In January 2024 Ciaran Cunningham woke up with a sharp pain in his lower right side. He attributed the pain to a long history of ulcers accentuated by a stressful life as an executive chef.
Then his doctors thought it might be appendicitis. It turned out to be much worse than that. A colonoscopy and surgery later revealed he had bowel cancer.
Looking back on his life-changing diagnosis, he blames himself for ignoring symptoms which lasted a year before his eventual cancer diagnosis.
“Though I usually approach things with a balanced perspective, I did not rush to the doctor. I thought it was not anything serious,” said Cunningham, who is 52 and lives in Kill, Co Kildare.
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“I would notice blood on my toilet roll occasionally, but I shrugged it off. Stomach pains – just ulcers acting up. No weight loss, but inconsistent stool output – just another thing I pushed aside.”
Had he gone to the doctor at the right time, he would have been diagnosed with stage-one not stage-two bowel cancer and saved himself the psychological and physical trauma he endured during treatment. “Stage one could have been as simple as taking a polyp,” he said.
Instead, his treatment involved nine hours of surgery to remove his rectum and 12 cycles of chemotherapy, but it worked and his treatment stopped in October 2024. His most recent scan showed him to be NED (no evidence of disease). He has been one of the luckier ones.
“I kick myself about not going to a doctor. I can’t do anything about that now. I can only move forward. I want to raise as much awareness as I can to try help people avoid going through what I have.”
Bowel cancer, which is also known as colon cancer or colorectal cancer, is Ireland’s second most common cause of cancer-related death, second only to lung cancer, with about 2,500 diagnoses and about 1,000 deaths each year.
April has been designated as bowel cancer awareness month, to highlight a disease which is eminently treatable if found early, but also involves embarrassing symptoms.
[ Embarrassment among reasons why people put off treatment for bowel cancerOpens in new window ]
Trinity St James Cancer Institute consultant Dr Emily Harrold said Cunningham’s story is “too common with regard to dismissal or lack of awareness of the symptoms of bowel cancer particularly in younger patients”.
Patients can feel embarrassed speaking about changes in their toilet habits to their GP.
“These conversations, as awkward as they might be, could be life-saving. The earlier a bowel cancer is identified the greater the likelihood of cure and this can often be achieved with surgery alone.”
Bowel cancer is now the number-one of death in people under 50 in the United States for reasons that remain unclear. Risk factors for the disease include a family history of cancer, diet, smoking, alcohol, obesity and inactivity.
