Minus a bit of bowel but back on Monday!

Those of you who know me know that I don’t personally write our website news – it is just not my thing – it is members of my team that post our updates here. This news however is a personal post from me and it is mainly a massive thankyou to all my family, friends, staff and clients for your overwhelming kindness and messages of goodwill sent to me while I have been off work getting treatment for bowel cancer. Some of you know the details, but for those that don’t –
* I was diagnosed with a 4cm bowel tumour which was a massive shock.
* I underwent a 9″ bowel re-section operation but then had to have a second operation after a failed join-up of the bowel-ends and subsequent infection.
* A 5-day hospital stay actually turned into a 21-day stay.
* I was discharged with strong antibiotics and blood-thinning injections which my wee boy Archie did for me (maybe I have a budding doctor there!)
* I have been given the ALL-CLEAR – there has been no spread at all, including to the lymph nodes, so I will not need to undergo any Chemo or radiotherapy.
I have been back home and recovering slowly and am now delighted to say that I will be back at work full time on Monday 16th September and I am looking forward to that.
I have been completely humbled by the sheer amount of cards and letters sent, by my staff rallying round while I have been off – treating extra patients and, to all those patients for being understanding of all the shuffling around of appointments that had to be done. All this was co-ordinated and held together (as usual!) by the amazing Jen.
Another massive thankyou goes to Mr AJ Clark, my superb surgeon, and the fantastic team of nurses at Spire Murrayfield Hospital for their care and keeping my spirits up.
And, to all of you – let me tell you the only symptoms I had were some blood on the loo paper when I had a poo and an increase in the urge to go to the loo. I had no pain or other symptoms.
To anyone reading this – if you see any blood in your poo – then don’t ignore it, guys in particular, might be shy or embarrassed about it – don’t be – go and see your Doctor. It may be nothing or, like me, you may catch bowel cancer early enough to do something about it! I am only 48 – screening does not take place until you are 50 in Scotland and I will be joining the campaign to lower this starting age.
But for now I am really looking forward to being back at work full time, seeing my clients, forcing everyone to listen to my bad jokes again, cycling and golfing. Life is a gift – so if you are worried about any symptoms you have go and get checked. See you all soon! Stuart Barton