John’s story – Knowledge is power

John talks about his experience with using the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program kit. Receiving a reminder letter prompted him to do the test. Listen to his story.

2:33

My name’s John Liney, I’m 65 years old and I received the National Bowel Cancer Screening kit and acted upon it.

Up until that point, um, my life’s been pretty good, very active, very healthy, positive with life — life is good.

When I received the kit I opened it up, had a bit of a look at the information inside, and decided that I wasn’t going to act upon it straight away so I got the kit, put it, um, where I would see it every day, because I thought it was important, but I treated it a bit like I treat my bills.

It took me a little while to uh, to realise that I better do something about it but, still kept putting it off. I then received a letter from the bowel cancer people to say ‘we haven’t received anything back from you’, and that was the impetus to say ‘okay I’ll open the kit and use the kit’.

Then, I got a phone call from my doctor, and the doctor said you’ve got two positive tests, both of them were positive, we would like you then to go ahead further and get them all assessed.

They gave me a phone number and they said ring the specialist. I rang the specialist, that was on the Tuesday, I rang, Wednesday I had an appointment because there was a cancellation.

And the specialist was really fabulous and part of the thing he said, ‘Oh, we can also fit you in on Thursday’.

So Thursday at the hospital to have a colonoscopy and see what’s up there.

And then I got a phone call to say that they tested, oh they did find some polyps, that they removed on that third day. So on the Thursday in the hospital. And they were both benign.

My advice is, er, to go and get tested, to get screened. Knowledge is power. The knowledge that I’ve got that I don’t have these polyps certainly makes life easier for me. Yep.

Video type:
Story
Publication date:
Date last updated:
Description:

John kept putting off doing the test, but receiving a reminder letter in the mail gave him the motivation to get it done. When the results came back positive, he had a follow up colonoscopy which showed some polyps. They were removed, and were benign. John is glad he doesn’t have to worry about them.

Help us improve health.gov.au

If you would like a response please use the enquiries form instead.