Steve Simmons, Southam

I was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer in 2013, after nine months of doctors giving me cream for piles and a fistula in Spain where I lived at the time.

I got in touch with the former charity Beating Bowel Cancer who were great and advised I went on the forum to speak to others going through or who had bowel cancer. I then got speaking to a lady about my age or younger who was so helpful and gave me great advice as I was going through treatment. We even kept in touch for a while afterwards too.

The tumour was very low and I had to have seven sessions of chemotherapy and three weeks of radiotherapy to try and reduce the size. I was then told that if I did not have a permanent stoma bag fitted there was a 90% chance the cancer would come back – there really wasn’t an option but to accept this.

My time after the operation in the hospital was a nightmare due to Spanish ways, which ended up with me discharging myself after three days. The nurses then came to my house until the drip was taken off four days later. I had issues with granulomas on the stoma, which were very sore for quite some time and was the worst part of having the stoma. Eventually after advice it got better but to be honest even now I have days when I get sore but it’s all down to what activity I am doing.

I like to live an active life and have a young head on my shoulders, which helps with a 12 year old daughter.

Two years after having the stoma bag I was at a water park in Benidorm and a video was taken of me going down the 130ft summit plummet drop water slide. Yes, I did put my hand on the bag at the end just in case but no issues at all and we had a great day. The video was posted on the forum to show people that life goes on with a bag.

If you get the right advice, help from others and get the correct bag, then you will find it will hardly bother you in time. So do not worry and do your best to carry on as you.