ABC
Kathy Narrier, a Perth woman, has told the ABC the heartbreaking story of her daughter Nicole, who was told by doctors that she was ‘too young’ to be diagnosed with cancer, only to die of bowel cancer.
Kathy told the ABC she knew her daughter was sick, well before the diagnosis.
‘Early in 2015, that’s when I started realising that she was losing a lot of weight,’ Kathy explained. ‘She had no energy. If you knew Nicole you knew there was something wrong.’
However, according to Kathy, the doctors disagreed. It wasn’t until Nicole was 32 and expecting her third child, and while undergoing a routine ultrasound, that bowel cancer was detected.
By that time the cancer had spread to her liver.
‘It was a death sentence,’ Kathy explained.
The mother-of-three passed away in September of this year.
‘She told him the symptoms, that she had bleeding from the bowel,’ Kathy told ABC’s 7:30. She also explained how the doctor had told her she was ‘too young’ for bowel cancer.
‘He boiled it down to irritable bowel syndrome and kept giving her medication for that. They wouldn’t do the stool test, no colonoscopy or nothing. They just said that she was too young.’
According to Bowel Cancer Australia, the disease remains the second most common cause of death from cancer.
Also speaking to the ABC, colorectal surgeon Dr Graham Newstead said its diagnosis among young people is on the rise.
He explained, ‘We’re seeing younger people with bowel cancer whereas in the past, when I was a medical student, it was a disease for people well over their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.’
Kathy has also shared her own warning, saying that if you believe something is wrong – speak out, and don’t take no for an answer!
This article originally appeared on New Idea.
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