Early in 2021 I noticed a change in my bowel habits. My stool was looser, I went from going in the morning to going at night, and when I wiped there was some bloody mucus on the toilet paper. These were my only symptoms, no pain, no lump. I was tired but I put that down to being a busy mum to a 4-year-old boy.

I ignored them for six months because I was too afraid of hearing that it was cancer. I had lost my mum to breast cancer in 2009 so I know not only how silly it was to ignore it but also what a cancer diagnosis could mean.

In the July I had a bowel movement and didn't make it to the toilet in time. This scared me and made me make an appointment to see my GP. She ordered bloods and a colonoscopy. The bloods came back showing low iron but nothing else sinister. I had the colonoscopy on 7th September and that same day, 20 days before my 40th birthday, I was told "you have rectal cancer".

From there it was a whirlwind of scans, more blood tests, and appointments with my surgeon and radiotherapist. I had five sessions of radiation which made me nauseous within three hours of that first appointment and I lost a lot of weight. My surgery was the next week and I had 30cm of bowel removed and a temporary loop ileostomy formed.

The good news was that what was originally thought to be Stage 3 ended up being Stage 1 so no chemo was needed. I managed quite well with the stoma, we named him Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2 to make it more fun for my son, and I was able to be reversed in January 2022.

I do now suffer from LARS (lower anterior resection syndrome) which means that my body doesn't accept some foods the way it used to but if I stay away from my trigger foods in mostly ok.

I am now living beyond bowel cancer, and I am super proud of my scars.

My one piece of advice for others: Listen to your body. My body was trying to tell me that something was wrong, and I wasn't listening. You know what your normal is so when your body isn't feeling normal get yourself checked. It could save your life.