A mother-of-three has told how Dame Deborah James helped save her life from deadly bowel cancer.
Lyndsey Ainscough, 40, from Leigh in Greater Manchester, was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer after suffering symptoms for several months, but not getting them checked.
She recalled how, then 38, she was watching a broadcast of Dame Deborah talking about the possible signs of the disease, which kills nearly 17,000 Brits every year, while doing the ironing.
‘It caught my attention, especially the point about where she was talking about blood when she was going to the toilet, and I turned to my husband and said ‘do you think I have bowel cancer?’,’ she told the BBC.
It was a question, and a subsequent trip to the GP to get her symptoms checked, which would save her life.
In an emotional tribute to Dame Deborah and her mother, Mrs Ainscough said: ‘If my children had the confidence to say, I’m sure they would thank Deborah and yourself for letting their mum be here today.’ Here she is pictured with her husband Christian daughter Perry and sons Alfie (right) and Spencer (centre)
Bowel cancer can cause you to have blood in your stools, a change in bowel habit, a lump inside your bowel which can cause an obstructions. Some people also suffer with weight loss a s a result of these symptoms
Dame Deborah, also a mother of three, was diagnosed with bowel cancer aged 35 in 2016.
In 2018 she began writing about her illness in the Bowelbabe column and hosted You, Me and The Big C podcast with Lauren Mahon and Rachael Bland, who died from from breast cancer in 2018, aged 40.
Mrs Ainscough saw Dame Deborah talking on TV just weeks before she died in June 2022.
‘I’d been getting quite a lot of symptoms during the Covid lockdowns and had bleeding, weight loss and fatigue,’ she said, explaining that she’d initially put her problems down to irritable bowel syndrome.
‘I’d seen Deborah James was on the news and she was trying to highlight her story. It was one day that it clicked.’
She sought help from her GP who then sent her straight for a colonoscopy in June 2022 to examine the inside of her bowel.
‘I thought I was going because I had got IBS or something like that because I’d always kind of had trouble with bloating,’ she said.
‘I really didn’t think anything of it at the time. I genuinely thought I was going to get diagnosed with IBS.’
But, within moments, she said medics ‘more or less; confirmed it was cancer.’
Mrs Ainscough recalled the ‘awful silence’ that that suddenly swept over the medics examining her.
Dame Deborah James, nicknamed the ‘bowel babe’ raised more than £11.3mn for Cancer Research and is credited for increasing awareness of the disease, which killed her in 2022 aged 40
‘I could see something on the screen — obviously I didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was something,’ she said.
‘The computer was switched off…and the nurse turned to me and said ‘did you see what was on the screen?’ I said ‘yeah, what is it?’ and she said ‘we’re not sure, but it’s highly likely to be cancer’.
‘It’s really hard to explain what happened next to be honest, but I felt like the bed was closing in on me, it was complete shock, a complete shock.’
‘I had to ask her to repeat several times what she had said… I thought ‘I’ve got cancer, I’m going to die’.’
There was more crushing news to come when doctors told Mrs Ainscough she was not suitable for surgery.
Lyndsey Ainscough, 40, from Leigh in Greater Manchester, was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer after suffering symptoms for several months, but not getting them checked
The tumour, which was two inches in size, was on the outer lining of the bowel so could not be removed and a stoma would need to be fitted.
But tests revealed the cancer could be potentially treated with experimental immunotherapy treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester.
Subsequent scans in January last year showed Mrs Ainscough was completely free of cancer with immunotherapy combined with chemotherapy and radiotherapy wiping out the disease.
While thanking the medics who helped treat her cancer, she also knows Dame Deborah’s awareness campaigns, also played a key part in saving her life.
‘Literally seeing her on the screen that day openly talking about the importance of recognising symptoms and not being embarrassed, urged me to get checked. I have her to thank for that,’ she said.
Dame Deborah’s mother Heather, reacting to Mrs Ainscough’s story, said she was immensely proud of her daughter.
‘My daughter Deborah was a bright and brilliant campaigner for people affected by cancer,’ she said,
‘Her first instinct after receiving her diagnosis was to shout from the rooftops about bowel cancer and raise awareness so that others wouldn’t have to go through what she did.
‘Deborah worked relentlessly to improve the lives of others right up until the end of her life, so it’s an honour to hear the impact of her work through wonderful stories like Lyndsey’s.’
‘Breaking down all that stigma of bowels and poo has really helped, I hope, a lot of people,’ she added.
Mrs Ainscough, speaking directly to Dame Deborah’s mother on the BBC, gave an emotional tribute to what they work had meant for just one family.
‘If my children had the confidence to say, I’m sure they would thank Deborah and yourself for letting their mum be here today.’
In the years that followed Dame Deborah’s diagnosis she raised more than £11.3mn for Cancer Research and is credited for greatly increasing awareness of bowel cancer specifically.
A dedicated Bowelbabe Fund for Cancer Research UK has been set up to continue her work in raising awareness and researching treatments for the disease.
The clinical trial Mrs Ainscough took part in involved her undergoing radiotherapy and chemotherapy tablets for five weeks, together with a new immunotherapy drug durvalumab given intravenously every four weeks for 16 weeks.
Dr Claire Arthur, consultant oncologist at the Christie, said: ‘We’re really pleased with Lyndsey’s outcome from the clinical trial.
‘There’s no evidence of the tumour and she tolerated her treatment for rectal cancer (a type of bowel cancer) really well.
‘We’re seeing an increase in colorectal cancers in young adults, so it’s important people who have possible symptoms don’t delay going to their GP and getting checked out.’
Analysis released by the Bowelbabe Fund has projected that if current trends continue, bowel cancer cases will rise from 42,800 a year now, to 47,700 in 16 years’ time.
The main symptoms of bowel cancer include bleeding from the bottom or blood in the stools, changes in bowel habits, weight loss, tiredness, pain or lumps in the lower abdomen, and a lump inside your bowel which can cause an obstruction.
Anyone suffering these symptoms for three weeks or more should contact their GP.