My bloated stomach thought it was due to my new diet. But, I found out that it was something more sinister.

Tanya Laird, tech consultant, thought that her symptoms of bloating were due to her body responding to various weight loss programs. However it was terminal colon cancer.

Tanya shares how she dealt with the unexpected diagnosis as well as how she deals with her “borrowed time”.

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“Chatting with other tech experts at the conference I was attending for work, I suddenly realised that all eyes were on my swollen stomach.

‘Congratulations,’ one person said.

A third person inquired when my due date was.

‘This is Bob – AKA Big Oncology Bump,’ I explained, as they apologised, mortified.

In April 2018, six weeks prior to the start of the bloating,

Being single, I knew I wasn’t pregnant, and I assumed it was a reaction to trying different diets to lose a little weight.

The bulge looked like a small bagel at first.

Within days I was a wreck and strangers asked me to touch my stomach. They offered me their seats on the Tube.

I’d tersely reply: ‘No thanks,’ and they’d get the message that I wasn’t pregnant.

Then I experienced severe nausea and vomiting, which led me to visit my GP. She suspected that I may have ovarian carcinoma.

I tried to be pragmatic and believed that, even if I had cancer, it could be managed.

A fortnight later, I was admitted to hospital for tests – that same day, I was told it was colon cancer and rushed to the operating theatre to have tumours from my colon and ovaries removed.

After my surgery, I was told by the surgeon that my cancer was Stage 4 and that no treatment was possible.

He couldn’t give me a time frame of how long I had left, but said treatment would be palliative.

It was hard to absorb the news because I had an allergic reaction to medication after surgery that left me feeling nauseated and dizzy.

I cried hysterically to my friend Judith when she visited me in hospital, and she later told me she’d never seen anybody so physically and mentally weak who didn’t die soon afterwards.

Kim, my twin sister from Los Angeles flew within twelve hours to my bedside.

Our shock was compounded by the fact that we had no family history of any type of cancer.

For four weeks, she stayed with me every other month. Judith created a WhatsApp group, Team Tanya. This group gathered 43 people from my social media accounts to take care of me.

Because medication can make everything taste weird, I stated that I craved something to drink. My hospital table looked almost like a cocktail bar.

I was also given a fan by them during another heatwave.

My life as it was then changed drastically by the repeated rounds of chemotherapy that wore me down.

I tried to live as much as I could and was still able to do bits of work, but exhaustion meant I couldn’t manage anywhere near as much as I’d have liked.

Looking back, it was my own way of dealing with the situation.

When people assumed I was pregnant because of my swollen tummy, I made a ‘cancer on board’ badge to wear on the Tube.

The people would look at the object, stare at their shoes, or gaze blankly in the distance.

After a severe stomach infection, I was rushed to emergency surgery in June 2019. Based on the tumor’s growth, doctors believed that I only had two weeks to live.

Kim and I broke down when we spoke on the telephone.

I was referred to St Joseph’s Hospice in East London, essentially to die.

I spent that fortnight saying my goodbyes, before the surgeon told me he’d got it wrong – the growth was a cyst.

It was all I could feel was relief.

Since then, doctors never tell me how long they think I have left – and I don’t want to know.

I’ll continue to have chemo for the rest of my life, however long that might be.

I’m in a wheelchair and have wound down my company as my brain’s slower, but I still do business mentoring.

Marie Curie quick response nurses visit me every night in my home to ease my suffering and to lift my spirits.

It’s devastating to know you are living on borrowed time, but you just get on with it.

When I look at Kim, I think she’s what I’d look like if I was well, but it doesn’t make me sad or resentful.

I want Kim to live her life to the full, and I told her to visit my two favourite places, Zurich and Disneyland Paris, after I’ve gone.

However, she refused to accept and booked us for next month.

Before my diagnosis, I thought I was a tough cookie who didn’t need others, but Kim, Team Tanya and Marie Curie have been essential.

My daily goal is to be content.

I’m as happy as I can be for someone who knows they’re going to die.

Do I really wish that there were a magic cure for my problem? Absolutely.”

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