Dying at Twenty-Nine From This One Medical Mishap You Should Know

A while back, I wrote about a young girl at age 26 with a growth in her bowel, originally passed off as a bad bout of food poisoning due to her young age (by her doctors).

I have encountered another story with a bleak ending this week, but I must write about it.

Information such as this might save someone’s life.

Young and somewhat healthy individuals are still at risk of developing the disease.

You only have one life and must always look after your health.

What you put into your body is more important than anything else you could ever do.

Hans Su visited his GP in 2019 because of stomach cramps, and although he went to the emergency department of his local hospital, he was still dismissed until 2021.

On January 2022, he was given the outlook of having less than 12 months to live.

So, from 2019 until 2022, doctors dismissed his complaints because he was young and an unsuitable candidate for cancer development.

This is a very scary yet significant flaw in our health system — and it’s no wonder young people believe themselves indestructible according to their age.

When cancer attaches itself to you, you’re in a long, stressful battle ahead. Unfortunately for Hans, he was too late.

The bowel cancer centre in Australia says that bowel cancer in young people is significantly increasing.

One in ten people under 50 is diagnosed with the disease.

Bowel cancer is among the deadliest and the sixth leading cause of death in Australians aged between 25–44.

There is a perceived notion that this is only an older adult’s disease when it’s not.

Hence, why do so many doctors ignore the symptoms of younger people?

Unfortunately, continuously doing this leads them toward an inevitable deadly outcome.

Su says, “I think doctors relied heavily on the idea that I was young and healthy, and they would have taken my symptoms more seriously if I were older.”

What’s startling is that in 2019, when Su had an ultrasound conducted, the doctor found a spec, which was dismissed as some ‘stone.’

If doctors had inspected this more carefully, they would have found his cancer back when it may not have been as terminal.

As you can imagine, Su had pain for years only to be rejected that it wasn’t anything.

He and his wife had to fight the hospital doctors to conduct a CT scan, which eventually showed cancer spreading to his peritoneum

After months of chemo, Stu underwent surgery to remove all his tumours, only to find that cancer had spread around major blood vessels, the liver, and the heart.

So they had to abort the operation.

Stu endured 19 rounds of chemo but is not ready to give up just yet — seeking a second opinion from another surgeon.

Originally, Stu was to marry his fiance in February this year, but he brought the date forward to November 2021.

I want to know why younger people are getting cancer.

It takes younger people years to become diagnosed with cancer, and when it finally does, the outcome is bleak.

GPs and doctors need to exercise more vigilance instead of sweeping the symptom’s under the carpet — due to a person’s age.

The only good news is that Bowel Cancer Australia is campaigning that our government lower the national bowel cancer screening age from 50 to 45.

Bowel Cancer Australia has been on a mission to do this since 2018, as the instances of bowel cancer are on the rise in younger people.

Screening should begin at 25 (at the very least).

These bowl screening tests are usually mailed to people over the age of 50 right up until 75. My sister received hers last year, a complimentary service the government conducts.

No one knows why younger people are developing bowel cancer.

Diet and lifestyle surely have something to do with this. But, as a daughter who endured two parents’ cancer deaths, this could have been prevented with some simple lifestyle alterations.

Unfortunately, when you are at the terminal stage of your cancer, nothing can save you.

A message from Su

Su told his story to the news to raise awareness. Stu hopes that this may help someone else.

It was also my intention to share this message.

It would help if you fought for testing to be done if something like this happens.

It’s your body. Pay attention to the signs and symptoms and demand tests if your gut feeling tells you something is wrong.

You must be very strong in this sense, and don’t let doctors make you feel like you’re wasting their time. It’s your health on the line here — and nothing is more important.

Don’t be embarrassed to talk to your doctor about symptoms that might seem cringe-worthy, like blood in stools or trouble going to the toilet. Doctors have heard it all, and you aren’t the first.

And if you are a doctor or nurse reading this, please be kind to these patients. They are going through a lot, and Stu said no one person asked him how he was — a nurse or doctor.

He saw this happening to many patients in the ward. When a nurse in passing finally asked him how Stu was going, he broke down in tears.

Going through cancer treatment and being told you will die is horrific; it’s traumatising, and most people lack the ‘human touch.’ It could just be a case of stress or working long hours.

But these people are human too, and some only have a short timespan to live. So, when you see them, show kindness by asking them if they are ok.

It doesn’t take much out of your day, yet it shows a person dying that perhaps life is worth living just that little bit longer.

I took inspiration for this story from a news report available here.

If you have any symptoms, insist you are taken seriously — no matter what age.

Fight for your right to live a long and healthy life. Don’t take doctors’ mistakes to take away your life.

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Please note: Initial blog post was originally written for Medium - although it has altered slightly in this instance.