A DOCTOR from Eccles given 18 months to live in 2015 is celebrating a decade since her devastating cancer diagnosis this Bowel Cancer Awareness Month.
Mari Isdale was just 31 when one day during her shift at Tameside Hospital she was rushed to the A&E department after suddenly experiencing crippling stomach pains.
A scan found a tumour “the size of a watermelon” in her abdomen and the fit and healthy physician was told she had stage four bowel cancer which had spread to her ovaries.
As part of her treatment Mari, a fertility doctor, had to have part of her bowel as well as both of her ovaries removed, which sadly destroyed her dreams of having children of her own.
The now 42-year-old faced four major operations to remove multiple tumours from various locations in her abdomen followed by chemotherapy and targeted therapy drug cetuximab, which Cancer Research UK helped develop.
Mari, who lives with husband Babur Ahmed and their sausage dog Angus, is sharing her story during Bowel Cancer Awareness Month in support of a Cancer Research UK drive to help save more lives from bowel cancer – the UK’s second most common cause of cancer death.
This April she is urging people across the region to donate monthly to the charity – the largest funder of bowel cancer research in the UK – to help fund the next big breakthrough at cruk.org/donate.
Mari said: “I remember when they first scanned me to see what was causing the pain I saw this huge mass the size of a watermelon, I’ve no idea how it was hiding in there, but I knew straight away that it was bad. It was very unexpected as I was healthy and I had no family history of cancer. Despite all this, I still found myself with advanced bowel cancer.
“Every precious beautiful day of the next 10 years of life I’ve had since then is thanks to Cancer Research UK as they funded research studies into the targeted therapy drug I was given during its early phases and development. I was able to go on to live an amazing, fulfilling, active and happy life despite cancer. Thanks to research I have been able to spend lots of special time with my family and loved ones making special memories.
“I have been able to travel and have adventures whilst ticking items off my YOLO (You Only Live Once) list having wonderful experiences all over the world such as flying in a helicopter with my mum and sister over New York, a family trip to see the pyramids of Egypt and hot air ballooning with my husband over the fairy chimneys in Turkey. I now don’t wait for plans; on my good days I really live life.
“I was until recently able to work again and thereby help my patients on their fertility journeys. I can empathise so much more with what they are going through now I fully understand how they feel. And it gives me so much joy to be able to help people with becoming parents, even more so now that I can’t have children myself.”
