THE sun has come out for the beginning of April, which marks the official beginning of spring and the start of bowel cancer awareness month.

There seem to be so many days, weeks and months we are asked to be aware of, it’s hard to take notice of any of them.

However, this is an important one so please read on because it could save your life or the life of someone you love.

Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in the UK and yet doesn’t need to be; detected at stage 1 (where a tumour is contained and not spread), the survival rates are exceedingly good at 97 percent.

To be caught at this early stage, you need to know the symptoms, the main ones being a change in toilet habits for more than two weeks, blood in the toilet, a lump in your stomach area, unexplained tiredness and unexplained weight loss.

Unfortunately, many cases at stage 1 are not picked up for a number of reasons.

There is an endoscopy crisis in the NHS with not enough staff to carry out critical investigations.

Many young people are overlooked and are diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome without further checks as they are thought too young to have bowel cancer, often seen as an ‘old person’s’ disease.

You are never too young to get cancer; an oncologist in London told Greg that by the growth of the disease in his body over time, he suspected he had had cancer for ten years.

Most heart breaking of all, because of the personal nature, people are too embarrassed to tell a medical professional about symptoms or have an internal inspection.

These problems lead to people being diagnosed in A&E with intense symptoms and an advanced disease that can’t be cured.

We need to get better at being aware of our bodies, when things change and talking about what they do.

Doctors have heard and seen it all before, there is nothing to be embarrassed about.

Not being able to talk about our bodily functions for fear of being embarrassed is literally killing people; 42,000 people will be diagnosed with bowel cancer every year in the UK and sadly, 16,000 a year will die from it.

Know your body, get yourself checked out and don’t take no for an answer if you feel things aren’t right – don’t die of embarrassment.

* Stacey Heale has left her career as a fashion lecturer to focus on her two lively little girls and husband, Delays frontman Greg Gilbert, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2016. She launched the viral campaign Give4Greg to raise funds for lifesaving treatment: gofundme.com/give4greg. You can read more at her blog, www.beneaththeweather.com