Colette didn’t think anything of her symptoms for years until she went to see her GP
Colette Swindells was told she had incurable cancer three times(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
A mum was told she has incurable cancer three times after suffering from indigestion. Mum-of-two Colette Swindells had suffered with terrible heartburn for many years but thought “nothing of it”.
It wasn’t until 2015 when Colette, aged 46 at the time, felt a lump in her neck and went to see her GP that she discovered the burning sensation in her chest was a symptom of cancer.
Colette, now aged 56, from Runcorn, said: “After a few weeks the lump in my neck hadn’t gone so I decided to go to the doctors. They said it was just a lymph node and nothing to worry about.
“While there just by chance I mentioned I’d been suffering from indigestion for almost 20 years, I’d tried every over the counter medication at this point and just wanted to know if there was something to stop it.
“I didn’t think anything of it, I’m never the type to go to the doctors, I’ve always been healthy and had been a veggie for 30 years at the time.
“The doctor felt my stomach and when she pressed on a certain area I nearly jumped off the bed. It hurt so much. She told me she thought I had a problem with my gallbladder.”
The mum, 56, thought she was going to ‘drop dead’ when doctors told her the news(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Colette was referred to Halton Hospital for an ultrasound which revealed her gallbladder was “full” of gall stones. In January 2016 she had a gallbladder removal, which she assumed would be the end of her problems.
She said: “My gallbladder was looked at in the lab after it was removed. Eight days after the key hole surgery to remove it I got a phone call asking me to come into Halton Hospital. As soon as I got the call I knew it was going to be really bad news.
“I got to the hospital and they told me they’d found a tumour.” Colette was referred to Aintree Hospital where she had further surgery, where another tumour was discovered.
She told the ECHO how the diagnosis was the “strangest thing”. She said: “When I was told I had cancer, me and my husband drove us home and all I kept thinking was that I was going to drop dead.
“Nobody in my family had ever been touched by cancer, I had two children, aged 16 and 18 at the time [now aged 25 and 27], and all I kept thinking was ‘how do we tell them?’
“I just kept apologising constantly, every time anyone cried I said sorry. I felt a terrible sense of guilt.”
Colette had six months of chemotherapy at Royal Liverpool Hospital. During this, she said the lump on her neck she originally went to see her GP about in 2015, which was the “size of a pea” at the time, had “grown to the size of a Brussel sprout”.
Colette believed the lump couldn’t be cancerous because she’d just undergone chemotherapy. This wasn’t the case and in 2017 she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer that had spread. She had surgery to remove her thyroid and lymph nodes in her neck.
She also underwent radiotherapy treatment and in 2017 was finally given the all clear. She said: “For the next two years I was cancer free, I was having regular check-ups at the Clatterbridge Hospital but everything was fine. Then, just before it turned five years since my first diagnosis, I found out the gallbladder cancer had returned and spread to my abdomen.”
Doctors had found ovarian cysts and decided a full hysterectomy would be Colette’s best option. During the covid pandemic, forced to go to hospital appointments alone the mum underwent the life-saving surgery and another six months of chemotherapy.
The chemotherapy left Colette “really breathless and very poorly”. She said: “I wanted to quit with the chemo. We then found out I’d developed a lung clot and I then had to inject myself for six months. But, if I didn’t have the breathlessness, they would have never found the clot and that could have killed me.”
Despite multiple surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy, in 2022 the gallbladder cancer. She said: “Aintree Hospital didn’t know whether they should operate again but in the end they decided to get it out.
“Once they sent it to the lab they looked at it and discovered something had grown around the tumour which looked like my body was weirdly trying to fight back the gallbladder cancer. Usually, you’d die within three – six months, but I’ve been dealing with this for almost ten years now and I’m still here to tell the tale.”
Ten years after she was diagnosed with cancer Colette’s feeling of guilt has finally gone, she said: “Now I’m like ‘wow OK, here we go again, what can happen?’ I live with it and deal with it.”
She added: “I know that I’m incurable, I was told from the get go that there’s no cure for me. I’m incredibly lucky that I’ve been able to have surgeries to remove the cancers but it won’t cure it, it’ll always be there. Now I live for today and tomorrow can take care of itself.”
Colette has now released her own book, The Gall of it All(Image: Andrew Teebay Liverpool Echo)
Colette now wants to use her journey to help others suffering the same battle and has released her own book documenting her illness. She said: “The idea to write the book came from the lack of research out there for people like me.
“In 2016 when I was first diagnosed I started looking for people going through the same thing as me at my age but couldn’t find anyone online.
“I found the whole thing a very lonely place going down rabbit holes trying to find information, there were no support groups or anything. I’d blogged my full journey – it’s like a memoir of what I’ve been through – so now I’ve decided to release it as a book for people who are going through rare cancers.” You can find out more about the book here.