A mum-of-five has bravely opened up about her battle with cancer which turned her world upside down in an instant. Lindsey Ellis, 41, from Y Bala in Gwynedd, Wales, initially mistook her symptoms for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and long Covid before receiving a colorectal cancer diagnosis in 2022.
Colorectal cancer, commonly known as bowel cancer, targets the large bowel comprised of the colon and rectum. It ranks among the most prevalent cancers in the UK, as per NHS data.
In a candid chat with WalesOnline, Lindsey expressed her desire to raise awareness by sharing her ordeal, hoping it might prompt others with similar symptoms to seek medical advice. For an extended period, Lindsey endured what she believed were IBS symptoms.
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However, instead of consulting a doctor, Lindsey took measures into her own hands to mitigate the discomfort. She said: “I was suffering with what I thought was irritable bowel syndrome for a couple of years. Whenever I was eating carbs – potatoes, pasta, chips, I felt like I would have a stomach ache and I was bloated.
“I didn’t go to the doctor because when I was talking to my friends, I found out that they had the same symptoms. We would talk about going on gluten-free diets and that did seem to help things and I could manage the symptoms by doing those sorts of things,” reports Wales Online.
“In a way, it made me think: ‘Yes, it must be that then if I can manage it’. It’s strange, they talk about the general symptoms of bowel cancer, one being the blood in the stool, but I wouldn’t get anything like that. I just thought I had IBS.”
However, when Lindsey was pregnant with her fifth child – little Doti who was born in October 2021, her symptoms worsened. She said: “I had four children before Doti, I could carry on until the end and I was overdue with the four of them. But when I was carrying her, I had reached 35 weeks and I felt like I could never reach full term with her.
“I felt really tired and I felt like something was pressing. I wasn’t feeling right at all. I was talking to Dion, my partner, and I said: ‘Perhaps I’m just too old to be expecting’, because I was 39 at the time. I was struggling.”
Doti was born at 36 weeks. Shortly after her birth, Lindsey and the entire family contracted Covid-19. Although the family recovered from the virus, Lindsey began experiencing symptoms of long Covid. She said: “The time after her birth was really difficult, Doti was only a week old.
“But then after that, I was really excited and we were gradually getting out of lockdown as well. I was excited to take her on walks and seeing my friends who had also had a baby around the same time. But then, I felt like I didn’t have the energy, which was strange because I am a person that enjoys walking a lot and going running a lot. But I just felt like I didn’t have the energy to do anything.”
By January 2022, Lindsey said she felt “like something wasn’t right” and went to the doctor, where she was told she may have developed an infection after her daughter’s birth and was given antibiotics. Lindsey said that she did feel better in the days that followed.
But two months later, her symptoms began to get progressively worse to the point she would have to lie down after eating a bowl of cereal in the morning as her stomach aches were so painful. Eventually, Lindsey said she would pass out from the pain and remained in her bed.
She said: “By March, I was crying to my partner and saying: ‘I just don’t know what’s going on with me, I can’t do anything’. He told me I needed to go to the doctor. I had come to the point where I just didn’t know what was going on, where I couldn’t control my symptoms and also that any remedies I had for these symptoms just didn’t work.”
Lindsey underwent a blood test in April, which initially showed no cause for alarm. However, within a week, her condition deteriorated dramatically.
“I couldn’t go to the toilet,” she recounted. “I would have the urge to go to the toilet but there was something stopping it.
“I went to the doctor, they gave me laxatives and other medication to help me, but nothing was working. It came to the point where I hadn’t been to the toilet and my stomach was big. I was in so much pain and at times it felt like it was worse than the pain I had experienced during childbirth. By the Sunday, I was starting to pass out because I was in so much pain and I would stay in my bed.”
In a desperate move, Lindsey’s partner Dion rushed her to Wrexham Maelor Hospital. There, a gastro surgeon who happened to be on call took immediate interest in her symptoms.
After an ultrasound and several tests, the grim discovery was made the following morning: a tumour was obstructing her body, necessitating urgent surgery the same day.
“A part of me was still hopeful that it wasn’t cancerous,” Lindsey admitted. “Although there was a chance it wasn’t, they told me to prepare for the worst. It was a shock, but also, I had started expecting for the worst anyway.”
She continued, revealing the gravity of the situation: “They told me that due to the fact that the tumour was in the rectum, it meant that nothing could pass.
“They were concerned that the bowel would rupture as it hadn’t been emptied in 14 days. The surgeon explained that they would be unable to remove the tumour – it was inoperable as it was, but they said they would have to get rid of the blockage and give me a stoma bag.”
“I was told that the surgeon had cleared his diary for that afternoon so he could operate on me, they were very concerned that my bowel would rupture, which could be deadly. The next thing I knew was the nurse coming in with a pen and I was telling her where the hole for the stoma bag could go. Everything was happening so quickly. They said that it was extremely lucky that I had gone in that afternoon to get the stoma, an hour later, it could have ruptured.”
Lindsey’s operation for a temporary stoma bag was successful. A day later, an MRI scan detected the tumour was cancerous and had spread to her lymph nodes and uterus.
In the months that followed, Lindsey received 30 sessions of radiotherapy followed by six cycles of chemotherapy.
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By December, the doctors told Lindsey that the treatment had resulted in a “complete response”, which meant that the cancer and all signs of it had disappeared. She then underwent a colonoscopy and an en-bloc hysterectomy, which saw the removal of her uterus and a stoma reversal.
In January 2023, Lindsey underwent additional chemotherapy treatments after the discovery of new cancerous cells. Since those sessions, the mum-of-five has shown no signs of the disease and continues to undergo regular health checks.
Despite the “amazing” news of her recovery, Lindsey admits the illness has profoundly impacted her daily life, both physically and mentally. She experiences persistent pins and needles.
“When I wake up, I experience pins and needles in my feet, which I’ve had since chemotherapy,” she shared. “They call it neuropathy. I can’t feel my feet, but within 50 minutes the feeling comes back.”
Lindsey also spoke about the anxiety she faces in everyday situations due to the lasting effects of her treatment. She has to be mindful of her proximity to toilets whenever she’s out, and certain beverages like alcohol or coffee require caution.
Additionally, changes in her bowel movements trigger concern for her health. “I also have to be very careful that I know where the toilets are whenever I go somewhere. It does make me anxious in some situations. If I drink alcohol or too much coffee, I have to be careful. Also, I don’t know what is normal anymore in regards to my bowel movements, and that makes me anxious. If I have three to four days of it being in one certain way then I start to worry that it is back.”
The ordeal has given Lindsey a new perspective on life’s impermanence. Facing her mortality brought an acute awareness of what she might leave behind, especially her children.
“Nothing prepares you when you are facing the prospect of dying,” she reflected. “If it was just me and I had no family, I wouldn’t have anyone to worry about. I was just terrified of leaving my children.
“And when you have been through a year of that, holding on to that hope that the treatment will work and you will make it to the other side, it does change you. I would tell myself continuously: ‘when I’ll get better, I’m not going to worry about this or worry about that’. When you are in the middle of it, you think to yourself all the minor things I used to worry about, they were nothing.
“For example, I used to worry about keeping the house tidy, I would spend my Saturday mornings cleaning the house and telling the children to go out and do something. Now, I wake up in the morning and I tell the children we are going to a walk near the lake or going out for the day. The housework can wait.
“I don’t worry the same way anymore, if I don’t want to do something I am more willing to say no now. I have a can do attitude – if I want to do something I will do it, as long as my bank balance can keep up with it. It’s made me realise how my family and friends have been so supportive. I couldn’t have done it without them.”
Lindsey hopes her experience will encourage others to speak openly about their health. In recent years, discussion around bowel habits, knowing the symptoms of bowel cancer and the need to speak to your doctor when you have concerns has come into focus, namely thanks to the work of people like the late writer and journalist, Deborah James.
Following her death in June 2022, Bowel Cancer UK has reported a surge in the number of individuals awaiting bowel investigations. Lindsey, reflecting on the shift in public discourse, believes while discussions about bowel habits are improving, there’s still a need for people to be proactive about their health concerns.
“I think the conversations are getting better,” she remarked. “The reason I didn’t go to the doctor in the first place was because I didn’t want to discuss bowels and all of that, we have this idea that it’s all a bit disgusting. I thought to myself: ‘I don’t want to do that, I’ll sort it out myself’.
“But clearly it would have been much better had I gone to the doctors right from the very start. There are so many causes and symptoms of bowel cancer. Even if you think you have IBS, it is worth going to the doctor just to get that confirmation and the help you need.”
Sarah Carter is a health and wellness expert residing in the UK. With a background in healthcare, she offers evidence-based advice on fitness, nutrition, and mental well-being, promoting healthier living for readers.
