Hello! Life has been turned upside down, I'm sure mostly everyone here can appreciate that statement. I'm 28 and have had no real health issues before, so my diagnosis has been the biggest shock of my life. 3 weeks ago I went into hospital with severe abdominal pain and was sent home diagnosed with IBS. 4 days later and not much relief the severe abdominal pain returned and I had to return to hospital. Turns out I had a ruptured bowel and when I was operated on a tumor was found in my large bowel. That was removed and further scans showed cancer spread in my stomach, liver and lungs. It's stage four bowel cancer and the doctors say it's incurable. I'm refusing to believe this and wish to prove them otherwise. I think I'm still in shock. I've been very lucky to have such amazing family and friends supporting me, but would love to speak to others who also have been diagnosed. I'm still recovering from the surgery (23 staples later) and contending with my stomar, which really frustrates me the most. It's such a pain and a constant reminder of what's happened. I decided to name it (Horhe), so that when I can finally remove it (wishful thinking) my friends and I are going to have a wake and a celebration :) I started treatment/chemo yesterday and it wasn't as bad as I'd envisaged. I was most worried about the needle going into my chest/port, but the nurse used a numbing cream which meant there was no pain when the needle went in. Phew! Today I've been feeling really low in energy and disliking the little "device" filled with more chemo that I've had to keep attached to me for two days. I go back to hospital tomorrow to get it unplugged and this will happen every two weeks. After four treatments we're doing more scans to see whether the treatment is working or not... I've been so many emotions. More sensitive than normal and I'm a pretty emotional person. I'm still confused about how this could have happened, I've been angry and mainly frustrated at being housebound and having to rely on other so much. I'm a pretty independent and social person, so this has been hard as well. I came back from living in London in January, so in that regard I'm so happy I'm home with my family and friends around. It would have been horrible for this to happen away from home. I really want to talk to others who have been diagnosed with cancer... I feel like I'm going a bit batty and everyone keeps telling me to be strong, which doesn't really help! I'm trying to stay positive and take one day at a time, but struggling. I'm finding meditation really helps and music too. I sing, and happy I still have the ability to do that!! Hope this hasn't been too long an intro, but there's so much going on in my head that I could write a novel. Hello and I look forward to connecting to the community 🙂 ... View more