A single mother in Christchurch, New Zealand, was told she had weeks to live just days after going to the doctor with a pain in her stomach.
Naomi Argyle, 45, went for a check up after reading a March 4 story in Stuff about another Christchurch woman, Jade Blackman, who'd gone to the doctor with a niggling stomach pain. Blackman died eight weeks after learning she had bowel cancer.
In that story, the oncologist told Blackman's mother the disease was "ripping through" young outwardly fit and healthy people and the doctor had 12 other similar cases on the go.
In a similar turn of events, it was "surreal and shocking" when doctors gave Argyle the devastating news that she was also dying from bowel cancer and could have just eight weeks left.
"As they were telling me, Jade's story was in my mind. One of my doctors said it was alarming the amount of younger people that were not finding out before it was too late," she told Stuff.
"The speed at which it happened was hard to take in. How can this be? This should not be happening in this country that we have this terrible killer disease. It's striking down previously healthy young people, who have had nothing in their lifestyle such as drinking, smoking or bad diet to cause it. There needs to be urgency to save lives. "
Despite knowing "my time on this earth will soon come to an end", Argyle wanted to help others seeking urgent answers.
"I feel like I have to shout it from the rooftops, making noise so that if just one other person like me will go and get checked, and jump up and down if you have symptoms to get tests."
Before going to the doctor, Argyle had stomach ache off and on, but never dreamed it was anything serious.
"It takes so long to get a doctor's appointment and it's expensive, I was busy at work and with the kids, but mostly I hadn't thought I needed it," she said.
"When you hit 40 you feel everything is going a bit south - you're struggling to read labels on the shampoo, so the odd niggle in the stomach I just thought I'd eaten something or was constipated."
She made the appointment on March 8, and the doctor sent her to Christchurch hospital for tests including a scan, then biopsy.
Just days later she learned she had stage four bowel cancer, that had spread to her lymph nodes, liver and lungs, and was "incurable".
Like Blackman, Argyle had no other symptoms such as change in bowel movements, passing blood, weight loss or fatigue. As a busy working mum of 11 and 13-year old girls, "I wouldn't think it strange if I was tired."
Talking to Stuff over the Easter weekend, still in Christchurch hospital, just two weeks after that doctor's appointment, Argyle was calm and matter of fact about the diagnosis.
Sharing the terrible news with others and seeing their shock and pain, was worse than dealing with the diagnosis itself, she said.
"Telling the girls was the worst thing I have ever done in my life. I took them to the Groynes, so we had some open space. I had to make sure they understood there was no cure."
She hasn't talked about time left to her daughters.
"I don't want them to be afraid, and want us to have happy times together for what I have left."
Telling her parents also brought back to mind Blackman's story, in which her parents were left with terrible grief and questions.
"When I told my parents, I kept saying sorry. I feel like it's okay for me in a way as I have such a short time suffering and then it's over, but for my kids and my parents, they are left without me - and that's hard. That's what's making me want to shout about this when I still can - to stop other families having to go through this," she said.
Planning for the girls' futures has been a whirlwind of practical tasks she's had to do while in hospital - handing in her notice at the company she worked selling tractors to South Island farms, talking to the landlord of her rental property, and meeting with a palliative care team about managing her pain in the weeks to come.
She's no longer with the girl's father Scott Ashworth, but said they still have a great bond and are handling it together.
Ashworth set up a Givealittle fund for their daughters.
"It gives me comfort to think of them having the practical means, money to do something little, have a treat, to help them in anyway, when I am gone," she said.
At first Argyle was told chemotherapy "wasn't an option."
"The wait list was 12 weeks and they said I'd be at the end of the queue as it wouldn't really change anything - a bit like pouring bleach on advanced mould," she said.
Now doctors have decided to fast track a trial of chemotherapy.
"If it is effective, it could give me six months, and if it's not, they won't continue it."
While she has accepted she will die of the disease, she doesn't want other families to suffer when it can be treated if caught early.
"Nothing can save me and stop my girls losing their mum, but even if I can just reach one person to go and get checked and get treated early."
Former Stuff journalist Jo McKenzie-McLean was just 45 when she died of bowel cancer last July.
She devoted much of her last year of life to recording a podcast, Jo v Cancer, to reduce stigma and encourage discussions around the disease.
In McKenzie-McClean's case, it took two years of battling to get a diagnosis. Despite irregular bowel movements, and an uncle and grandmother who both had bowel cancer, she was told three times she did not meet the criteria for a colonoscopy.
According to Bowel Cancer New Zealand, which receives no government assistance, three New Zealanders die from bowel cancer every day and it's the second highest cause of cancer death.
Of those, one in 10 will be under 50.
This article originally appeared on Stuff and has been republished with permission.
