Jody Horne was young, healthy and living her best life when her world came crashing down. The marketing professional, from Melbourne , was given a devastating bowel cancer diagnosis just weeks before her 29th birthday — after she missed three early warning signs. The then-28-year-old began experiencing unexplained symptoms — including tiredness and signs of blood in her stool — but she didn’t think anything of it.
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today Five months later, she knew something wasn’t right when she suffered a five-hour bowel bleed. Receiving her results after having waited in a hospital room with her sister, she was told she had rectal cancer, a type of bowel cancer that affects the rectum. “I was young and enjoying life and then the carpet pulled out from underneath me,” Jody, now 34, tells 7Life .
“I felt shocked and numb. It was an incredibly upsetting experience..
. My younger sister became unwell when the doctor began delivering the news, she could see how sorry he was telling me that I had cancer. “It was beyond crushing for us both in that moment.
” Before her shock diagnosis in early 2018, Jody was a typical 28-year-old single woman living in the inner suburbs of Melbourne. At the time, she was working in marketing, practising yoga, watching the footy and enjoying brunch with her friends. For months, she noticed blood and mucus in her stool, felt pretty tired at times and experienced minor discomfort around her rectum area — .