Margaret Kierse was diagnosed with bowel cancer after sending away the routine screening kit. Photo: Supplied.
A Bulli mum is urging the community to ditch the embarrassment around bowel cancer testing and stop stashing screening kits in drawers, after the routine check picked up her disease in its earliest stages.
Gravy Day will always be remembered as ‘Diagnosis Day’ in one Bulli family’s household after mother of three and local schoolteacher Margaret Kierse received the shocking news that she had bowel cancer days before Christmas in 2022.
Margaret had used the bowel cancer screening kit routinely every two years, but after she sent away her sample the fourth time in November 2022 she received a different response.
“Normally I just get a letter back in the post saying there’s nothing there,” she said. “But this time I got a phone call from the GP saying please come in, we need to discuss.”
One of the two tests from the kit returned a positive result.
She underwent further bloodwork and tests to investigate the cause and during a colonoscopy and gastroscopy, the specialist found an area of concern.
“He had found a section that he didn’t like the look of and thought it was cancerous but he would rush that through the biopsy,” Margaret said.
A day later Margaret learned she had bowel cancer.
Margaret’s husband Tim, who was forced to isolate after contracting COVID, was unable to comfort her at the desperate time.
“He had to be separate, so we were all out having this joint phone call with him in a mask on the balcony.
“I couldn’t get a hug from my own husband.
“That was hard.”
More tests were rushed through before everything closed for Christmas and new year, and Margaret was scheduled for surgery three weeks later.
Despite specialists being confident the size of the cancer wouldn’t significantly change during that time, the wait was stressful for the whole family.
“Christmas wasn’t joyful.
“We didn’t know that he’d got it all; we didn’t know how far it had spread,” she said.
Margaret woke from surgery without the need for an ileostomy bag, but was in a significant amount of pain that lingered for months.
“[The surgeon] really wanted to avoid an ileostomy because that’s another surgery and then you may not even get rid of it then,” she said.
Despite the pain, Margaret was determined during her recovery, to the point she was told to slow down.
“The physio said, ‘I want you walking as much as possible’, so I was doing laps of the ward.
“And they came back and said, ‘You’re doing too much now.'”
Three weeks later the results revealed the cancer had been so small that the first specialist had managed to remove it all during the biopsy.
There was no need for chemotherapy or further treatment, just regular blood tests and CT scans as well as a carefully managed diet reintroducing foods.
“They took out about a 20 to 25 centimetre section, and then they test every part of that.
“It took three weeks for them to do all that, and they found no cancer in any of it.
“He got it all because we found it early.”
Before her diagnosis, Margaret did not have many risk factors for bowel cancer or any symptoms.
It was only picked up that early because she was vigilant with testing.
Now she’s urging everyone to stop putting off the ‘poop test’.
“Even just the pain and the mental anguish, you don’t want anyone else to go through that.
“It’s so simple, get tested.
“Another woman at work, she had been the one keeping it in the bottom drawer, hadn’t been doing it, so she did it because we were really promoting it and she ended up having bowel cancer and hers was further along than mine,” Margaret said.
“If she’d kept it in the drawer she may not still be here.”
About 14,000 Australians are diagnosed with bowel cancer annually. About half of the cases in 2024 were people aged 50 to 74.
More than 5000 people die from the disease each year but of the 6.3 million Australians sent screening kits in 2022 and 2023 less than 42 per cent returned them.
With 99 per cent of cases successfully treated if caught in the earliest stages, Margaret is frustrated that people keep their heads in the sand.
“Do you know how many well-educated people do not do their poop test? Too many.
“Just go and get it done. The alternative is not being here. Choose which one you want to do – be a bit embarrassed or not be here to be embarrassed.”
Australians 45 and older are eligible for the National Bowel Cancer Screening program – for more information visit the health department website.
