Channel Nine sports presenter, Erin Molan, and her older sister, Sarah Sutton, have spoken out for the first time together about the cancer diagnosis that changed their lives.
In an exclusive interview in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, Sarah details her experience with bowel cancer at just 29, following the birth of her son, Angus.
“It was a huge, huge shock,” Sarah tells The Weekly. “I think I actually thought ‘No I don’t. This happens to other people. This is Coeliac [disease] or Irritable Bowel Syndrome or Crohn’s Disease. This isn’t cancer – I have young kids. I’ve got a brand new baby’.”
The treatment Sarah endured was tough. Three major surgeries and months of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
“It took me two and a half years to get back to work,” says the mother-of-two, who is now living cancer-free.
Her message is simple – being young does not make you immune to bowel cancer, so get checked.
“If they catch it early enough, it’s completely survivable,” she says.
Both Sarah, 33, and Erin, 31, now work with Bowel Cancer Australia as an advocate and ambassador respectively, helping to raise awareness and the importance of early detection.
“I had no idea that bowel cancer could affect young women like Sarah,” says Erin, adding that bowel cancer is often overlooked because “people feel awkward talking about bowels and bowel movements”.
Currently, one in 12 Australians will develop bowel cancer in their lifetime.
Bowel Cancer Australia encourages all Australians from age 50, who do not have symptoms or a family history of bowel cancer, to undertake bowel cancer screening every one to two years using a Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT).
Anyone with symptoms, should contact their GP immediately. For more information, visit www.bowelcanceraustralia.org.
This story was originally published in the May issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly.
