Mum-of-two’s shock after ‘piles’ turn out to be stage 3 bowel cancer

Busy working mother Jenna Borthwick could always find a reasonable explanation for feeling under the weather; she was tired, it was her period, it was just another flu from nursery. 

But in reality, she was one of the thousands of young Britons unaware that they are living with deadly bowel cancer. 

The 31-year-old, from the Scottish Borders, posting on TikTok, revealed the one bit of crucial ‘misinformation’ that might be stopping people from taking their symptoms seriously.

In a series of images titled ‘symptoms that led to my bowel cancer diagnosis in March 2025’, she goes into greater detail about how it was discovered that she had an advanced stage of the disease. 

She wrote: ‘So many people asking what my symptoms were: some of these like the tiredness/cramps/and catching colds could be traced back quite a few months but it’s so easy to pin these down to something else. 

‘Busy working mum? Of course I’m tired. Cramps? Must be getting my period! Why am I catching every single cold/flu going around? Must be my toddlers coming home from nursery!’ 

She continued that it was only a few months before her formal diagnosis that more physical symptoms began to ramp up, and she thanks her doctor for taking her concerns seriously and agreeing that ‘there was something not quite right’. 

Summarising how she was ‘constantly ill in the lead up to my diagnosis’, Ms Borthwick said that she needed the toilet every time she ate, had blood in her faeces, had abdominal cramps, and felt like she needed to empty her bowels constantly.

‘The other symptoms only started two/three months prior to my diagnosis and I actually went to my GP quite quickly,’ she added.

‘I was super lucky that she ran tests quite early on and she knew there was something not quite right.

‘We did however think it was piles to start with, and then inflammatory bowel disease as I think the symptoms are very similar.’ 

Ms Borthwick then revealed the common piece of misinformation which could cost lives. 

She said: ‘People always told me bright red blood wasn’t anything to worry about and that dark blood was what you had to watch out for, this is so wrong. Get any sort of blood in your poo checked.’

Due to the blood in her faeces, Ms Borthwick was referred for a colonoscopy—where a thin flexible camera is inserted into the rectum—by her GP who wanted to rule out conditions like Crohn’s Disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease. 

But it was during this initial investigation that doctors discovered a ‘tumour so large it was close to being a full bowel obstruction’—and things began to rapidly escalate. 

Ms Borthwick recalled: ‘I was bossing life at work on the Monday, told I had cancer the Tuesday, admitted into the hospital the Wednesday, and [had] surgery the Thursday.’ 

Her cancer was found to be stage 3 an advanced stage that means while the cancer has begun to spread it has yet to reach distant parts of the body.  

Ms Borthwick underwent an eight hour surgery to remove the mass from the left side of her bowel. 

While the operation was a success she has to undergo a four month course of chemotherapy, to try and eliminate any remaining traces of the cancer. 

Before beginning the treatment, Ms Borthwick told her followers that she underwent an egg retrieval procedure at Edinburgh Fertility Clinic so she and her husband could hopefully fulfil their dream of having a third child. 

Her case comes amid a concerning and mysterious rise in rates of bowel cancer among under 50s.

A recent global study found rates of bowel cancer in under 50 year-olds are rising in 27 of 50 nations.

England is averaging a 3.6 per cent rise in younger adults every year – one of the highest increases recorded, with roughly 2 per cent rise among young people in the US.

While the disease is known to be linked to obesity, experts have noted that it also seems to be occurring in fit and healthy patients.

Some believe the explanation must lie in environmental factors young people have been exposed to more than previous generations, such as plastics and even pollution. 

Signs of bowel cancer include abdominal pain, a lump in the abdomen, bloating and feeling very tired or short of breath.

Bleeding from the back passage, or blood in the stool, occurs when cancerous tumours bleed into the digestive tract.

However, bowel cancer can also appear with no symptoms until it has spread, where it becomes harder to treat.

Overall, just over half of bowel cancer patients are expected to be alive 10 years after their diagnosis.

But cancers of all types are on the rise in young people.

In a landmark study, Cancer Research UK examined 50 years of NHS data and found that the risk of developing cancer has risen sharply, particularly among young people.

In this demographic diagnoses had risen by up to 23 per cent in people aged 20 to 49.

Researchers are still trying to explore factors being the rise in early onset cancers, with some suggesting modern diets, exposures to microplastics, or a combination of several triggers could be to blame.