My crippling pain was worse than childbirth but doctors still brushed me off. This is my warning to other young Aussies about an unthinkable disease that could’ve killed me
It was well after midnight when paramedic Lucy Hardy, mother of two, realized she was in serious trouble and had to call her colleagues for help.
The 33-year-old from Tasmania had been suffering from crippling abdominal pain for hours, which she describes as ‘worse than childbirth’.
She sat naked on the toilet, drenched in sweat between violent bouts of vomiting, and looked at her schedule to see which of her colleagues would find her in such a vulnerable position.
Months later, she would be diagnosed with colon cancer – the cause of the painful episode – after doctors continually waved her away.
Speaking to FEMAIL, Lucy has revealed how her condition was misdiagnosed that night, saying she had to push doctors for months to do ‘proper’ research.
Lucy Hardy, 33, pictured in the weeks before she was diagnosed with bowel cancer
“I went to the hospital and they did a CT and told me I had a bowel obstruction,” she recalls.
The surgical team was called to ‘go in and take a look’ and removed her healthy appendix as a precaution.
Everything else ‘looked good’ so Lucy went home with a diagnosis of ‘undiagnosed abdominal pain’.
“I thought it was a little strange, but I thought these guys know what they’re doing,” she said.
When Lucy came home, she had terrible pain ‘in the gallbladder region’.
“Doctors said my inflammatory markers were high and told me if it gets worse they will look into it,” she said, adding that the pain subsided and she wasn’t concerned until she noticed blood in the toilet.
The mother of two has always been healthy and used to helping others in life-threatening situations – then she experienced the other side of the service
“I took pictures and sent them to my mother, who is a nurse, and she agreed that I should go back to my doctor,” she said.
As a result, Lucy had to give her GP stool samples from three consecutive days; Laboratory results showed that all contained blood.
The Tasmanian mother was put on the ‘urgent’ colonoscopy list – a three-month wait – and when she finally got in, she told the surgeon she was worried it was cancer.
“He told me not to worry and that I would only see him after surgery if he was concerned,” she said. “He came into the room quickly but didn’t speak to me, so I assumed it was okay.”
A few days later her doctor called.
Pictured here with her miner husband Daniel, the young mother feared she would die when she was told she had cancer
The surgeon had removed a polyp and the results were not good.
‘My thoughts immediately went to: ‘Am I going to die?’ she said.
Lucy broke down in tears when the doctor explained he would do more tests to make sure the disease had not spread.
‘The results came back and everything ‘looked good’, so they sent me for another colonoscopy.
‘When the results were good, the doctor said he would see me in a year. I was super confused. I had just been diagnosed with cancer and was then told to see you in a year, she said.
She got a second opinion – and the doctor suggested she have nearby lymph nodes removed in case the cancer had traveled there but was too small to be discovered.
She had the part of the intestine containing the tumor removed – as well as the associated lymph nodes – to ensure the cancer had not come back or spread
She also had a nine-centimetre section of intestine removed to reduce the risk of the disease returning in the first place.
‘I woke up with a stoma bag – something I didn’t really want as a 33-year-old – but that is only temporary. And I’m healing so well that the doctors let me leave the hospital early and let me drive,” she said.
These surgeries were not covered by Medicare — and neither was the follow-up surgery to reconnect her intestines so she can discard the medical accessory.
“We had private health insurance but it did not cover the operation and therefore did not cover my hospital stay,” she said.
Lucy hid her cancer diagnosis from her children and only told friends and colleagues when she realized she would need surgery and take time off work.
When she told friends, they set up a Go Fund Me, now closed, to help pay for up to $30,000 in out-of-pocket medical costs.
She will continue to hide the diagnosis from her children.
‘My son is too young to understand and my daughter is sensitive; “I wanted to protect her,” she said.
Lucy improved so quickly in hospital that she was able to leave early and recover at home. She is now cancer-free, but needs to be checked every year
She is happy now that “the thing” is “out of her body” and plans to tell her children later, when they are old enough to process the information.
‘I told them I was sick and that I needed to see a doctor to get better. My daughter knows about cancer and I didn’t want her to think I was going to die,” she said.
“But they’re at greater risk now, so I’ll tell them because once they’re adults, they’ll have to have an annual colonoscopy.”
Lucy said it was confronting going from being the one who helped to the one who called the ambulance.
“I love what I do, I don’t want anyone to be sick enough to call an ambulance, but I do like seeing the relief on their faces when we arrive to help,” she said.
Now she knows firsthand what patients feel.
Lucy wants other people to advocate for their health and realize that young people get these cancers too. She says if she hadn’t noticed hers so quickly, her story could have been devastating
‘I’m not one to call an ambulance, but the pain was terrible, worse than childbirth. “I knew the crew that was along and they were great,” she said.
Lucy says that after that night on the toilet, she understood what was going on and was more vigilant, looking for follow-up symptoms.
She wants other people who are sent home with painkillers to stand up for themselves and keep coming to the doctor if they think something is wrong.
She also wants people to know that it’s okay to have more than one opinion about treatment after a diagnosis.