Just wanted to write something on here as I've been looking at this forum pretty frequently for the last 9 or so months so thought it only fair to share my experience.

For the past 9 months or so I have had worrying symptoms which I became increasingly convinced could only really be explained as bowel cancer. These were: blood with my poo that was, at different times, a mixture of on the paper, coating the stool, and colouring the bowl; urgency (especially in the morning); feeling like I needed to go and then either not being able to or pooing blood and mucus only; looser but also sometimes pellet-like stools; terrible smelling gas(!); some mild discomfort after eating; gurgling stomach. There may have been more but these are the main ones I remember.

I eventually went to the gp who said most likely IBS with internal haemorrhoids. They advised I take some probiotics, avoid alcohol and caffeine, and prescribed some suppositories. They also booked me in for blood tests and stool samples. Blood tests were ok but my FIT test as 58 and faecal calprotectin significantly raised at 1595! I was referrred to gastroenterology for investigation but due to COVID the wait felt insanely long, being told in June I'd hear in 2 weeks only to be contacted a couple weeks ago for colonoscopy yesterday. 
 

Needless to say I've been pretty anxious during this time and did a lot of googling my symptoms and reading stories of people diagnosed with bowel cancer, IBD, etc. I became convinced that it was cancer as my symptoms didn't seem bad enough to suggest IBD, which seemed to require really bad diarrhoea, whereas I knew bowel cancer could only have very mild symptoms. 

Anyway, had my colonoscopy last night and awaiting biopsy results, but they diagnosed  me as having proctitis, a form a ulcerative colitis. Obviously something I'd rather not have but better than what I was expecting, and at least now I know and can be treated.

Also wanted to add for anyone concerned about colonoscopy, I found the whole thing a breeze. So many stories of people hating the prep, but to me tasted fine, kinda like soluble vitamin, and the experience was kinda like having a stomach bug but without feeling ill. The procedure itself was slightly uncomfortable but basically like having wind and/or hunger pains. I was sedated even though wasn't really aware of any effect. It was weird watching it and talking to them while they were doing it (who knew your appendix is there?!) The worst bit of the whole thing was the hunger!

Very long post so I'm sorry about that, but just thought so many posts on here with symptoms and anxiety but no diagnosis, so thought I'd do my bit to counteract that. Take home is, get it checked but don't waste your time in panic and self-diagnosis.