Hi - I have already posted about my bowel cancer scare, and am now waiting to have my colonoscopy in 3 days’ time. As I suffer with anxiety, overthinking, etc - I feel that I am going mad. I keep thinking back to all the symptoms over the past year or so that I attributed to my long-standing IBS, and worrying that they were actually warning signs of bowel cancer (narrow stools, incomplete evacuation). I was reassured when my regular bowel screening check came back normal. But my FIT test showed “large amounts” of occult blood. I keep thinking about someone I know who had no symptoms until she went to A&E with suspected appendicitis - turned out it was a malignant bowel tumour, which had already metastasised to her liver. She died within a year. 

How do I deal with this overwhelming anxiety? I know that no one can tell me what the colonoscopy will find, but I don’t know how to stop myself feeling sure that I too will be dead within a year. I’m 72, so that doesn’t seem far-fetched. 

My GP told me that with my FIT numbers (265) the chances of it being bowel cancer go up to 20%. My husband keeps pointing out that that means an 80% chance that it’s not cancer. But I can only seem to fixate on the worst-case scenario. 

I know there are lots of people here who have gone through similar experiences. How did you get through? I know that after the colonoscopy I’ll have to wait for biopsy results on whatever they find. I can’t imagine another week or two of this overwhelming anxiety.