Bowel cancer: ‘I thought it was just post-baby haemorrhoids. Go and get checked. You are your own advocate’

Helen Dunne was diagnosed with stage 2 rectal cancer in 2023 at the age of 36 and is now sharing her story to increase public awareness around the importance of early detection of cancer

Helen Dunne, pictured with daughter Isabel: ‘I didn’t use the word cancer with my children.’ Photo: Damien Eagers

Liadán Hynes

Helen Dunne’s initial symptom was bleeding, something she first experienced when pregnant with her youngest child. “My youngest was nearly eight months when I was diagnosed, so I would have had that during pregnancy. But then I would have had haemorrhoids, so that’s what I thought it was,” she says now.

It was when the bleeding became darker that she became more concerned. “I went to my GP, she did an exam on me and said yes, it probably is haemorrhoids, but thankfully her way of doing things is, any bleeding, she refers for a colonoscopy. So I was very lucky.”