Beating bowel cancer together

Nicole McLaughlin, Belfast

My husband was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in December 2021 when he was 37.

My husband, Pearse, had been ringing his GP for 10 weeks about constipation and abdominal pain. He had lost weight and was more tired than usual. They just said that it was irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). He did ask them if it could be cancer but told him he was too young for that. They saw him just twice in this time and did a few blood tests that showed his white blood cells were not normal, so they put him on folic acid.

He also passed an alarming amount of blood from his back passage two days before I brought him to hospital. I rang his doctors about this and was asked by the receptionist what colour the blood was. As it was bright red, they said it was nothing to worry about, but I wanted the doctor’s opinion. According to the Health and Social Care Facebook group I’m in, you should contact your doctor as soon as possible regarding any blood being passed whatever colour. I emailed a picture of the blood in the toilet to his doctors, and they didn't look at it or even contact us. I rang them the next day and was told by the receptionist that the doctor will not look at that email. Personally, I feel that the GP has a lot to answer for.

It was on the 10 December that I had to rush Pearse to hospital with severe abdominal pain. I told them that we weren’t leaving until he got a CT scan or x-ray because this was not IBS. He was given a CT scan in the early hours that showed he had diverticulitis. On the Monday he was on his way to get a colonoscopy when he told me he felt something explode inside. His bowel had ruptured, and he ended up having to get an emergency open bowel surgery and he had sepsis. He had to get a stoma bag as a result.

A few weeks later the surgeon came to see us and told us the part of the bowel that had to be removed was sent to pathology and they discovered that there was cancer. We were both devastated, and we both cried. Even the nurse who was there with us cried.

Just after Christmas we were told that Pearse had stage 3 bowel cancer, he had to wait for his wound from surgery to heal before he could start chemotherapy. In February he caught Covid-19 and had to get stents in his kidneys which postponed his chemo further. He got his first round on 18 March and was fine, not sick or run down. Two weeks later he was constipated again, so on 30 March I took him to the cancer centre to get checked. We were told he had a bowel obstruction and had to be on bowel rest. In April we were told that there was nothing more they could do, and it was now in God’s hands.

My husband died on 22 May 2022 at the age of 37. We were together 18 years, we got married in August 2021 and have two beautiful, young, heartbroken daughters. I blame his GP for neglecting him when he needed them most, if they had handed him a letter to go straight to the hospital to get properly tested he would probably be here now.

Thankfully my employers were incredible, they were so supportive of me and my family throughout and they still are. Pearse’s cousin is now raising money for cancer charities in his memory.

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