I went to the doctor thinking I needed to have my gallbladder removed and was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer at 43

When Georgia Carter felt a pain on her right side, she thought she’d pulled a muscle while lifting weights at the gym, but it was actually a warning sign of something more serious.

Because of the pain, the 44-year-old eventually underwent an ultrasound of her gallbladder, which led to the devastating diagnosis of stage 4 intestinal metastasis. cancer.

As the cancer progressed, tumours were found in the intestine, as well as lesions in the liver, rectum and sigmoid colon.

She had few other symptoms but told FEMAIL she had never been “totally happy” going to the toilet and had been “feeling sick” for several months. Looking back, there were also signs she had blood in her stool, which tended to coincide with her period.

“Things were a bit bad. I’d changed jobs and come from a stressful and high-pressure situation so I thought it was just anxiety and stress,” Georgia said.

“Once I started a new job where work-life balance was more important, the symptoms started appearing and I was confused.”

For Georgia, the diagnosis came as a huge shock because although her mother had leukemia, she had no family history of colon cancer.

An ultrasound and CT scan “revealed everything that had happened.”

The day after her gallbladder ultrasound 12 months ago, Georgia was called back for what she thought was a routine follow-up appointment.

“I thought they were going to take out my gallbladder or something. When they tell you you have cancer, it’s a very quick de-motivational moment. It’s like a panic attack, you hyperventilate,” she said.

“I went to the appointment alone so I called my husband and he dropped everything and came with me.

“From that moment on, I understood why GPs are late. I stayed there as long as I needed to.”

Four days later, she was admitted to hospital to have a port placed in her chest for chemotherapy treatments.

“They couldn’t do a proper colonoscopy because the tumour was so big it was blocking the intestine,” Georgia said.

However, she underwent surgery to have a stent inserted in her colon to reduce the risk of blockage.

A week later, she began chemotherapy, which was effective and killed the cancer cells, but some deadly cells had broken off from the stent, puncturing her intestine and causing further problems.

“After my second round of chemo I was in so much pain I didn’t know what was going on. Everyone kept telling me it was because of the treatment so I just endured it until I couldn’t eat or throw up,” she said.

“I was close to dying. Everything in my bowels had stopped. They had ruptured and filled my abdominal cavity.”

She was rushed into surgery, where surgeons removed a third of her intestine and the primary tumour, which Georgia described as “the silver lining of this ordeal”.

She was in intensive care for five days and hospitalized for three weeks last August, and then underwent treatment from mid-September until the end of April.

Since then, Georgia has been “gaining her strength” and underwent surgery three weeks ago to check her liver, which was “not in a very good state” as a result of the treatment.

“The good news is that I’m pretty sure there’s no tumour in my intestines at all, which means the cancer is only in my liver, but it’s in an odd position so the doctors can’t easily remove it,” Georgia said.

She then began treatment again to try to make the lesions as small as possible.

She is now taking it one day at a time and “focusing on getting my mindset in the right direction” and will be undergoing treatment for the next six months.

Although doctors are confident that the chemotherapy will shrink any remaining cancer cells, Georgia is still worried the cancer will spread again, but is hoping for the best.

Her life-changing cancer meant she had to live with a stoma bag and deal with physical challenges.

“I’ve always been strong. I lifted weights and was the strongest woman my personal trainer worked with, so I was really proud of myself,” she said.

“I’ve lost 35kg in the last 12 months and I’m not the strong person I used to be. I know I’m stronger in other ways but getting that strength is a real mountain to climb at the moment.”

“I refuse to let this become my personality, I don’t allow the illness to become my persona, so I just get through it. On the days when I push myself harder than I think I can, I’m physically exhausted and I sleep better afterwards,” she added.

“I’m never going to just sit around and pity myself.”

To get through the tough times, Georgia remembered a mantra from Sarah Polley’s book: “Run toward danger.”

“So instead of taking steps to hide or run away, you have to face it head on, because if you don’t face these issues and what you’re going through, you’re never going to get better, you’re never going to get stronger,” she said.

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