awareness revisited

So when I started this blog my hope was my story, my journey, my battle and ultimately my ramblings would help. Help someone that may be starting their own journey.

Cancer is a word thrown around in the media and our daily lives far too often.

My fear is we have become desensitised its actually meaning.

As I have often said Cancer does not equal the end. But that doesnt mean we dont owe it respect, the attention it deserves. Awareness of symptoms and early diagnosis does saves lives.

Im resharing some more 'clinical' details about what bowel cancer symptons are.

I hope you find them useful.

So...where to start. I guess the best way is to start breaking down what bowel cancer is. Break it down into bitesize pieces.

The large bowel is a long tube of muscular tissue, about 120cm (4 feet) long that sits in the lower part of the abdomen. It runs in a loop from the appendix on the lower right hand side in your pelvis (near your hip bone) up and across the abdomen at the waist line and then down into the pelvis again on the left hand side, before it curves backward towards the back passage (rectum) and anus.

The large bowel mainly acts as a storage area and collects the liquid waste food from the upper part of your digestive system (stomach and small bowel). It gradually reabsorbs the water, turning this waste material into formed poo (faeces) as it moves further along the bowel towards the rectum.

At some time in our lives most of us will
experience problems with our bowels and the process of getting rid of these waste materials. Tummy upsets and bleeding
from the bottom are both very common
symptoms associated with many minor
problems that are easily treated, or settle down again on their own.

 

Most bowel cancers start as innocent growths – called polyps – on the wall of the bowel. Polyps are like smallspots or cherries on stalks and most do not produce symptoms. Polyps are more common as we get older and most polyps are not pre-cancerous. One type of polyp called an adenoma can, however, become cancerous (malignant). If left undetected, the cancer cells will multiply to form a tumour in the bowel, causing pain, bleeding and other symptoms. If untreated, the tumour can grow into the wall of the bowel or back passage.

Within this group of adenoma-related bowel cancers, there are one or two rare types of disease which do not seem to behave in quite the same way as these slow growing polyps. These uncommon types of bowel cancers develop and spread much more quickly, and seem to affect much younger people.

A polyp Iarge bowel

A tumor in the large bowel