Bowel cancer survivor Ewan – ‘I was passing blood; that raised the alarm bell for me’

It was then he knew he had to get checked to see if anything was wrong.

Ewan’s GP referred him for a colonoscopy which would eventually lead to a diagnosis of stage 3 bowel cancer in June 2019. While the news was shocking, he was able to cling to promising indications that his was a very survivable illness.

“There were dark periods when it was tough, but I was told that after 18 months of treatment they would try get me back to as normal as possible if I trusted the process. I was given a very high chance of survival," Ewan remembers.

Hawaiian shirts

He describes making a conscious choice at that point to do everything he could to help make his treatment a success, such as by being physically active and cutting out alcohol.

In keeping with his nature Ewan sought to take as many positive experiences out of a difficult situation as possible, leading to ideas such as donning “really loud” Hawaiian shirts on Fridays to mark finishing another week of chemotherapy, and even setting a tongue-in-cheek challenge for himself to become a “chemo champion” for his ward through his exercise which he was thankful to be able to keep up.

Despite his light-hearted approach there were of course tough times for Ewan, who says the help and support of friends and family was vital in seeing him through challenges such as an extended hospital stay due to complications from surgery to reconnect his bowels, and living in isolation during the pandemic.

“Because I had just finished chemo we had to be careful, so the only contact we really had with the outside world was deliveries of shopping to the front door. It was tough because I slipped a disk in my back, possibly due to the lack of activity, and it left me bed-bound for weeks too,” he says.