45-year-old Jenny Duncan is sharing her story about her battle with cancer and how she regrets hiding her symptoms from her doctor only because she was too “embarrassed” to speak openly about what she had been experiencing.
Namely, she first started experiencing symptoms while on vacation in Lanzarote in 2019, but she didn’t think about it much.
The reason why was because she was fit and healthy and didn’t think something serious could be going on.
Jenny was starting a new job as a head teacher in the UK where she is from, so when she experienced stomach ache and noticed blood on the toilet paper, she believed it was because of the stress and the excitement the new job brought.
She did however took photos of the blood in her stool because she wanted to keep track, and one night, as she and her husband were lying in bed, he noticed one of the photos and learned what she had been going through.
“He said: ‘What on Earth? We need to get you some help’. And because he is normally so calm and measured, I knew I had to do something,” she shared.
It was then that he urged her to visit a doctor, and sadly, she learned of the devastating cancer diagnosis. Jenny had stage 3 bowel cancer.
“I was only 45, and I thought bowel cancer was something that only happened to older men,” she said of that time.
She frequently experienced bloating and gas after eating, and figured it was just her busy workload showing up as stress-related symptoms.
“I was very tired, but I thought that was just due to the pressures of work,” Jenny added. “I used to come home late and get straight back to work.”
She said she thought it was embarrassing to talk to her doctor about poo and simply hoped the symptoms would disappear on their own.
When she learned she had cancer, Jenny regretted not visiting a doctor earlier, when she first noticed blood on the toilet paper.
“I do regret not going to the doctor straight away. I could kick myself for letting it go on so long. But I didn’t know that bowel cancer could affect someone in their forties.
“If I’d have known my poo and looked back and not been embarrassed and paid more attention to my body, would I then have got help sooner and would I be in this position now? I don’t know.”
She started chemo treatments during the time COVID-19 was making its way into the UK. That left her isolated and having to go through the treatments and the surgery all by herself.
While her tumor disappeared, Jenny was told in 2022 that the cancer spread to her lymph nodes. This time, it was incurable.
“I absolutely lost it, I was crying and I kept telling Stuart ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die’. I withdrew for a few days, didn’t want to see anybody,” she said.
After spending time alone, Jenny returned to work and enjoying life with her adult sons.
She is now living with stage four bowel cancer and undergoes scans every three to six months. She will restart treatment if her condition worsens. “I’m grateful for every day,” she says.
According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of bowel cancer can include changes in bowel habits, blood in the stool, abdominal pain, feeling of incomplete bowel emptying, fatigue, and unexplained weight loss.
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