Steven Wills, Cornwall

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I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May 2022, when I was 52 years old.

I had a heart attack on June 24 2021, they called it the widow maker but I got through it and then in May 2022 I was having really bad back pain. My back pain is always there but this time it was getting bad so I took some tablets which made me bloated. I then started to experience bleeding from my bottom. I went to see my doctor and he sent me for a further check-up. I got in within three weeks and on the day I was checked they told me that I had bowel cancer.

It was about five or six weeks later that I was in hospital for the operation where they removed part of my bowel. After six days in hospital, I came home but fell very sick and went back to hospital. When I had the operation they had fitted me with a stoma bag which kept going into high output. This was what had made me very ill and sent me back to hospital. I was sent back a further three times – I only spent four days at home in one month. During my last time in hospital I waited 11 hours for pain killers and 14 hours for a drip to rehydrate myself – the Royal Cornwall hospital are sadly very over stretched.

It has been very hard to deal with the stoma bag but I’m getting there with it now. I have been told that they have got all the cancer and I don’t need chemotherapy. I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will be able to reverse the stoma in six months’ time.

I was planning to do a 31 mile walk to raise money for Bowel Cancer UK but was unable to due to being in hospital, this is still something I’m hoping to do in the future.