The Bowel Owl

Use our Bowel Owl resource to learn more about what support you can tap into when your treatment is coming to an end. Accepting your ‘new normal’ may not come easily but as the saying goes, knowledge is power. Acknowledging your new normal is the first step to feeling that you have regained control over your body and your future. 

Bowel Cancer treatment can leave you feeling, tired, battered and emotional. As if that wasn’t enough, you may also have worries about work, finances and relationships. The flip-side is that this experience may help you focus on what really matters to you and help you think about changes you may want to make to the way you live your life.

Life after bowel cancer

Now you have reached the end of your bowel cancer treatment you will be looking forward to getting back to ‘normal’. You probably have already realised that not everything will be the same as before, so for normal read ‘a new normal’. Your new normal can be as good or maybe better your old normal; it will definitely be different and sometimes difficult, and this is where we can help. Here are some of the issues you may need help/advice/support with:

Stoma care

Nutrition and dietetics

Mental/emotion health

Access to support for carers

Managing fatigue

Exercise for patients with and without stomas

Body image/scars

LARS (tap into existing FB group)

Treatment side effects for immuno/chemo/radio therapies

Menopause symptoms

Fertility

Sexual function

Cancer recurrence/secondary cancer symptoms/scan-xiety

Reducing risk of recurrence

Busting health myths

Return to work

Survivorship: the new normal

Support Groups

Support groups can be very useful in linking you up with people who have gone through exactly the same experience. You might find it helpful to join one or two before you make any big changes.

If you have received your treatment at the Royal Surrey, your CRC nurse can refer you to our sister charity The Fountain Centre, where a range of group, family and holistic therapies are available.

Physical changes

Bowel cancer treatment can result in loss of bowel control. Although this can present challenges to you at work and socially, try not to worry as it should gradually improve. You may need to adapt your diet – try to observe what foods do and don’t work for you so that you can avoid the worst offenders.

Talk to your colorectal care team about when you have follow-up appointments, especially if you are having trouble regaining weight you lost during treatment.

Other physical side effects as a result of treatment include loss of libido (sex drive) and sexual function. This is very common and is usually just temporary.

Follow-up

You are likely to be offered follow-up appointments after your treatment has finished. These may include a CEA blood test that may indicate if the cancer has returned.

You can use these appointment to discuss your overall physical and mental well-being as well.