Stacksteads woman tells of cancer fight (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Stacksteads woman tells of cancer fight

5:20pm Sunday 7th March 2010 in

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A WOMAN who survived an operation to remove a tum-our the size of a football said she had found a new zest for life.

Angela English, 33, was diag-nosed with bowel cancer last May after 16 months of stomach pains.

Angela, of Hammond Avenue, Stacksteads, was attending the gym five times a week, but still could not shift a hard lump on her abdomen.

After a medical examination, Angela was told she had a large tumour which covered three major organs.

She said: “The doctors told me the football-sized tumour was wrapped around my kidney, liver and spleen and that it was cancer.

“I felt so angry because I was born with a hole in my heart, I had open heart surgery when I was seven years old, and now this. I was asking ‘what had I done to anybody to deserve this?’.

“I soon realised that I needed to stay positive because I had sur-vived so much in my life and now I had to control the cancer, and not let it control me.”

Angela was taken into the Royal Blackburn Hospital and under-went six months’ chemotherapy after a successful operation.

Last week she was given the all-clear. She said: “I feel like I have won the lottery without the cash to show for it.

“If it was not for Royal Black-burn Hospital, I would not be here now, I am so thankful for the staff there.

“Also, I never realised how many friends I had, but the messages I have received from loved ones has been amazing and the support I have had from my dad and family has been incredible.”

Angela will have regular tests for cancer at the hospital for the next few years.

Bowel cancer currently affects 35,600 people every year and kills 50 people every day.