'I knew it was bad news': Woman diagnosed with bowel cancer at 26 warns early signs are easy to miss

Bronwyn Tagg, from Cambridgeshire, is one of an increasing number of people diagnosed with the disease before the age of 30.

Her condition was confirmed at the young age of 26 following a spate of visits to her GP with abdominal pain and fatigue.

“I think working in the NHS sort of made me more aware of what was about to happen," she told GB News.

"I knew that I was walking into bad news before they even told me."

Like younger patients, Bronwyn's sense of foreboding was not unfounded.

Persistent issues regarding the dismissal or missing of cancer symptoms by GPs have been known to lead to significant diagnostic delays, creating a troubling gap for younger adults struggling to obtain a referral as they seek answers about their symptoms.

And, in Bronwyn's case, the symptoms were already there.

“My first symptom was bleeding while going to the toilet,” she recalled.

“I had asked my GP about this, but she said it was most probably haemorrhoids, as I had a baby a year prior, but no examination took place.

“I went back to my GP with frequent diarrhoea, had a gluten intolerance test, which came back okay and no further investigations were done."

It wasn't until the mother-of-two sought answers for painful ovarian cysts that an MRI revealed a hidden tumour within her bowel, by which point it had reached stage 3.

“Symptoms did come and go and were easy to explain away, and I think because the doctors initially didn’t seem worried about doing any further investigations, it made me think that my symptoms weren’t important or anything to worry about," Bronwyn shared.

“I was quite tired, but I put that down to being a parent of two young children. I think the main symptoms I had were horrendous tummy aches. I assumed it was period-related, but now I think it was all down to the cancer.”

She wants others to understand that while bowel cancer is less likely in young age, that doesn’t make it impossible for it to happen.

“I feel like I should have been more persistent and gone back when symptoms continued, and I felt the GP could have done more to investigate,” she said, recommending that young adults advocate for themselves if they feel something is wrong.

“Be persistent. If you’re a young parent, take out life insurance. While it’s something you hope you’ll never need, it's so important to have because life can change so quickly.”

While more and more under-50s are taking to social media to describe their symptoms, the medical profession is also witnessing this shift firsthand.

Dr Asiya Maula, a private GP at the Health Suite, raises serious concerns about the surge of bowel cancer in younger patients.