Jeannette's Story
My consultant couldn’t believe my 5cm tumour hadn’t caused any symptoms. And he said if it had gone undetected for another 6 months we’d be having a very, very different conversation.
When Jeannette, 46, from Bradford, was looking to renew her workplace benefits for the year, she spotted a new option for a Bluecrest Wellness health assessment that included a Cancer Risk check.
It was one of a range of benefits and perks offered by her employer from a pick-and-choose benefits platform, alongside things like Private Medical Insurance, extra holiday-days, and sliding pension contributions.
“I’d had medical health insurance for a while,” explains Jeannette, “but that’s for when things have already gone wrong, isn’t it? What I’d never had any sort of in-depth health MOT. So I thought, I’m not getting any younger, why not go for it? “I’m generally a very fit and active sort of person. I eat well, I swim, I play rounders and go to the gym – and I suppose I just thought of it as another way of looking after myself. Bullet and braces, sort of thing.
“Since I’ve never had any medical issues before I really thought everything would be fine and it would just prove how fit and healthy I am for my age!”
So Jeannette signed up, and went along to a local hotel in her lunch hour, where a Bluecrest Health Assessment Specialist did a series of tests.
Going for a test
“It was all very professional and very thorough,” she says, “including things like BMI, heart tests and blood tests. I was particularly interested in my cancer risk, and was sent home with some extra test kits, including for a urine sample, and a stool sample. They come with very simple instructions and you just pop them in the post to go off and be analysed.
Two days later I got a ping on my phone to say my FIT test (faecal immunochemical test) had come back with a red flag, and that I should make an appointment to see my GP.
So off I went, and after that things moved very quickly. I did another positive FIT test, and found myself booked in for a CT scan and a colonoscopy within two weeks.”
Jeannette wasn’t too worried at this point, because apart from a bit of mild IBS that only really flared up when she ate something spicy - she hadn’t had any symptoms.
“I knew all sorts of things can cause a positive FIT test,” she continues. “And there was nothing to indicate there was anything at all wrong. No blood in the stool or on the toilet paper - no changes in bowel habits, no fatigue, and no pain. So I just thought, maybe it’s a polyp, or piles. That’s the sort of thing that happens to middle aged women, isn’t it?
Watching the screen
“A colonoscopy is a camera in your colon, and you can actually see on a screen what’s happening. So, I could see when they came to the lump, and I could hear the room go quiet. I remember someone saying, “Is she on her own?” and I just knew what was coming. I knew it was too big to be a polyp.
My whole world came crashing down and I was thinking the worst. Honestly, right there on that table I thought that was it. I thought my time was up.
All sorts of things go through your mind when something like that happens. For me, it was how on earth am I going to tell my husband – who I told not to come with me. And then how on earth am I going to tell my kids? I went home and just sat on the sofa with my husband, completely shocked.”
The team at Bradford Royal Infirmary took samples on the spot, and told Jeannette to go home and try her best not to worry. After an agonising weekend, her consultant called her in and told her they were going to operate to remove the tumour within days. It turned out that while there wasn’t any evidence of cancer cells in the small sample they’d taken, they felt strongly there was something sinister behind it and they should act fast.
“I couldn’t believe there was something that big growing inside me and I hadn’t even noticed,” Jeannette says. “It was 5cm wide, and my consultant couldn’t believe it hadn’t caused any symptoms, either. He also said if it had gone undetected for another 6 months we could be having a very, very different conversation, and that I was incredibly lucky to go for that health assessment when I did. He thought that while he might have to take out of my bowel, we’d probably caught it in time to be able to remove it with keyhole surgery.”
That’s exactly what he did, and Jeannette is still seeing the team to work out if she’ll need any further treatment, for instance preventative chemotherapy, and what sort of monitoring she’ll require in the future. All in all, she had half her large bowel removed.
Feeling grateful
She says: “I can’t tell you how grateful I am I decided to go for that Bluecrest Wellness test with my benefit budget. I think it’s probably saved my life. Certainly I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Everything looks different from this side of a scare like that - and I’m not going to forget it in a hurry.
“I have to say, the NHS has been brilliant, too. Despite all its troubles, when there’s an emergency, something solid to do, they’re there for you. But it can’t help you if you don’t know something’s wrong – or you’re feeling just a bit off or under the weather. They’re just too busy. I wouldn’t even have got into my GP on the same day if I wasn’t armed with my Bluecrest results.
It’s why I’m so happy to be shouting about my poo from the rooftops, because first of all we should be talking about our bowels more often, and second of all we can’t expect the NHS to do everything for us.
“We have to take some responsibility for looking after ourselves, and I think everyone should get themselves a health assessment. I’m all the proof you should need that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
When I think I could have not picked the Bluecrest option, I could have not gone for the test because I was caught up with work - or I could have left the home-tests gathering dust on the kitchen table - I just feel incredibly lucky, and incredibly grateful. I’ll be going back for one every year, now, and hopefully so will everyone else I talk to!”
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