'I had no symptoms before bowel cancer diagnosis'

Kitty Odell said she was "as fit as a flea" when she was diagnosed with bowel cancer

A retired psychiatric nurse says she had no symptoms before her "shock" bowel cancer diagnosis.

Kitty Odell, from Redland in Bristol, is urging people to "do the poo test", after a regular screening led to the discovery of her bowel cancer.

She described herself as "fit as a flea" when doctors found a tumour during a colonoscopy in 2022. It followed a routine poo test with the NHS which is offered to people between the ages of 50-74.

The 64-year-old said the news came as a "bombshell", adding: "They said if I hadn't done the poo test I could have died within 18 months."

"I had just come back from trekking in Morocco and I had actually said to my girlfriends I had never felt so fit in my life.

"I'm as fit as a flea.

"Then the poo test came through he door.

"This was the third one I'd done - cancer doesn't run in my family so, I did what anyone else does and put it off and then did it and took it to the post office," she said.

A few weeks later she received a "worrying" thick envelope in the post that told her she had to go for a colonoscopy.

"I tried not to worry but I was - then they told me they had found a giant tumour," she said.

'We all poo'

"I was completely freaked out.

"I did a body scan to check it hadn't spread but waiting for the results I became obsessive - I would get to the lights on my bike and think, 'if this goes red it means I have cancer."

Ms Odell then had a part of her Bowel taken out and went through chemotherapy for six months.

She said recovery after surgery went really well and she was very lucky to not have to use a stoma bag afterwards, but during her chemotherapy she had a bad reaction to the medicine which made her skin really sore and flaky.

She said dealing with the side effects was "gruelling".

"People squirm when you talk about it - we all poo, just get over it, just go and do your poo test," she added.

Ms Odell is now cancer free, but has annual scans to manage her anxiety of reoccurrence.

As part of the "Wake Up Call" live broadcast series on BBC Radio Bristol's Breakfast Show presenter, Joe Sims, has been hearing from people who have had cancer in the hope it will encourage listeners to get checked for serious health conditions.