A nursery worker thought she’d just caught a sickness bug from snotty kids at work before she discovered she was ’12 hours from death’.
Chloe Wakelin says she’d been visiting her GP weekly for two months after having persistent tummy ache, tiredness, and low appetite.
The 26-year-old was tested for Crohn’s disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but as they came back negative, she was told it’s ‘probably just a viral stomach bug’.
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She also says her complaints of bloating saw her asked to take multiple pregnancy tests and she eventually began throwing up vomit ‘that looked like tar’.
"I was working in a nursery, and I was around children all the time so I just thought that if it was a stomach bug, I'd picked it up from the children,” she said. "I have a little girl myself so maybe she'd brought it home from school.”
But as time went on, she knew it ‘wasn’t going away’ and ‘that it had to be something else’ while she began to question if it was all in her head.
In January 2024, Wakelin rushed to A&E because her skin was ‘turning yellow’.
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Scans then revealed the mum had a large mass in her colon requiring immediate surgery. Doctors reportedly told her she was 12 hours from death as her liver and kidneys were failing, with her also having sepsis.
After waking from a seven-and-a-half-hour-long surgery, she felt like ‘everything had crumbled’ around her as felt a stoma bag on her stomach, and she was told she had stage three colon cancer.
“It's a bit crazy because when people say that your life can literally turn upside down within a day, or hours, you never think it's going to be you,” Wakelin explained.
"I was so confused. I was in tears to my mum and my auntie on the phone. I just couldn't understand how for so long, it could be dismissed as a stomach bug and how only the week before I was told that I needed a scan but they were too busy.”
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The surgery removed the tumour, as well as 25cm of her large bowl and lymph nodes, and she has since undergone four rounds of chemotherapy to ensure the cancer had been fully removed.
In July, she was told she was in remission, but Wakelin feels ‘frustrated’ and ‘let down’ that doctors had missed it for so long.
"I was so glad it [the cancer] was gone, but at the same time there was a 'what if?' in the back of my head,” she said.
Wakelin is now urging anyone else who is experiencing symptoms to visit their GP, regardless of how old they are.
“You always think you're too young at 25 because it's typically a cancer that affects older people,” she explained.
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"I didn't have the 'typical' symptoms for bowel cancer.
"I'd just like to remind everyone to not be ashamed to go to their GP about any symptoms they may be having, no matter your age. It can affect anyone."
The NHS say the main symptoms of bowel cancer include persistent blood in the stools, a persistent change in bowel habits, persistent lower abdominal (tummy) pain, bloating or discomfort.
Jess Battison