les, 63, a businessman, was referred for a colonoscopy. It involved a small camera being inserted into her colon.
“After the procedure, the doctor took my husband and I into a room and told us I had cancer. I was so shocked and upset. I’d assumed it was a stomach ulcer, so it was hard to take it in.”
Follow-up appointments revealed Ruth had stage four colon cancer, which had spread through her abdomen and into the tissue that lines the abdominal wall. Since the tumour appeared to be inoperable, the only option was palliative chemotherapy.
“The first thing I wanted to know was how long I had left,” says Ruth. “I thought my husband and I would have 30 years together in our home in the countryside but all that disappeared in a second. I was heartbroken.”
Ruth was especially worried about Les, who’d lost his first wife to breast cancer 22 years before. Ruth was told she would live for three years on average with chemotherapy, or six to 12 months without treatment.
She chose chemotherapy and, like many cancer patients, had to attend appointments alone due to Covid restrictions. “It was scary but the nurses were brilliant,” she says. “They knew it was my first time and really looked after me.”
But the chemo was gruelling.
“Most of the time I was in bed, unable to move because I felt so sick.”
On Christmas Day 2020, Ruth started vomiting, and in January was admitted to hospital. A CT scan revealed the tumour had grown and blocked her colon – if she didn’t have emergency surgery, she wouldn’t live more than a few days.
Ruth was offered two options: either the surgeon on duty could insert a stent into her colon to allow waste to pass through, or later that evening, one of the hospital’s top
surgeons could remove part of her colon, leaving her with a colostomy bag.
Ruth chose the second option, believing it would give her as much time as possible with her family.
Then, when the surgeon came to speak to her before the operation, he gave her some unexpected news.
“I’d been told the tumour was inoperable, but the surgeon looked at the CT scan and said it wasn’t as large as we thought,” she explains.
“He said he could remove the whole tumour during the operation to remove my colon. I couldn’t believe it.
“When I came round from the anaesthetic, the surgeon was beside the bed. He said he’d managed to remove all visible traces of the cancer.
“It was amazing and I was so grateful.”
The surgeon warned Ruth that although there are no visible signs, her cancer will return one day – although it’s impossible to tell where or when. Now, nine months later, Ruth has just finished a second round of chemotherapy. She has regular scans to check whether the cancer has spread, but there’s no sign of it yet.
Meanwhile, she still struggles with the emotional impact of what happened to her.
“Even now I find it hard to believe the cancer has been cut out,” she says. “Perhaps if I’d been seen by a different surgeon to begin with, I would never have been told it was inoperable. But life is too short to waste time being angry about things you can’t change.”
Ruth’s husband and family are over the moon, but she still feels cautious about the future.
“It is difficult knowing that you have got a ticking time bomb inside you,” she admits.
She has recently returned from a trip to the Lake District with her siblings and hopes to go on holiday with Les later in the year.
“I want to make memories with my family.
“I’m thankful for every day I get to spend with them,” she says.
■■Ruth is supporting Cancer Research UK’S Race for Life, in partnership with Tesco. Run, walk or jog. Sign up to a local event at raceforlife.org and raise money to fund life-saving research
The surgeon looked at scans and said it was not as big as they thought