A woman ignored one 'embarrassing symptom' and has since been diagnosed with stage 3 cancer.
Jelena Tompkins, who hails from Colorado in the US, has opened up about her health journey in the hopes of raising awareness and encouraging others not to ignore their symptoms.
Back in 2016, when Jelena was just 34, she first noticed something different in her body but initially dismissed her concerns.
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The mum-of-one noticed that it smelt worse than usual whenever she passed gas but, at the time, brushed it off as being down to her healthy diet, which contained plenty of vegetables.
Jelena then started taking probiotics to help improve her gut bacteria, however, bad odour didn't get any better.
It was only when she started noticing blood in her stool that Jelena decided to get her symptoms checked out at an annual check-up.
However, the doctor also believed her symptoms were simply down to her diet.
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Some three months after that check-up, doctors started running tests on Jelena to see if a specific food in her diet was causing issues with her digestive system, which led to a colonoscopy.
The colonoscopy sadly ended up revealing she had stage 3 rectal cancer.
Jelena opened up about the situation, telling The Patient Story she was 'in some of the best shape of my life'.
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She added: "I ate healthily and never thought that cancer would strike me at such a young age."
Jelena went on to have 28 days of radiation and oral chemotherapy, followed by surgery to remove the tumour.
12 inches of Jelena's colon was removed as well as 17 lymph nodes, which only left just five cancerous nodes remaining.
Alongside this, she also underwent a procedure known as an ileostomy, which is when a small hole is made in the abdomen and a piece of ileum is brought out through the hole to create a stoma.
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Then, just two months a after her final round of chemotherapy, Jelena - who had no family history of cancer - had her ileostomy reversed.
She is now in remission and undergoes maintenance chemotherapy and annual scans.
"I went in, at first, every three months for CT scans and checking my CEA and my bloodwork to make sure all my blood counts were bouncing back," she continued.
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"Eventually, it got strung out to every six months, every year, and now I am just going in once a year for follow-up blood work and to check in with my oncologist."
Now, Jelena credits social media for helping her with her diagnosis after finding a community of support online from other people also going through similar experiences.
"I connected with so many others that had either finished treatment or were going through treatment at the same time as myself to just have that support group and know I wasn’t the only young woman that was going through this," she added.
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact Macmillan’s Cancer Support Line on 0808 808 00 00, 8am–8pm seven days a week.
Rhiannon Ingle