He Didn't Need to Die ; When Giles Went Down with Agonising Stomach Cramps, His Gp Said He Needed More Fibre. Too Decent to Make a Fuss, He Agreed and Went Home. But As His Wife Reveals in This Harrowing Testimony, It Was a Fatal Mistake

Daily Mail › March 31, 2009

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Summary

WILL DADDY die?' ten-year-old Olivia Cowley asked her mother, Becca. The family had had a fraught year going to and from hospital, trying to find out what was wrong with Olivia's father, Giles. Now it was just a few weeks before Christmas. 'At the moment, Daddy's doing very well and we hope that he's going to get better,' Becca told her daughter. In fact, even as Becca spoke, she knew that he had terminal bowel cancer.

The disease had been diagnosed two months earlier. The news itself was terrible, but what made the situation the hardest to bear for the couple was that for months previously his symptoms, including unexplained weight loss and tiredness, had been put down to irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS, a common but relatively benign condition.

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Extract

He Didn't Need to Die ; When Giles Went Down with Agonising Stomach Cramps, His Gp Said He Needed More Fibre. Too Decent to Make a Fuss, He Agreed and Went Home. But As His Wife Reveals in This Harrowing Testimony, It Was a Fatal Mistake

'I don't blame the GP, but it's impossible not to think that if I'd nagged Giles harder about going to see someone in the first place, he would still be around today,' says Becca.

Every year, around 35,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer, according to Cancer Research UK.

Approximately one-third of are due to genetic factors, such as a faulty inherited gene. The remaining two-thirds are related to dietary factors, such as eating a high-fat, low-fibre diet, with little or no exercise, or obesity.

If caugh...

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