Beating bowel cancer together

Caroline Mousdale, Waterlooville

My 23 year old son, Bradley, died of bowel cancer after being misdiagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) for 18 months.

Since the summer of 2018 Bradley had had stomach problems which resulted in multiple visits to the doctor. Each time he was sent away with a vague diagnosis of IBS, anxiety and haemorrhoids. He was never offered any further investigations, even though he was also experiencing tiredness and weight loss.

This continued for over a year, and then in October 2019 he had started a new job in London and was regularly commuting. One morning his stomach was very bad and he was unable to continue on his way to work. Bradley went to the doctor who took some blood and gave him piles cream. The doctor called back three days later and said that Bradley’s iron was very low, so he was referring him for a colonoscopy. This took over six weeks to come through. During the colonoscopy they couldn’t get the camera very far, which was awful. I just knew then what was happening and I felt like my world had fallen apart, even though the cancer had not been diagnosed yet. Bradley was diagnosed three weeks later with stage 4 bowel cancer – although he wasn’t told the staging at the time.

Bradley was immediately given an operation to bypass the tumour and put a stoma in, followed by a course of chemotherapy. The chemo started in February 2020. The side effects were manageable, usually easing after four days and Bradley would spend the remainder of the time before the next chemo living a normal life as much as was possible. The chemo unfortunately made little difference to the cancer and he tried two other cycles of other drugs. Not at any point did Bradley allow thoughts of the chemo not working, and he never considered dying was ever an option for him. Even on the day in January 2021 that we were told that there really was not anything left to fight with, so it was on to pain management, Bradley came home and bought tickets for him and his best mates to go to the Festival of Speed in July 2021. During Bradley’s initial treatments we were able to be there by his side all the time, which is what he wanted and needed as being age 22 in wards of people with the average age of 70 was making his recovery even harder mentally. There was nothing for a young man his age to do or anyone talk to other than us and the staff who were incredible. This was also his first ever stay in a hospital. However, Covid hit and he was really affected by the pandemic as Bradley then had to do all his treatments alone. All of his bucket list things to do were not at all possible, it made the cruel disease even crueller!

Since his diagnosis, our lives have turned upside down. It was extremely stressful living with the constant worry that I was possibly going to lose my only child to cancer without him living a life yet. My parents, his grandparents live in France and due to the pandemic were unable to come across and support us and help me. Trying to get help from the GP and nursing team was also very difficult as well as having to have his treatments alone without any family allowed to go with him nor any Wi-Fi, all of which did not help his mental health. I wished it was me that was ill, not him.

Bradley was just 22 when he was diagnosed. He died less than two years later at the age of 23. Young people DO get bowel cancer, so I don’t know why at least a FIT is not offered to them, with a follow-up colonoscopy if the results are concerning. There are young people getting bowel cancer, but GPs seem to still be of the mind; it can only happen if you are 50 or over. Bradley was told at least twice that “you are under 50 it won’t be bowel cancer” and the diagnosis of IBS and piles were never proven. Being young Bradley felt it was not his place to question the experience of the GP. These young ones are people and NOT statistics. They need to be offered the FIT test without question as many young people are like Bradley and will not question the GP’s diagnosis until they are still not feeling any better. Unfortunately, young people are not surviving bowel cancer because, as with Bradley, it is being left too long before the cancer diagnosis is made thus it has had the time to spread and metastasis to other areas.

So far, I have raised £35K for cancer charities and we intend to do more. Bradley always intended to raise the money he was given by various charities, and to raise more, but this never happened because he did not survive but it is something I am doing and will continue to do so.

In June 2022 guidance was published to encourage GPs to offer a FIT test to young people with bowel cancer symptoms. We urge people to actively ask for the test when they speak to a GP about such symptoms, find out more about this here.

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