Living with bowel cancer: Being told I had stage 4 cancer was a huge shock

A busy mother of five with a full-time job was shocked to hear she had advanced bowel cancer within days after visiting her GP 

Linda Burnett Bowdler who has bowel cancer with her son Mason, 4, at her home in Rialto, Dublin. Photograph Moya Nolan

As a healthy 44-year-old sitting on a doctor's table with mild pain last year, Linda Burnett Bowdler was never expecting to receive a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. The busy mum of five never suspected her short-lived symptoms would lead to bowel cancer, nor did she understand quite how much the diagnosis would change her life.

"I have five kids, I had a full-time job as a social worker, life was busy," Linda says. "I started to get a bit of pressure and pain in my bowels and then some bleeding, but it had only been going on for six weeks. I never thought they were going to diagnose me with stage 4 cancer."