Leigh MacRitchie was 32 when she began experiencing what she thought was “really bad period pain that wouldn’t go away.”
“It was pretty bad in the morning,” MacRitchie tells 9honey, adding that she was also experiencing some “fatigue.”
After ruling out period pain she thought the issue may be dietary and made some changes.
“I’ve always been a healthy-ish woman, I love being active, going to the gym, running… I changed my diet, I did everything,” the Sydney woman says.
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Her stomach pains continued for months, despite the dietary changes. She also tried to eliminate stress, but kept thinking, “What’s going on here?”
As a last resort, she decided to go to her local doctor but felt “they didn’t really listen or take me seriously because I was a woman under 35.”
“My initial thoughts at the time were that I wished my ex GP would take me seriously when I complained about pains that wouldn’t go away,” she says.
“It wasn’t very common 10 years ago to hear of people under 40 with bowel cancer.”
MacRitchie was eventually able to convince a doctor something was seriously wrong and was booked in for a colonoscopy.
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“Pretty much everything happened straight away,” she says.
Being told she had bowel cancer at such a young age was a shock, but MacRitchie says she was “very lucky”.
“I had the surgery early on in the month and had some really good care. I had surgery in February 2014 and I had a bone marrow transplant, then I had chemo for six or seven days at a time for six months,” she says.
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“That was terrible but I got through it OK. I kept active throughout all the chemo, just walking, running doing gentle activities like yoga.”
Nine months later in November 2014, her treatment was completed but she still faced a long road to recovery.
“I did some testing and found out my family carries a gene [for cancer], so I have to be tested every year,” she says.
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“It was such a shock to my family because I’ve always had a healthy life and had run marathons prior to the shock diagnosis.”
She has remained in good health for the past nine years and has had “some preventative surgery.”
“I have regular colonoscopies and I’m doing all the right things, keeping a healthy lifestyle and keeping my weight and things under control.
“They didn’t really listen or take me seriously because I was a woman under 35.”
“I’ve had some preventative bowel cancer surgery because I was producing lots of polyps because of my family history.”
MacRitchie says she is back to running well.
“I finished the Hoka Half Marathon earlier this month in one hour and 54 minutes and I did the Mother’s Day Classic, 10kms in 52 minutes,” she says.
In Australia, one in 15 women will develop bowel cancer in their lifetimes and 12.3 per cent of these women are aged under 50.
Bowel cancer is the third deadliest cancer in women.
MacRitchie has been running for 30 years, so it made sense that after her cancer battle she would continue, but use events to advocate for greater awareness of bowel cancer in younger Australians.
“I started out doing Little Athletics and have finished 20 full marathons, but I’m best at racing half-marathons,,” she says.
“I have done the Real Insurance Sydney Harbour Run and enjoyed the course. It’s flat and fast and shows the beautiful parts of Sydney.
“One of the things which keeps me running is the support and friendships from the running community Sydney Striders Main Club, the Kirribilli Runners and Parkrun.”
MacRitchie says keeping a positive mindset has been important to her recovery.
“I think what’s good is more and more people are sharing their stories, because 10 years ago it wasn’t very common and now you hear about it all the time,” she says.
“I just think the more people can talk about prevention and can talk about ongoing fatigue and stomach pains that wouldn’t go away. If more awareness can happen it can be treated early.”
Sign up for the Real Insurance Sydney Harbour ‘Retro Run’ on July 28 to help raise funds for the Australian Cancer Research Foundation by visiting the website.