Sharon Fitzpatrick is set to walk the catwalk next month in aid of raising awareness for the Highland Hospice.
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00:00 My name is Sharon Fitzpatrick and I was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May 2021, so during Covid.
00:09 So I was quite poorly I think from kind of 2017 but didn't really know what the signs and symptoms
00:17 of anything were. I had been put on new medication so I thought it was a wee reaction I was having to
00:22 that. I remember probably 2020 when I started going to the GP and I started to feel really,
00:30 really unwell. You know I was losing weight, I had really bad symptoms and I had diagnosed myself
00:39 with Crohn's or Colitis or maybe a bit of perimenopause and I had sadly lost my dad during
00:45 Covid in April 2021. So I'd also put it down to grief that I was having all of these symptoms
00:52 because I'm a really healthy person that never goes to the GP. So for me to be feeling these
00:58 things I just thought there's something not quite right but never cancer. I had an appointment with
01:03 the GP and she ran some tests, did a bowel screening test which normally I wouldn't be
01:10 offered because I was only 47 but because of my symptoms of blood in my poo, you know
01:18 heart palpitations which would have meant anemia, things like that. I mean the blood's actually
01:22 come back normal, it was the stool sample that came back positive for blood and I was asked by
01:28 the GP what did I want to do about it and I said well what would happen? She says well normally it
01:35 would be a colonoscopy but you're quite young, you know at 47 we wouldn't be thinking anything
01:41 like that. So I said well let's just go for it, let's just you know have the colonoscopy, rule
01:48 everything out and she was very good and said absolutely. Unfortunately there was a 10 month
01:54 wait for that colonoscopy. Symptoms had started to really affect me daily and I hadn't taken any
02:02 time off work but there was a point when I thought I actually think I'm going to have to stop working
02:08 because the symptoms were just so awful. I would go to the bathroom about 30 times a day
02:13 and there was lots of bleeding and pain and tiredness was huge, you know even going for a
02:21 shower it was just no energy. How I managed to work I will never know because I was on call
02:28 doing home births and everything so I was just, I don't know how I did it but for the colonoscopy
02:33 and within five minutes they could see that I had cancer. So it was during Covid so I wasn't
02:39 allowed to have anybody with me and when they told me I just, I didn't really feel anything,
02:46 I think I just went okay. No tears, I think when you think when you're given news like that you
02:53 think you would react where you would just be losing the plot and screaming and shouting
02:58 and I did the total opposite. I just had to surrender to it and think I can't change anything,
03:04 they just need to tell me what I have to do and I'll do it and it took me about a month
03:09 to pluck the courage up to tell my children and I mean they're adults because I wanted to know
03:16 exactly what staging it was, what the plan was, digest it myself. I didn't tell my mum or my sister
03:24 or anybody so it was on a kind of need to know basis if you like but I suppose out of the whole
03:31 thing the hardest thing was having to tell the kids. That was the hardest thing for me. So I
03:38 was very matter of fact about it really and it's just the way I had to be so it wasn't pleasant,
03:43 obviously not pleasant and the treatment wasn't pleasant and the symptoms weren't pleasant,
03:50 the operation wasn't pleasant but it was something that I'm grateful that I was able to have
03:56 and I've come out the other end. So I've been in remission for two years now,
04:02 I'm still on the cancer pathway for another three years so I still have my CT scans and
04:08 check-ups and things like that so you know it's not over and it's always in the back of my mind
04:15 but I suppose I'm a glass half full I think kind of person so I just kind of,
04:23 there's no point in me worrying too much about it because there's nothing I can do
04:28 but it doesn't mean I don't worry about it. I'm human, you know, I'll always live with it,
04:33 it's part of me now, that person, that other person isn't really there anymore,
04:38 I'm a different person now and some things are better but yeah I'm just grateful to be here.
04:44 [no audio]
05:09 So for me to decide to do it is massive.