Life is unpredictable. We are all well aware that even if today all goes well, tomorrow might bring something completely different. The uncertainty of life is what makes it traumatizing but at the same time, wonderful.
For this Australian mother, her life was pleasant. She was expecting her third child with her loving husband. On Christmas Eve, her life was about to be turned around as she received the worst information she could ever get.
The life of Nicole and her husband was going pretty smooth. With their two kids, five-year-old Aaylah and budding teenager Alkere, the family was very close. Mommy Nicole was expecting and pregnant with a baby they all agreed to name Alavis.
In 2015, Nicole was experiencing some problems regarding her health, feeling a little unwell. She was usually an outgoing person, full of energy but had recently been losing weight feeling a little down. She was also showing symptoms that were worth worrying and she began contracting some intense abdominal pain…
It felt quite redundant for her to be losing weight as she was a naturally slender woman. Moreover, Nicole was also feeling bloated, constipated, facing abdominal pain, and even began to notice some blood in her stool. After carefully looking into all these symptoms she was experiencing herself, Nicole made a decision to visit a doctor for professional advice.
She went to see her gastroenterologist to find out what was going on. When results from her investigation came out, they realized she had an irritable bowel syndrome, a worrying and often painful intestinal disorder, which however was treatable. She then underwent multiple therapies to tackle her illness.
32-year-old Nicole Yarran carefully listened and believed all the words her doctors were feeding her. She even managed to get another doctor at the GI practice to weigh in. She was convinced that Nicole was affected by celiac, a gluten allergy. Even after all of this, her doctors did not make of use of any scopes, ultrasounds or other procedures to find her cause.
After some time, Nicole was expecting. But she was still sick and the IBS treatments and gluten avoidance were doing nothing to stop her weight loss or worrying BMs. Even after her routine ultrasound of the baby, the doctors uncovered something that the GI docs had failed to detect. It was bad.
The doctors that were giving Nicole an ultrasound found something in her abdomen. The soon to be mother-of-three had eight golf ball-sized tumors on her liver. The cancer she was containing in her bowel had spread to her liver and it seemed clear that it was not going away that easy.
On Christmas Eve, Nicole and her husband decided to go get a follow-up scan to clarify all doubts. Then she received a diagnosis they had both feared, that Nicole had metastatic colorectal cancer. Her treatment was supposed to start after three days and they hoped it was not too late.
Kathy Narrier, Nicole’s mother, became extremely furious at the doctor who gave her the wrongful diagnosis. “If the doctor had only listened to her symptoms and requested a stool sample or full blood count, at least they would have found it in 2014 because it was the pregnancy that aspirated cancer, it literally fed the tumors,” she said in an interview.
With everything going downhill, Nicole still kept a positive spirit. She refused to be rotted by her disease, trying her level-best to keep her head up. Nicole did not want to witness her family's pity tears, keeping her sickness a secret from some. It wasn’t until she began to develop fluid in her abdomen that she finally came to terms with the fact that she was on borrowed time…
It was a devastating blow for Nicole to realize that she would not be able to be there to see her baby grow up. “Nicole realised she wouldn’t see Aaylah, who’s five, and Alavis who is 18 months old, attend their first day of school, or Alkere’s first day of secondary school, nor see any of them graduate, or enter into their careers or further studies,” said her mother, through tears.
An even sadder truth was that Nicole would never experience meeting her grandchildren. She’d never hear them call her Nanna, and would miss all their birthdays. It was tough but she resisted playing the victim. It was now a mission for poor Nicole to make the most of her limited time, using it to shower her kids with love as time was running out.
During the whole ordeal, Nicole’s mother grew more and more irate at her GI doctor’s initial diagnosis. After meeting the doctor, they had responded by telling her that she was “too young” for bowel cancer. They did no stool test, no colonoscopy, no endoscopy, nothing. All the doctors did was give Nicole treatment to cure IBM she never had.
In September of 2017, after months of turmoil, Nicole Yarran died of liver and bowel cancer surrounded by her family. She made her mother promise one thing before she went. Her request was one that her mother would make her life’s goal from that point forward…
At just 34 years old Nicole passed on, but her last wish for her family to help raise awareness about cancer in young people. It was to make sure nobody goes through her experience. Kathy Narrier is on a mission to help other young people better understand the risk of liver and bowel cancer.
Kathy had become very vocal on telling people to believe in their own gut while being very respectful and attentive to the doctors. She believes that it is that initial gut instinct and the idea of being better safe than sorry that will mean the difference between life and death. She advised people to be fighters.
“Fight to continually ask for further tests,” says Kathy Narrier, “Ask for a second opinion because if you don’t it could literally cost you your life, and no family needs to suffer the heartache of losing a young member of their family.”
Kathy is also spreading the story of her darling daughter so that men and women learn from their mistakes, to not repeat it. It’s truly a noble undertaking and is an important service she is offering to the youth of today, mainly because they are more prone to contracting colon cancer than ever before.
The American Cancer Society in their research found that more and more young and middle-aged adults in the United States are being diagnosed with bowel cancer. There is a high risk and concern that colorectal cancer for millennials has escalated back to the level of those born in the late 1800s. Practitioners also need to be very mindful in diagnosing diseases like IBS or Celiac, a common confusion that eventually got Nicole Yarran killed.
The youth must be well aware of the symptoms in the first place. Things like: bowel habit changes including diarrhea, constipation, or narrowing of the stool, a feeling that you need to have a bowel movement that is not relieved by doing so, rectal bleeding, unintended weight loss, cramping and persistent abdominal pain, bloody stools, or weakness must all be taken into careful consideration.