Natasha O’Byrne, a Cork mum of two, was diagnosed with bowel cancer last November. The 25-year-old is still undergoing chemotherapy.
She began to feel unwell on July 19, 2024. “I know the date exactly because the All-Ireland final was a couple of days later, and I couldn’t go. I had gotten pains in my chest; I thought I was having a heart attack.
“My GP put it down to gallstones and referred me for a colonoscopy. I was waiting and waiting for the appointment to come, and by October, the pains had gotten so bad I ended up having to call an ambulance.”
Once O’Byrne was admitted to hospital, a doctor diagnosed her with pancreatitis. Over the next few days, she underwent a number of tests: An ultrasound, an MRCP, an MRI of the pancreas, and a CT scan.
During the tests, her doctor noticed some enlarged lymph nodes in her abdomen and requested a biopsy to check for lymphoma. He also saw some polyps in her bowel.
“He said just to be on the safe side, he wanted to do the two biopsies. On the 11th of the 11th, which I would consider a lucky number, I wasn’t so fortunate,” she says. “The results of the biopsies showed it was not lymphoma. It was actually bowel cancer.”
It is unusual for younger people to be diagnosed with bowel cancer, explains Amy Nolan, director of clinical affairs at the Irish Cancer Society (ICS). The HSE currently runs a bowel cancer screening programme for people aged between 59 and 70.
Natasha O’Byrne with her four year old son Max. The mother of two is currently undergoing treatment for bowel cancer and has launched a fundraiser in aid of the Irish Cancer Society. Picture: Chani Anderson.
It’s a simple test that Nolan says could be the key to identifying bowel cancer at an early stage, which significantly improves a person’s outcome.
“People get the test in the post, they just have to take a little bit of their poo and add it to the vial, send it back, and that’s the test,” says Nolan. “If anything is worrying in that sample, they will be contacted.”
According to the ICS, bowel cancer is the second most common cancer among men and the third most common among women, with around 2,500 new cases in Ireland each year.
Even though it’s less common for younger people to be diagnosed with bowel cancer — about one in 10 diagnoses are in people under 50 — it’s occurring more frequently now, says Nolan.
To that end, the charity has recently launched a collaboration with Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute to provide a young-onset programme for people with gastrointestinal cancers. The pilot programme — a first in Europe — offers wraparound supports, including sexual health and fertility; how to live beyond your cancer diagnosis; and a dedicated medical social worker who helps people deal with the practicalities of a cancer diagnosis, such as managing at home with young families.
O’Byrne is the third generation in her family to be diagnosed with cancer: Her grandmother had breast cancer, and her mother had lung cancer.
The realisation that she too had the disease was a traumatic experience: “That was the first day I met my oncologist, and he’s been amazing ever since. He didn’t go into too much detail that first day, because it was just so traumatic getting that information. He did say I needed to begin chemotherapy as soon as possible so that they could attack the cancer as quickly as they could.”
Natasha O’Byrne: “It’s OK to sit and deal with the negative, too, but in small doses. I learned in counselling to make sure I’m not diverting my attention away from the negative completely, but equally, you’re dealing with it in a healthy manner.” Picture: Chani Anderson.
With time of the essence, she did not opt to freeze her eggs, “which would typically be offered to people of my age”.
Luckily for O’Byrne, she already had two children: Emilija, aged six, and Max, aged five: “I had to wait a month for chemo, but it would have been two months if I were to freeze my eggs.
“I wanted to get the chemo started, because in two months, you don’t know how much it would progress. So my thought was I already have a family, and looking at my kids, they’re all I ever wanted.”
She started chemotherapy on December 6, 2024. Since then, she’s been having chemotherapy every second Friday: “Thankfully, my tumour has now shrunk significantly according to my latest scan, but I’m on continuous chemo for now and we’ll see what the next couple of scans bring.”
She says she has a lot more energy than she had in the months before her diagnosis, when she says she was “a shell of myself”.
The diagnosis has understandably been difficult to come to terms with, but O’Byrne is determined to remain open-hearted: “For myself, my own mental health, my kids, I focus more on the positives. It doesn’t mean blocking out the negative, though.
“It’s OK to sit and deal with the negative, too, but in small doses. I learned in counselling to make sure I’m not diverting my attention away from the negative completely, but equally, you’re dealing with it in a healthy manner.”
She is currently working on a fundraiser for the ICS. She approached country singer Nathan Carter to see if he’d be available to perform a headline show at Cork City Hall on July 30.
“He was actually going to be in Munster at that time, and was delighted to be part of it.
“Between my grandmother and my mom, the ICS have been a part of our family since the early 2000s, so we’re just trying to raise as much money for them as possible.
“It will go toward clinical trials, night nurses for palliative care, and volunteers who transport chemotherapy patients to and from treatment. We want as many people to survive cancer as possible.”
