Former Geordie Shore star Zahida Allen is urging people not to "be too embarrassed" when discussing symptoms after losing her father to bowel cancer at 62. Anhar Miah made numerous visits to his GP from January 2021 with stomach complaints, including diarrhoea, constipation lasting up to a week, and abdominal pain, but was consistently sent away with laxatives instead of being referred for additional tests.
Missed diagnosis and delayed testing
In December 2021, Anhar attended A&E after experiencing rapid weight loss, severe exhaustion, deteriorating bowel problems, and blood in his stool and vomit, only to be discharged with a box of laxatives. Following Zahida's persistence, an X-ray and CT scan revealed a bowel obstruction, and a biopsy diagnosed incurable, inoperable stage four metastatic bowel cancer in February 2022. He died a year later in February 2023.
Zahida, now 32 and living in Newcastle, believes that had her father's symptoms been treated with greater urgency and testing carried out earlier, more could have been done to extend, or even save, his life. Speaking to PA Real Life, she said: "If I didn't say something, if I didn't refuse to leave, still we wouldn't have known at that time that my dad had cancer, and it would have continued developing."
Bowel cancer statistics and symptoms
In the UK, there are between 46,000 and 49,000 cases of bowel cancer every year, equivalent to a diagnosis every 12 minutes, making it the fourth most common cause of cancer in the country. Around 17,700 people die from the disease each year, yet if caught early enough, up to 90% of people survive.
According to the NHS, main symptoms include changes in poo, needing to poo more or less often, blood in poo, bleeding from the bottom, feeling like you need to poo, tummy pain, a lump in the tummy, bloating, losing weight without trying, and feeling very tired or short of breath.
A family's fight and legacy
In December 2021, Zahida noticed her father appeared gravely unwell. One day, after he went for a nap and "wasn't waking up for ages," she found him vomiting blood and called an ambulance. At A&E, he was discharged after a brief consultation with another box of laxatives. Zahida pushed for a second opinion, leading to an X-ray and CT scan that revealed his bowel was twisted and blocked, requiring emergency surgery.
After the operation, Zahida questioned doctors about bowel cancer, but they said they did not believe it was the case, though they sent a sample for testing. In February 2022, Anhar received his biopsy results: "stage four metastatic, incurable, inoperable, terminal bowel cancer," which had spread to his abdomen, kidney, and stomach.
Anhar began chemotherapy in May 2022, attending hospital every fortnight for nine hours of treatment, but he suffered serious infections, including grade three sepsis. He died in February 2023, shortly after his 62nd birthday. Zahida said: "Now I see that God took him sooner because that wasn't life. He was in an insufferable, incomprehensible amount of pain."
Today, Zahida helps run her father's restaurant, the Bay Leaf in Cramlington, Northumberland, and promotes awareness of bowel cancer symptoms and early testing. She has teamed up with Newfoundland Diagnostics to launch the "Know Your Sh! t" campaign, providing beer mats and complimentary bowel health tests in pubs across London. She said: "I hope with my message and with my dad's story, more people have a quick look at their symptoms and just take the test and take matters into their own hands."
