Monday, July 09, 2007

Bowel Cancer Advance

Brr, Brr. Brr, Brr. Hi! Tracy here. My heart missed a beat. My stoma nurse was on the phone. Now I'm sure that every red blooded male who spends a long time in the care of a specialist stoma nurse falls a little bit in love. And after all, Tracy has done things to me that would make your eyes water - and that Mrs D has never even have thought of .

Anyway, Tracy wants me to speak at an ostomy conference of some sort at Shrewsbury in September. "What do you want me to speak about" I ask. "Tell us what it was like for you", she said - for 15 minutes and then another 15 minutes questions. Like it was for me when I underwent a lower bowel re-section to remove a substantial part of my body when I contracted bowel cancer in 2002.

This blog does occasionally refer to matters concerning bowel cancer - because the writer is so keen to raise awareness of the disease. And the reason for this is that early diagnosis often leads to full recovery. And early diagnosis is often a matter of luck - depending on where the tumout is in the colon or rectum. I was lucky. So many are not. There is a good article by Nic Fleming, the Telegraph's science correspondent in today's edition about new research, which enables identification of the first common gene defect linked to an increased risk of contracting bowel cancer. Good to see that progress is being made by scientists - even if Government screening programmes remain hopelessly inadequate. I shall enjoy speaking to Tracy and her colleagues in September. They do a fantastic job.

No comments: