This story has been on the content calendar all year. In there it was titled ‘How to Poo Good’ and I planned to take you, dear readers, on a journey with me as I sorted my ‘gut health’ and sifted through the plethora of products marketed to a menopausal woman promising to alleviate my bloating, gas, constipation and diarrhea, researching along the way to see what worked (for me) and what was snake oil.
This story was going to include ‘comical’ stories, like the time, while on a beach walk after a bout of constipation, I had to poo in the ocean, only to realise turds float so I had to gently swim it out into deeper waters.
My tummy problems started way back at high school when I would spend the morning doing a nervous poo before exams. That was the first time a doctor first mentioned the term ‘irritable bowel’. It seemed to disappear as I, and my hormones, matured. Although alongside that, and the regularity of my menstrual cycle (that had started at 10-years-old), came endometriosis and all sorts of funny tummies, ranging from constipation to diarrhea depending on what time of the month it was.
This all got worse after treatment for breast cancer in my 20s. Having undergone major surgery, hormone treatment and chemotherapy, I self-diagnosed myself with leaky gut, a syndrome that does or doesn’t exist depending on who you ask.
More major surgeries followed culminating in a hysterectomy on my 48th birthday last June. I was sure this would fix everything, but it kind of didn’t? Scar tissue, leaky gut, peri-menopause – every second ad on my social algorithm made me feel like my bloating, gas and irregular bowel movements were a natural part of ageing.
I became obsessed about obtaining a #4 on the Bristol stool chart (“like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft”) but I just couldn’t crack the code. I saw my GP and went to a pelvic floor specialist, who taught me visualisations on how to relax enough to ‘release’ fully, with her finger up my bum to ensure I was doing it correctly. My Squatty Potty became an essential part of my wellbeing, and I would fashion my own out of a bin while travelling.
A few months back I was asked if I wanted a free trial of an AI health modelling service. I Googled the company, only to see that a story on them published by my old employer said, “this story about an AI powered blood testing platform has been retracted”. My first thought was ‘Prenuvo’ (IYKYK). My second thought was, if it’s good enough for Kim Kardashian, Taika and a million other celebrities then why not?
Marko consists of having full bloods done (for approx $600; the company paid for mine), uploading them to an AI dashboard and having the nutritionist/blood chemistry ‘expert’ cast a human eye over them. On Zoom with co-founder Vinka Wong, I was told my iron, b12 and folate were low, indicating an issue with my digestive system meant I wasn’t absorbing nutrients. Vinka prescribed me vitamins to fill those gaps and said she would retest me in three months.
She also suggested I have a colonoscopy so that I could eliminate bowel diseases (Crohn’s and the like) so we would know we were dealing with a bowel syndrome, such as IBS.
And so it happened that I woke up from my colonoscopy on a recent Friday morning, was put in a private room with my husband and told I had bowel cancer.
The signs were all there. Not the signs of cancer; I’m still confused about what is normal and what is not in these days of (mis)information overload. But of the medical urgency I have finally become oblivious to 23 years post breast cancer diagnosis.
While resting after the procedure I heard others in the recovery room putting in orders for sandwiches. Chicken, egg. And Milo. I was given no such options. Instead I walked past all the people enjoying their cuppa and into a private room where a nurse put a large jug of water in front of me and said the doctor wanted me to drink the whole thing. Groggy with sedation I looked down and noticed the lure (where the sedatives had been administered) were still in my arm.
I was noticing all these signs in slow motion when my husband arrived, and the doctor asked him to come in and close the door. She came right out and said it nice and clearly, not like the robot radiologist who used a lot of big words and wouldn’t look me in the eye when he told me I had breast cancer in 2003. I felt like a character in a thriller, who had been sedated and had to wake up and pull it together in order to save the day. Instead, I just kept looking at my husband and saying, “are you okay? I am SO sorry”, over and over again.
The next few days blurred in the way that anyone who has a diagnosis like this (and medical insurance!) will remember. A CT scan had already been made (hence the water), and an MRI followed soon after (all the love to the team at Henderson Auckland Radiology, you are the MVPs of this story for the care and compassion you gave me, and the way you hustled those results so quickly. I will always be grateful). I also assembled a crack team of experts – my incredible GP, the gastroenterologist she works with who had broken the news, the surgeon the gastroenterologist works with, the oncologist the surgeon works with and the radiologist the oncologist works with… In the words of Taylor Swift*, “the dominoes cascaded in a line”.
I’ve spent the past 23 years ‘working on myself’ and the thing that makes me the proudest throughout this life blip is how I show up for myself. I’ve lived enough to know that life isn’t ‘fair’, and that bad things happen to great people. I’ve honed my mediation and mindfulness skills enough over the years that I am not falling into dark places (yet. This will be a long journey – treatment is expected to take around seven months). I ask questions, because knowledge is power and I am lucky enough to have some knowledge of the treatment of cancer. I am not afraid to ask those questions; I listen, I take notes and I ask follow up questions. This is all very different to the absolutely terrified young girl who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003.
Bowel cancer is something I don't know a lot about. I only know the pretty pink one; the cancer that people throw ‘gram-worthy morning teas for, and that the health and beauty industries co-opt with often toxic crap to ‘build awareness’ of.
That said, while I have a lot to learn about bowel cancer (including how I can tweak my mostly enviably healthy diet into supporting it), I have no intention of making it my personality. I’ve spent the past 23 years being cancer-free and I know I have so much more to offer.
Besides, there’s nothing particularly interesting about a 49-year-old woman with cancer. Although I will, on behalf of breast cancer survivors the world over, undergo some testing to see if any links between the two can be found. I am nothing if not a medical anomaly: after my breast cancer tumour markers skyrocketed when I was pregnant with my first child, I was written about in medical journals world wide, and that test is no longer used on pregnant people.
When I had cancer in my 20s it was so important to me to work fulltime throughout, to prove to myself I was still me, and to maintain the career I had always dreamed of. This time, the decision had already been made to close Ensemble and I was preparing to give myself a wee break after the stress of the past five years. I am looking forward to being a stay-at-home mother until my eldest moves to Otago next year. I’m extremely grateful that despite my lack of income this year, I have kept up my Southern Cross health insurance. I didn’t have that the first time around and it caused untold financial pressure on my poor parents. (I acknowledge and am incredibly grateful for my privilege here). I know that I have a wonderful extended whānau and network of friends who I can lean on for distractions, or support, as needed.
The immediate future isn’t quite what I had planned, but it’s my future. “So, make the friendship bracelets, take the moment and taste it. You've got no reason to be afraid*.”
*Yes I am aware I am a 49 year old woman who has just quoted Taylor Swift twice in a heartfelt op ed; my brain is a little broken this week, okay.
