A woman has revealed she was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer despite initially dismissing an 'embarrassing' symptom.
Jelena Tompkins, from Colorado, US, has shared her story in a bid to encourage others not to ignore their symptoms and raise awareness.
The mum-of-one was just 34-years-old in 2016 when she first noticed a change in her body, but dismissed her concerns as she was generally very healthy at the time.
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Jelena had noticed her gas had started to smell worse than usual, but she put this down to her healthy diet, which contained plenty of vegetables.
She began taking probiotics to improve her gut bacteria, yet the smell did not improve.
However, Jelena - who is an avid runner - didn't grow concerned about the change in her gas until she noticed blood in her stool.
A few months later, at her annual check-up, she told her doctor about the blood and they also guessed it was down to her diet.
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Three months later, doctors began doing tests to determine if Jelena was eating a specific food which was upsetting her digestive system. This led to her having a colonoscopy, which sadly revealed she had stage 3 rectal cancer.
"I was in some of the best shape of my life. I ate healthily and never thought that cancer would strike me at such a young age," the mum told The Patient Story.
She opted to undergo 28 days of radiation and oral chemotherapy, followed by surgery to remove the tumour.
12 inches of Jelena's colon were removed as well as 17 lymph nodes, leaving just five cancerous nodes remaining.
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She then had an ileostomy - a procedure whether a small hole is made in the abdomen and a piece of ileum is brought out through the hole to create a stoma.
2 months after her final round of chemotherapy, Jelena had her ileostomy reversed.
Jelena, who had no family history of cancer, is now in remission and undergoes maintenance chemotherapy and annual scans.
"I went in, at first, every 3 months for CT scans and checking my CEA and my bloodwork to make sure all my blood counts were bouncing back," she told The Patient Story.
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"Eventually, it got strung out to every 6 months, every year, and now I am just going in once a year for follow-up blood work and to check in with my oncologist."
She credits social media for helping her with her diagnosis, having found support online from others going through similar.
Jelena said: "I connected with so many others that had either finished treatment or were going through treatment at the same time as myself to just have that support group and know I wasn’t the only young woman that was going through this."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.
Danni King