A Newcastle mother-of-two has shared her harrowing experience of dismissing early bowel cancer symptoms during her second pregnancy, mistaking them for common pregnancy-related haemorrhoids. Alice Norris, aged 35, is now urging others to seek medical advice promptly, as her story highlights the critical importance of early detection.
Pregnancy Symptoms Masked Serious Condition
During the later stages of her pregnancy with her daughter Olivia, now 11 months old, Alice began noticing blood in her stool. Having previously carried her son just a year earlier, she was familiar with haemorrhoids—a frequent pregnancy woe—and initially brushed off the signs.
Ms Norris recalled: 'During the later stages of my second pregnancy, I started to notice blood in my stool, but I had read and I knew about haemorrhoids, so I didn’t want to panic.' However, when changes in stool consistency accompanied the bleeding, she promised herself to consult a doctor if symptoms persisted after childbirth.
Post-Birth Realisation and Diagnosis
After settling into life with two children under two, Alice booked a GP appointment. Initial tests for blood in stool returned clear, and with no family history of bowel cancer and an active lifestyle, she was deemed low risk. Treated for haemorrhoids, she underwent a colonoscopy in June 2025, which revealed a large tumour in her bowel.
'The doctors told me they had identified a large tumour and they were very very sure it was cancer,' she said, describing the moment as having her 'whole world turned upside down.' Scans initially suggested the cancer might have spread to her lungs, indicating an advanced stage, but a subsequent PET scan thankfully came back clear.
Treatment and Family Impact
Alice began a course of chemoradiotherapy, which forced her to stop breastfeeding and separated her from her four-month-old daughter. 'I was whisked away from my four-month-old baby, I had to stop breastfeeding immediately,' she explained. Her husband Olly took on full-time care of their newborn and toddler, while she attended numerous medical appointments.
The treatment brought challenging side effects, including hair loss, nausea, and insomnia, though Alice found small comforts like cravings for chicken nuggets. 'It was just relentlessly feeling unwell, basically, for 12 weeks on the run-up to Christmas,' she added.
Ongoing Uncertainty and Hope
Doctors are closely monitoring Alice, as the stage of her cancer remains medically uncertain. The family awaits results this week to determine if treatment was successful, with hopes for surgery in the spring. 'Cancer, it’s unpredictable. No one can say what’s gonna happen until we see scans,' she noted, reflecting on the distress of uncertainty—a feeling she previously faced when her mother died from blood cancer eight years ago.
Alice emphasised coping by taking each day as it comes: 'I just have to bring it back down to today, and literally tell myself to put one foot in front of the other, and that’s how I cope with it.'
Raising Awareness and Breaking Taboos
Alice hopes her story will raise awareness of bowel cancer symptoms and help 'break down the taboos' surrounding the disease. 'It might save your life, or someone else’s,' she urged. Bowel cancer is the second most common cancer in the UK, with around 44,100 new cases and 17,400 deaths annually.
Symptoms include:
- Changes in bowel movements, such as persistent diarrhoea or constipation
- Blood in the stool
- Increased urgency to go
- Stomach pain, bloating, or a lump
- Unexpected weight loss and fatigue
Anyone experiencing these signs should contact their GP. This comes as the NHS in England plans to enhance bowel cancer test accuracy by lowering the blood detection threshold in stool tests, projected to identify 600 more cases yearly.
Genevieve Edwards, chief executive of Bowel Cancer UK, stated: 'We’re incredibly grateful to Alice for raising awareness... Every 12 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with bowel cancer.' She noted a global rise in cases among younger people, stressing that early diagnosis makes the disease treatable and curable.
