The Jodi Lee Foundation is partnering with TerryWhite Chemmart to relaunch the Trust Your Gut campaign. The campaign aims to educate Australians about the symptoms of bowel cancer, what they are, and when to act. The campaign also encourages everyone to trust their ‘gut feeling’ when something doesn’t feel right and talk to their GP.
At the core of the Trust Your Gut campaign is a user-friendly online Symptom Checker tool. The Symptom Checker guides the user through a series of questions to respond to, while providing helpful advice and information based on the answers provided.
Overall, it encourages the user to act on symptoms, be healthy and active, explore their family history and do a bowel screening test kit.
At the face of the Trust Your Gut campaign is Kellie Finlayson, Jodi Lee Foundation Ambassador and wife of Port Adelaide key forward Jeremy Finlayson. Kellie was diagnosed with bowel cancer at just 25 years old. Now Kellie is on a mission to raise awareness for the early detection and prevention of bowel cancer, urging everyone to trust their gut and see a GP if something is not right.
“Regardless of your age, if you are experiencing symptoms such as blood in your poo, changes in your bowel habits, unexplained tiredness or weight loss, or stomach pains, go and see your doctor. Trust your gut, it could save your life,” says Kellie.
Three months before Kellie’s diagnosis, she had given birth to their beautiful daughter Sophia and was suffering from severe constipation and terrible abdominal pains. She brushed this off as postpartum symptoms, but when she found blood in her stool, she had a gut feeling something wasn’t right.
Following a colonoscopy, Kellie was told she had stage three bowel cancer. After further tests it became evident that the cancer was tracking up her back and this was sadly upgraded to stage four.
Reflecting on the last few years, Kellie says she wishes she acted on her symptoms sooner.
“As a female, it is so easy to pass off these symptoms as so many other things,” she says.
“I was googling my symptoms and just assumed I had a food intolerance or worst-case scenario irritable bowel syndrome.
“Cancer never even crossed my mind – it was something I didn’t think I would ever have to think about.”
Nick Lee OAM, Founder and Chair of the Jodi Lee Foundation, explained that when he established the Jodi Lee Foundation in 2010, bowel cancer was the ninth deadliest cancer in Australia.
“It is sadly now the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in Australia and more than 15,500 Australians are diagnosed with the disease each year,” says Nick.
“We understand bowel habits can be a taboo subject, but it is so important to understand the symptoms of bowel cancer and act on them for early detection of the disease,” urges Nick.
