Vanessa, diagnosed at age 28
Vanessa was just 28 years old and living her dream life on the Gold Coast when she began to experience the symptoms: severe upper abdominal pain, brain fog, vomiting, and rectal bleeding.
Despite experiencing red flag signs and symptoms of bowel cancer, due to her age they were not immediately linked to a possible malignancy.
During this time, a tumour was growing inside her rectum that would reach seven centimetres in diameter.
Rates of bowel cancer are higher than ever before when it comes to Vanessa’s generation, but young people often find themselves self-advocating for a diagnosis.
Bowel cancer rates are 2 to 3-times higher among Australians born in the 1990s than those born in the 1950s. Bowel cancer is now the deadliest cancer for Australians aged 25 to 54, highlighting the need for vigilance across younger age groups.
“I had a referral from my GP for a colonoscopy but with COVID-19 and because of my young age, they put me down as low priority – so I had a two-year wait”
“They told to come back to the hospital only if things got worse.”
And get worse they did.
Vanessa would present to the ER on six occasions having spent hours vomiting, while bleeding from her rectum. Each time, her symptoms were dismissed.
“On the seventh occasion, a doctor finally took me seriously and re-categorised me,” she said.
“I was booked for a combined endoscopy and colonoscopy within 30 days. They kept me back after everybody else they’d seen that day was sent on their way.
“I received the news I had Stage III cancer, and a large tumour was blocking my rectum.”
Vanessa said everything she had seen before then, including the marketing materials related to Government’s national bowel cancer screening program, all suggested bowel cancer was an old person’s disease.
It’s an assumption she knows from experience that can delay diagnosis for many younger patients.
“We’ve been told our whole lives bowel cancer is an old person’s disease but it’s not. You are never too young. Cancer doesn’t discriminate,” Vanessa said.
Dr Kat Goodall, diagnosed at age 33
When you’re a doctor, you get used to giving bad news and, to an extent, you learn to insulate yourself from it.
So, at just 33-years-old, it came as a huge shock to Dr Katherine Goodall that she would hear those dreaded words herself from her own doctor.
“Unfortunately, I found cancer.”
Dr Goodall was working at the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane when she was diagnosed, having relocated from Cairns during her surgical training. Her life and career were placed on hold for nine months while she underwent treatment.
“Chemotherapy really knocked me around, and I developed symptoms that any surgeon would dread, including hand-foot syndrome, and peripheral neuropathy,” Dr Goodall said.
“Chemotherapy really knocked me around, and I developed symptoms that any surgeon would dread, including hand-foot syndrome, and peripheral neuropathy”
“Fortunately, I found some amazing support from an occupational therapist and took up some hobbies that would help me recover. I was able to go back to surgical training part-time.
“I had been interested in colorectal surgery since I was an intern and have since decided to continue that pathway. So, I suppose you could say the experience of having bowel cancer myself, didn’t deter me from my chosen career.”
Dr Goodall is one of a growing number of young Australians who are being diagnosed with bowel cancer as one-in-eight new cases now occur in people aged under 50.
She wants to use her unique position as a surgeon-patient to advocate for GPs to recognise the early red flag signs of bowel cancer.
“In my own practice, I’ve learned not to ask questions like ‘have you noticed any rectal bleeding?’ or ‘have you changed your bowel habits?’ because patients don’t know what that means”
“Instead, I ask, ‘in the past 12 months, have you changed how many times a day you go to the toilet?’ or ‘have you noticed any changes to the colour or consistency of your poo?’
“But my standard question is simply, ‘Is there anything new about your poo?’”
Dr Goodall said she’d like to encourage GPs to refer more ‘grey-area’ patients.
“That one you are on the fence about? I would love to meet that patient,” she said.
“All professionals have missed opportunities for finding cases – not just GPs – because it is hard to pinpoint which patient with PR bleeding needs urgent intervention. We can work together to figure it out.”
1 in 8
colorectal cancer diagnoses
in Australia are in
people < 50 years old 4,6
years of healthy life were lost due to colorectal cancer in 2022 7
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