‘Test could save my life’ after mum’s diagnosis
BBC Wales presenter Lucy Owen has opened up about her mother’s cancer diagnosis – and also got herself tested for bowel cancer.
Her mum Patsy was diagnosed with bowel cancer at the age of 82 in 2021 after ignoring the home test kits she had received over the years.
The 52-year-old, who is from Llandaff, spoke to her mum in a candid interview about the ordeal. Patsy said of her operation for the illness: “[My surgeon] said I’ve got a space next week and we can do the operation for you but I’m afraid you’ll have to have a stoma. And in actual fact I was really quite pleased about it because by then I thought I’m going to be in [cancer hospice] Marie Curie and that was it, so it was actually quite a relief.”
The age to receive a home test for bowel cancer, the UK’s second-biggest killer, was lowered to 51 last year, and will go down again to 50 this year. Due to her age, a testing kit recently landed on Lucy’s doormat, she admitted to BBC Wales.
It was only when Patsy’s symptoms became severe that she finally went to see her GP. “I had to admit to myself that the changes had become quite acute and I couldn’t go on much longer without sorting it out,” she said. “I had to explain that I thought that something was wrong and could they send me a test, and they did.”
Encouraging people to get tested for bowel cancer, she added: “You know how it is, you put it in the drawer you never open or put it behind the cushion you never move... You just put it off. I wish now that I hadn’t, of course, because it could have been treated so much earlier if I hadn’t been so stupid. I really would urge everyone not to put it in the drawer you never open. It’s just nothing, you put it in the post and that’s it. And if you get a telephone call saying ‘we need to look further into this’, well perhaps you’ve saved your life by doing this.”
Bowel cancer causes almost 1,000 deaths in Wales every year. Cancer Research Wales said historically it was people over the age of 70 being diagnosed, but now there is an increase in middle age too, particularly in people under 50.
Reflecting on her own test, Lucy said: “I can’t say it was particularly pleasant – I mean, nobody really wants to have to catch their poo in toilet paper and a dip a little test stick in it, do they? But, after my mum’s close call, I’m more than happy to do it. It might save my life. Mum says she’s incredibly grateful to the NHS, and so am I to still have her with me.
“Now I just have to hope that my test comes back all clear.”