Kirsty Laing, Paisley

I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in 2025, at the age of 34.

Before being diagnosed with bowel cancer, I would've said I lived a typical life. I loved going out with friends, spending time with family, and enjoying life with my partner James and gorgeous little boy Max.

It’s hard to imagine how during all the moments, where I was having fun and loving life, that there was something so threatening going on inside my body. I really was so oblivious.

No answers

My symptoms began in August 2025. I noticed I was getting cramping pains, mainly when I was winding down for the night. I put it down to menstrual pains, even though I hadn’t really suffered from those before. It was severe enough that I went to my GP shortly after they started.

My doctor was fantastic. She really supported me through the investigation period, explaining that she’d refer me for a range of different tests to try and figure out the cause. I had blood tests, a pelvis ultrasound and a transvaginal scan. Still, nothing stood out as wrong.

I had more blood tests done, which revealed I was anaemic. Nothing was ringing alarm bells for me. Of course I was tired, I thought, I have a three-year-old to be keeping up with. And I’d always been a napper, so I hadn’t really noticed any change in my behaviour.

Worsening symptoms

Eventually, I did a qFIT test. When I got the results back, I was told I needed to go for a colonoscopy. I think because I work in radiology for the NHS, even this didn’t flag as anything to overly worry about. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it didn’t set me panicking.

But when the date of my colonoscopy came around, I couldn't tolerate the procedure at all. I was in so much pain, even though I was sedated, that it felt like I was rolling around on the table. The technicians had to stop the examination and I was then referred for a CT colonoscopy – a less invasive version of the procedure.

During the wait for my CT colonoscopy, my symptoms worsened. The stomach pains were becoming unbearable and I had to call in sick to work a lot. As the date approached, I tried to start taking the prep, but I physically couldn’t keep it down. It made me feel awful, because the scan was in the same department I worked in, but I had to cancel the appointment.

Eventually, I managed to get another appointment. In between, I had to visit A&E because I was in so much pain.

On the day of my new appointment, I got through the procedure and was then led into a side room, where a smartly dressed man came to see me.

An immediate operation

I had a gut feeling I wasn’t walking out of that room without hearing some bad news. He asked me to recall the last few months, so I did. And after I’d finished, he said, ‘There’s no easy way to say this, but we’ve found a tumour in your bowel which has spread to your liver.’

They needed to operate on me that day. The doctor asked me when the last time I ate was. Because of all my symptoms, I hadn’t eaten properly in days, so I was rushed into operation prep. All the while, the people around me were talking about chemotherapy, and trying to prepare me for the road ahead. They team explained I might wake up with a stoma bag, but they couldn’t be sure until they got in there. I think I said ‘okay’ about 800 times. I was just going through the motions.

While I was down in surgery, my partner called my mum to tell her what was going on. She’d been on a flight to Greece at the time and she came right back.

I woke up a few hours later. I didn’t have a stoma bag. But I also didn’t have many more answers yet.

In the days that followed, I was just in a daze. My parents, my siblings, my friends and partner all visited me. And my surgeon would check on me daily. But I was still just in absolute shock and I hadn’t really processed anything.

My surgeon explained that he was taking my case to a multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting, where they would work out my pathway.

Fertility decisions

A few weeks later, when the surgeon and the MDT had spoken with my consultant, I had a bit more of an idea of what was happening. We did lots of different scans to work out how far the cancer had spread.

I had stage 4 bowel cancer. If it hadn’t spread beyond my liver, and depending on the location, size and number of tumours, the aim would be to cure me. If it had, the aim would be to control the cancer. I couldn’t really process that in my mind. I couldn’t picture a world where I could move forward with this disease ‘controlled’ within my body.

My consultant asked me if I was finished having children, because the treatment was likely to impact my fertility. That broke my heart a little bit, because our plan was to try for another baby that year. Because I already had my little boy Max, I wasn’t able to access NHS funding to have my eggs frozen.

After talking about it with my family, we decided to just focus on getting my treatment started. Max is already the biggest blessing in my life and I wanted to give myself the best possible chance of responding to treatment.

Getting through chemotherapy

A few weeks later, I got told the most amazing news: my cancer had not spread beyond my liver. I had a seven centimetre tumour in my liver which was operable. The team wanted me to do a course of chemotherapy before they operated, however, to try and shrink it.

I started the chemotherapy in December, just before Christmas. One bright spot among all the chaos was that I didn’t lose my hair, eyebrows or eyelashes. I would have always opted for treatment even if it did mean losing them, but it was comforting to be able to still recognise myself in the mirror.

Chemotherapy was horrendous. I suffered with peripheral neuropathy in my fingers and also lost my sense of taste. I couldn’t drink anything cold, and had to stick with lukewarm water.

As the drugs built up in my system, the symptoms got worse and worse. During my final cycle, I ended up in hospital due to a combination of exhaustion, chemo side effects and weight loss. I was given bags of IV fluids to try and build me back up again, which really did make a huge difference.

It might have been a hard journey, but the chemotherapy worked to shrink the tumour. It went from seven-and-a-half centimetres to three-and-a-half. And my surgeon removed that on 31 March 2026. I was in the hospital for two days, including a stay in ICU.

Staying positive

Around four weeks after my surgery, I had an appointment with my oncologist. She explained that the operation had gone well, but there was still a 50/50 chance it would recur.

That was hard to hear. But in the months since, I’ve really tried to challenge my thoughts where I can. Yes, there’s a 50% chance it could come back, but there’s an equally large chance it never will. I know I need to try and stay positive, because otherwise, what was the point of going through all this hardship?

I opted to do one final course of chemotherapy post-surgery as a preventative measure. I finished two days before my birthday in July.

And I’ve just recently had a scan that showed me as all clear. I was over the moon.

Looking forward

I think I just need to get on with my life now. Cancer has defined it, defined me, for months on end. It’s never going to be a case of clicking my fingers and being done with it. I don’t feel like I’m the same person I was this time last year. Everything I thought I’d do this year got turned on its head.

But while I’ve been through some of the most stressful experiences of my life, I made it out alive.

And I take comfort in knowing I received the best care throughout my journey. At all points, I was believed, taken seriously and treated with kindness. It made all the difference in the world.

I hope to get back to work in November, and until then, we're very much enjoying creating memories with Max. I’m not worried about the return to work. I think it’ll be nice to have some normality back, and I also think this whole experience has given me a new level of empathy for the people we support in the radiology department. I hope I can provide some reassurance to other people who might be having the worse day of their life while I’m on shift.

My biggest piece of advice to anyone will always be to go and get yourself checked out if you feel there’s something not right.