From the age of six, Leeanne Davies-Grassnick knew she wanted to be a mother. ‘I was always crazy about babies and children,’ she says. ‘When I was in primary school, we had to write what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I remember putting “a mum”.’
When she finally did have a baby, after years of hard work as a City banker, London-based Leeanne, now 42, says the first few months of motherhood were the happiest of her life. But it was during this blissful haze of caring for her new baby that she began to notice something was ‘off’ within her body.
At first, she put her intense fatigue down to the struggles of parenting a newborn – sleepless nights spent breastfeeding; long walks on the local common trying to get the baby to nap.
The rapid weight loss, likewise, was probably just baby weight dropping off, Leeanne thought – and anyway, it felt great to fit back into her jeans so quickly.
It wasn’t until April 2022, four months after she gave birth and while on holiday in Corfu with her parents and wife Emma, that she realised something was seriously wrong.
‘We would usually go on long walks around the island – but after about 15 minutes, I would feel an intense pain in my right-hand ribcage that wouldn’t go away,’ she says. ‘At first, I thought I may have pulled a muscle or even broken a rib – I promised that I would go straight to the GP to have it seen to when we got back to London.’
Even as the pain intensified over the holiday, Leeanne managed to disguise it.
‘I was so focused on my child, who was just starting to teethe, and soothing his pain, that I pushed my own down,’ she says. ‘Maybe secretly, in the back of my head, I was already worried something was wrong.’
Leeanne Davies-Grassnick, 42, was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer and the disease spread throughout her liver, making it incurable
Within two days of getting home, after being hit by pain that left her screaming, the couple rushed to hospital where they received devastating news.
Leeanne was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer, which had spread throughout her liver making the disease incurable.
‘I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as the consultant gave us the news,’ she says. ‘But all I could think of was my baby, asleep in his pram in the waiting room.’
Experts say Leeanne’s experience is not a rarity. Despite extensive publicity around the spike in bowel cancer cases among under-50s, thousands of young women are still being diagnosed with the disease too late, when it is no longer curable.
This is because early signs of the disease, such as fatigue, changes in bowel habits and blood in the stool, often overlap with much more common symptoms associated with hormonal changes after birth or in mid-life.
As a result, key red flags for the deadly disease can be dismissed as simply ‘women’s issues’ by GPs and patients.
This was the case for Married At First Sight star Mel Schilling, who passed away last month, aged 54, from bowel cancer that had spread to her brain.
The psychologist-turned-relationship guru had put off seeing a doctor because she believed the symptoms – including abdominal pain, constipation and fatigue – were due to the menopause.
The same was true for bowel cancer campaigner Dame Deborah James who died in 2022. She put her change in bowel habits down to the stress of being a ‘super mum’ working full-time.
For a year she ignored her increasingly severe symptoms – losing weight, passing blood and needing the loo ‘what felt like 100 times a day’ – before finally having a colonoscopy.
For younger women like these, says Genevieve Edwards, chief executive of charity Bowel Cancer UK, keeping an eye out for the signs of bowel cancer is low on their priorities.
‘If a woman is experiencing concerning symptoms, it’s understandable that she and her GP might explore other avenues first,’ she said.
Despite extensive publicity around the spike in bowel cancer cases among under-50s, thousands of young women – like Leeanne – are still being diagnosed too late
‘Because bowel cancer, though rising, is still rare in that age group, they often end up going back to their GP time and again while other causes are ruled out.
‘But by that point, you may end up with a cancer that is much harder to treat.’
It’s a subject that The Mail on Sunday’s resident GP, Dr Ellie Cannon, discussed in her column last week. But experts say it’s also crucial for GPs themselves to recognise the symptoms of bowel cancer, and refer women for further testing when they do present with them – however rare.
Though long considered a disease of the elderly, the number of young people developing bowel cancer has shot up in recent years – with one in five diagnoses now occurring in those under 55. It’s still uncommon to get bowel cancer as a young person – just 2,500 Britons under 50 are diagnosed each year.
‘For young women in particular, whether they’re post-partum or nearing menopause, it’s terribly easy to ascribe signs of cancer to something else – for the GP, that lightbulb may just not go off,’ says Professor Willie Hamilton, former GP and expert on colon cancer diagnosis in primary care.
He adds: ‘Fatigue caused by colon cancer usually comes from anaemia, a lack of iron in the body due to blood loss from the tumour. But menopause has many non-specific symptoms, like tiredness. And as women approach menopause, their periods often get heavier – it’s quite common for perimenopausal women to develop anaemia for this reason.’
The same is true for pregnancy and the post-partum period, says colorectal surgeon at New Victoria Hospital, Mr Pasha Nisar. Both can leave women feeling excessively tired, as well as with blood in their stool, from pregnancy-induced haemorrhoids or trauma from birth.
‘There’s even overlap with common gynaecological conditions like ovarian cysts, fibroids and endometriosis,’ he says.
Ironically, the fact women in this age range are more likely to see their GP than men also works against them, says Prof Hamilton. ‘The ringing bell sign of bowel cancer for a GP is the patient who hasn’t come in for years, suddenly appearing with these symptoms,’ he says. ‘But because there are fewer female infrequent attenders, they miss that alarm going off in the GP’s head.’
Some experts say medical misogyny – the systemic prejudice and dismissal of women’s health concerns by the medical profession – also plays a role.
Leeanne – who says awareness of the cancer among young women is key – is pictured with her wife Emma and son Caspar
‘There’s a massive deficit in the understanding of women’s health compared to men’s health,’ says Lowri Dowthwaite-Walsh, of the University of Central Lancashire. ‘Women are socialised to put their own health after that of their children or family. But even when they do go to their doctor about a problem, it’s much more likely to be underplayed, or attributed to hormones or things like stress.
‘There’s still a lot left over from the not-so-distant past, where women were seen as emotional or hysterical.’
Research shows that while women are generally more likely to visit a doctor for health issues than men, they are also more likely to have those symptoms dismissed, overlooked or delayed in diagnosis.
In fact, a recent survey from online platform Mumsnet, drawing on more than 100,000 posts from 2015 to 2025, found that nearly 70 per cent of British women believe the NHS does not take women’s health concerns seriously. Half say they have been dismissed, ignored or not believed by an NHS professional because of their sex.
To mitigate this, says Ms Edwards, women who have any concerns about bowel cancer should be persistent in raising them with their GP.
‘Bowel Cancer UK has a symptoms diary on its website that can really help, allowing women to log their symptoms rather than bring them up as vague changes, which are more easily dismissed,’ she said.
Most important, however, says Prof Hamilton, is to ask for an at-home stool test.
Medical advancements have made bowel cancer much easier to detect, he explained, due to the roll-out of the FIT test – an at-home stool test that looks for trace signs of blood.
Patients for whom blood is detected will then be sent for further testing.
But for others, it can quickly assuage fears and rule out anything more serious. ‘In the past, patients suspected of having bowel cancer would have to be sent for a colonoscopy, which is a fairly unpleasant procedure that requires a referral and takes time,’ says Prof Hamilton. ‘Now, the first step is a FIT test, which is relatively cheap, available in all practices across Britain, and can be taken very quickly from the comfort of one’s home.
‘It’s given us the chance to transform how bowel cancer is diagnosed.
‘Women just need to know to ask for it, and GPs to offer it when they recognise any of the key signs of bowel cancer – even if just to rule it out.’
Married At First Sight star Mel Schilling passed away last month aged 54 from bowel cancer that spread to her brain
For Leeanne, awareness around the condition among young women is key.
‘I had every single bowel cancer symptom before I was diagnosed, but not once did I think it was cancer,’ she says.
‘We, as mothers and young women, just don’t think that this could ever happen to us.
‘But I’ve been sat, having chemotherapy, in a room filled with young women and mums just like me. And not many of them are still here today.
‘We have to learn from each other’s stories about what to look out for, and how to bring it up with your doctor as quickly as possible.’
Resources such as Stage4You, a new campaign run in partnership with BCUK that provides information and support for people living with stage 4 cancer, can help with this, says Leeanne.
‘There’s a point where we have to stop focusing on other people and focus on ourselves,’ she adds.
Dr Philippa Kaye: I’m a family doctor and even I missed my own warning signs
I was 39 when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer and, to be honest, neither I nor my doctor initially thought my symptoms were anything to worry about.
In 2019, I began to notice a strange aching sensation in my pelvis. That was it. No change in bowel habits. No blood in my stool. No fatigue. Just a dull pain. I put this down to the three caesarian sections I had in the ten years before. Luckily, my gynaecologist decided to check, and sent me to a bowel surgeon. That decision saved my life. A colonoscopy spotted my cancer. Seven years, and multiple surgeries later, I’m now cancer-free.
But many women, like Mel Schilling, are not so lucky. The female pelvis is complicated. There are lots of organs down there and it can be hard to work out the origin of a new pain.
Women are also taught from a young age that they should put up with pain.
I worry, if this rise in early-age bowel cancer cases continues, there will be more tragic cases. That’s why it’s so important that anyone with any new pelvis symptoms advocate for themselves, and doctors make sure to listen to them.
