Keith Gough, Bexley
My name is Keith and in December 2019 I had a bleed out of my backside one evening while having a poo, this started my journey into discovering I had bowel cancer.
I will give you some background on myself to personalise this episode in my life.
I am currently 64 years old, retired as a Telecommunications Manager. I have always kept myself fit and healthy at the gym and swimming pool with virtually no alcohol and a good balanced diet, I am 6ft 5in and weigh a controlled 17 stone. Twice a week I attend a RSPCA centre and work with dogs, cleaning kennels, walking dogs, etc. I swim 50 lengths of a 25-metre pool every day and complete light weight training. I am an individual who knows my body and its functions or thought I did. My wife is retired as a Physiotherapy Clinical Specialist in Women’s Health, so I had access to good medical guidance and understanding.
I poo once a day first thing in the morning but on this particular day I realised at around 4pm that I had not gone and needed to go. I had to strain slightly, which I never do as I always go easily, I looked down the bowl and saw an amount of bright red blood, I called my wife to confirm what I was seeing and she agreed, I took a couple of photos and went to our local A&E.
Prior to this I had only a slight tiredness some days and a small ache at the bottom of my stomach area, these symptoms never gave me cause to consider anything sinister and my life and exercise continued as normal.
I was checked for piles, etc, but they could find no reason for the bleed and said I needed a colonoscopy. Within a week I saw a registrar who changed the colonoscopy to a sigmoidoscopy.
The sigmoidoscopy was the day after Boxing Day and I was so full of meat, etc, in my colon that they could not get the camera through. The young woman who carried out the procedure said “I want to change this to a colonoscopy so you can have a prep powder before you attend that will clear your colon and also view the whole colon, not just the early part”. Her decision saved me from a lot of future suffering or even death. One week later the colonoscopy revealed cancer high in the colon in the caecum area, this would not have been discovered with the sigmoidoscopy as this covers only part of the colon.
On the 23 January 2020, when Covid was just raising its ugly head, a brilliant surgeon, Mr Hanek, operated and removed all the cancer present and sewed me back up, I did not need a stoma, this was a Thursday and I was home on Monday morning.
Prior to the operation I had decided that my exercise would be key to maintain focus as your head feels all over the place just because of the shock. I still had my full swim the day prior to my prep for the operation, it made me feel I had some control of my body and mind.
I am a practical person and had decided, talking with my wife, that I would only look at the NHS bowel cancer website and take each stage of my cancer as one bit at a time otherwise it will crash your head with worry and overload of information. I had decided that although I had bowel cancer, a big category, that my cancer was unique to me due to the stage that it is at and each stage would determine my approach to my problem, when the surgeon could inform me of the way forward based on his findings and results of biopsies, etc.
After my operation I woke up the next morning, I went to move in the bed and had the most awful muscle spasm in the operation area. This scared me and was painful, like a severe calf cramp, I was then scared to move. The sister gave me Tramadol for pain relief and no further spasms occurred thankfully. The sister said I need to get out of bed and stand up, I said it feels like the stitching will burst open if I move, she said you need to get up. I told her to stand back, I didn’t want her covered in my exploding gore, but oddly enough I didn’t explode! It felt like they had sewn my forehead to my kneecap as I went from bent over to fully extended height and the stitching made itself aware that it was in my body, I was now standing up. Sister told me to sit in the chair as she was about 5ft and my 6ft 5in gave her a neck ache, she made me smile. She wanted me to be out of bed for three hours and slowly shuffle around the bed area, this worked for me as my exercise is a challenge and I had some goals to work to, although to not overdo it as the healing needed proper rest.
My wife visited and she said “how do you feel?” I said “I must still have anaesthetic in me because as I move my head it feels like my eyes follow later” I was sat as rigid as a board not moving my head. She said “what pain killer have they given you?” I said “Tramadol”. She said, “it is the Tramadol making you feel like that, ask them to change it”. When the pill trolley arrived I told them what had happened and they said I could have Morphine, but this reminded me of the war films and more exploding bodies, so I said “no thanks”. Sister said that they could then only give me Paracetamol and Ibuprofen that was equivalent to over-the-counter medication. I decided to have this and start at the bottom and work with my pain, if I needed more relief then I would have taken the Morphine, but I only wanted to take what I needed. The “pain” that I experienced was more of a huge discomfort then what I would class as actual pain and I was lucky enough to not need anything stronger. However, I can assure you I would have taken more if I needed it, just be realistic with your pain but do not suffer any more than you need to.
While on the ward I wore some long flannel shorts and a t-shirt, no underwear, as I had a catheter inserted that led to a briefcase style carry-box to collect my urine. My clothing made it light and easy to manoeuvre. By the end of the day after my operation I had gone from a shuffle to a near normal slow stride around the ward into the nurses’ station and along the corridor, with briefcase making sloshing sounds as I moved.
On the Saturday the physiotherapists arrived to assess me and I was on their books until I could complete the stairs to the next floor. We completed the ward, corridor and I said “let’s try the stairs.” They agreed to take me off their books as I was moving freely, I was pleased with that. On my walks I chatted with other patients, then kept moving, but never overdoing it, as there was no point.
In all this time I had started on normal food after the second day. At this stage I had not had a poo but on the second day wind started to move through my colon which in my head told me all was working ok, I just had nothing of substance to move through my colon.
The surgeon visited on the Monday morning with his entourage and told me I had done well asked if I had any questions, I said “can I go home?” he asked “have you had a bowel movement” I said “no but wind is passing through all the time.” He said he was pleased with my recovery and I could go home.
My wife collected me, I went home and had the best piece of salmon I have ever had. I said I needed to lay down, my wife came upstairs and I asked her to leave me alone while I lay down. I am not an emotional person, I never have been, but I just crashed. I wouldn’t allow myself to cry, I could have just sobbed, but this thing that had invaded my body was not going to take me over totally: I would still have some control. But, if you need to sob, then that is equally ok, you need to do whatever it is to get you through this.
The next day was the start of my real recovery at home. I needed to visit my GP and for the nurse to change the dressing, she advised me that her dad had died of bowel cancer. That was probably not what I wanted to hear at this stage but it truly made me laugh, it was so bizarre. She also found that my wound had become infected and for two weeks I battled an infection, that really brought me down. Should you experience this, it’s quite common, do not use the giant sticky bandages as they rip at your skin, it is truly painful. Get large dressings to place over the wound and a really long crepe bandage to wind round your body and fasten with safety pins.
The infection annoyed me as I had a walking plan that was blown apart, but I was getting out for small walks, etc. I was not allowed to swim for six weeks from my op as I would cause a hernia so it became my new goal to not get a hernia but still progress my recovery.
After four weeks I had an appointment to see the surgeon. I sat down and Mr Hanek said he had one request of me and that was to buy a bottle of champagne for my wife and I to celebrate as no further treatment was required. They had removed 19 lymph nodes and none had signs of cancer, therefore it had not spread, the cancer had been detected very early. He said he still did not understand why the sigmoidoscopy was changed to a colonoscopy as he would have booked the first option himself. I appreciated his honesty, but he said it has given them cause for thought when diagnosing patients in the early stages.
I was advised that I could swim after six weeks, it was actually five weeks and six days that I had my first swim. It felt so, so good that I was back in the pool and moving up and down the lanes. I actually experienced pain in the area of the operation, a tight pulling feeling and was advised I had probably had a hernia and given advise on how to look after it. The hernia turned out to be disruption in the healing process causing adhesions due to the infection of which I exercised out within a few weeks.
Following my operation, I swam for three weeks then had the first lockdown and I was truly vulnerable to Covid. In the three weeks I swam the pool was empty, I was the only person in there at that particular time, everybody stayed away, lucky for me. Covid messed with my head a bit as there was too much time to sit and think. I was convinced that my body was so low when I had the cancer that prostate cancer would creep in when my body was low. I have been checked every three to six months for nine years as I have an area on my prostate that is suspect but no cancer has been detected. I have no symptoms or restrictions other than it messed with my mind a bit. My first result from a prostate check was good and I felt I was over another hurdle.
Every six months I have a blood test and a chat with an oncology nurse regarding the results. I have also had a follow-up CT scan and a colonoscopy one year after my operation. A polyp was seen growing on the site of the surgery and I had a follow-up colonoscopy one year later. This turned out to be scarring, but at least it was checked. All the post-op processes were during Covid but overall no real delays, all thanks to our excellent NHS.
My wife and I went through my lifestyle and we decided to change nothing. I have a balanced diet: fish, white meat and red meat (very low amounts). I do not have alcohol and I exercise a lot. It felt odd to realise that I had cancer, just because I had cancer. I also decided that after two and a half years free of bowel cancer it is an episode to be reflected on and to move on from. It was a strange period for not only my immediate family but my whole family from the point of view of shock. I do not feel like I am a victim but somebody who is incredibly lucky to be able to have a major illness like that and carry on with life where I left off. I hope my story gives people some realisation that you are not alone at the stages you need support for however much that support is. With amazing charities like Bowel Cancer UK, although I didn’t contact them, there are those who at least understand your journey, but your journey will be unique to you as all cancers are.
