This Morning’s Dr Philippa Kaye reveals she was told she had bowel cancer last year after being misdiagnosed TWICE
THIS Morning’s Dr Philippa Kaye has revealed the terrifying moment she was diagnosed with bowel cancer.
The London-based GP, 40, appeared on Wednesday morning’s show to speak about her experience after being told she has the disease in May last year.
Dr Philippa said she was misdiagnosed twice for the bowel pain and admitted she thought she was too young to have the disease.
For the last six months, the mum-of-three has been undergoing chemotherapy and is now set to undergo a 10 to 12 hour surgery at the end of the week to remove the final cancer lesion.
Speaking about her diagnosis on This Morning, she said: “When you’re young and even as a doctor you think, ‘This cannot be cancer’.
“I had three emergency cesarean sections and I had some pain in my pelvis and assumed it was down to scar tissue and so did my GP.
“I was 39 and I then went to a gynaecologist who also thought it was scar tissue, but when you get scar tissue in your pelvis you should go to a bowel surgeon.”
Talking about when she found out, Dr Philippa continued: “I think I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.
“They put you under a little bit of sedation, and you lie down to try and relax.
“I glanced up at the screen and I looked at the surgeon and he looked at me and I knew.”
The doctor said the worst part of the experience was the “uncertainty and waiting”.
She said: “You have to have a period of scans to check where it is. And for a lot of us, it’s the waiting and uncertainty that is most difficult.
“I had a really big surgery and six months of chemotherapy. Then we thought we were done but there is a lesion that is still going and I am going in for a whopper at the end of this week.
“A ten or 12 hour surgery, but sometimes you have to hurt to heal and this a step towards recovery.”
The medic said the hardest part of doing the treatment during these times was having no one there to support her.
She said: “I was really lucky to be able to continue to have my treatment and I had a surgery in May.
“Coronavirus has lots of costs, there is the mortality related to the virus, the mortality because of things we cannot manage because of the virus and then the mental health costs.
“To go and wait for a surgery on your own and to wake up on your own without someone to hold you hand and just bear witness to that, is incredibly tough.
“So for everyone who is on their own in hospital, we are in this together.”
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The mum-of-three said she was honest with her children, adding: “My children were young. They were 11, seven and four and we’ve always been open about what’s going on.
“Our loved ones, they hate to see us in pain and the truth is you can be positive and resilient and strong, and sometimes it hurts and sometimes you have a bad day.
“What we really need is for you to be able to hear that from us and instead of trying to make it better and that constant message of positivity to say, ‘I know, I’m here’ and that helps.”