What Is Bowel Cancer? Woman Dies 3 Days After Wedding Day

A primary school teacher died of bowel cancer just three days after her wedding day, according to reports Friday. Katie Sutterby, 29, worked at Maltese Road Primary School, in Chelmsford, Essex.

Sutterby was diagnosed with bowel cancer just five weeks before. When her would-be-husband, Will Arnold, learned that her cancer was terminal he decided to get married to her immediately. His earlier plan was to propose to Sutterby later in the year.

Arnold, a product design assistant, from Chelmsford, said: "It was totally unexpected, she was perfectly healthy and only 29. She was very active and enjoyed running. She actually was the one who got me into running and loved going to the gym."

"Towards the end of July, she started getting indigestion-like symptoms and at first we just went to the pharmacy to try and get it under control," he said. "The symptoms continued and the doctor said they would look into it further. They thought it was probably gallstones so they referred her for a scan."

He continued: "We carried on as normal until Katie felt a lot of pain at work one day and was told to go to A&E. There they did an x-ray and kept her in that night having found something on the scan.

"We were told the next day she had bowel cancer and that it had already spread to her liver. We were just in complete shock but Katie stayed amazingly strong and positive," he said. "We thought we would try and do something nice so went away for the weekend. However a few days later Katie had to go back to see the consultant and she was told the cancer was terminal."

He went on saying: "They said she probably only had months or a year at the most. We were, of course, all completely devastated.' But Katie's health went downhill quickly."

"We were so proud of Katie in her last few weeks and seeing her dealing with it so well was inspiring," Arnold said. "On the other hand seeing her health deteriorate so quickly was just so hard to see. I don't think she wanted to accept it. You never think it's going to be cancer, you always just assume it's something minor."

Bowel cancer is a cancer of the colon or rectum, located at the digestive tract's lower end.

The symptoms of bowel (colorectal) cancer can include:

1. bleeding from the back passage (rectum) or blood in the excreta

2. a change in normal bowel habit

3. a lump in the back passage or tummy (abdomen), more commonly on the right side

4. losing weight

5. pain in abdomen or back passage

6. tiredness and breathlessness caused by a lower than normal level of red blood cells.

Sutterby's husband Arnold said that after learning about cancer they started chemotherapy.

"But by the time the chemo started, she had started to have a lot of physical symptoms, like her legs were swollen and she also had jaundice," he said. "She was having to take a lot of medication and strong pain relief. Because she was young, everything happens a lot more quickly so her age worked against her."

"Apparently the chemo would only make things worse so they had to stop the treatment. At that point, the doctor said it's more likely to be weeks rather than months."