Suzanne first shared her bowel cancer story with us for our #Auguts campaign in 2022. Here is her update in 2026.
It has been a mission of mine since the day I started my blog, over ten years ago now, and five years into my stoma journey, to bring a little bit of comfort and peace to those going through bowel surgery after me.
Why? Well, before I had my surgery, I was completely and utterly traumatised by the thought of it. I really saw it as this terrible, horrific thing. Something that would shrink me into submission and make me want to disappear from society.
I had no one to look at for reference, no one to show me what life could possibly look like. I knew no one who had any form of stoma as guidance.
I was so distressed, so utterly despondent.
And then I had the surgery, and I realised I had completely and utterly misunderstood what life would be like.
Okay, so the recovery from the surgery was slow and painfully frustrating. You can’t really prepare for it, but suffice to say it’s a very good idea to accept you will have to be a patient patient.
Although I felt reinvigorated mentally from how I felt before the operation, I certainly wasn’t bouncing around the ward dancing the Macarena. Recovery isn’t linear; it is a very slow process. Accepting that is half the battle won.
But I knew that once I was fully recovered, the life I was going to be living wasn’t the one I had imagined I would.
My lived experience for the last 15 years has been mind-blowingly good.
You will usually find me with a suitcase in hand, heading off to somewhere fabulous – I very rarely sit still. I do not take life for granted, and I grab every opportunity that presents itself. I fly off somewhere fun and fabulous at least once a month, I have been everywhere in the world I have ever wanted to go, and some that I didn’t, but went anyway… because I can.
Many years ago, I was invited to join a group of lived experience patients to discuss many and various topics as part of Bowel Research UK’s patient and public involvement programme, the PaRT network.
It was all very new to me, but I loved my time doing it for them. It led me to the volunteer position I hold now for The European Association for Endoscopic Surgery, on their Guideline Committee as their patient partner.
I am so passionate about patient partnering/involvement. We, the people who have lived it, can make such a huge difference to research and development. It’s an incredibly powerful and fulfilling way to turn an unfortunate life experience into a positive.
I was so happy to help Bowel Research UK with a social media post last Friday. And I was so touched by the amount of positive comments and interaction the post had.
I can’t tell you how happy it made me feel to read in black and white that seeing a positive post about stoma life, and life after cancer, had helped bring comfort to others. That’s what I’m here for, that’s why I happily shout from the rooftops about my life experiences.
Obviously, the incredibly flattering comments and likes were a lovely little ego boost – who wouldn’t be delighted by that? But knowing that seeing someone not just surviving, but actually thriving post-surgery has helped others feel more confident and comfortable about their own situation is something so special and important to me.
My blog is about living my gloriously mundane life. It shows that having a stoma isn’t the end of the world; it’s very possibly the beginning of a whole new one.
It’s important to know that there is a very real possibility that life will be no worse for the health blip; mine, very weirdly, is possibly better for it, and that is the biggest surprise of all.
