With just months to go until his wedding, Ashley Robinson began experiencing stomach issues, but when he took those complaints to his doctor, he was dismissed.

The 35-year-old shockingly lost 26 pounds in just seven days, and when doctors finally listened to his wife’s desperate plea for them to see him, he was told he had stage four bowel cancer that had spread to his liver – and a tumor the size of an orange in his colon.

Ashley Robinson received the devastating news just weeks after his wedding (Kennedy News and Media)

In July last year, Robinson married his partner Jasmin, but the preparation for it was far from easy as he was working 60-hour weeks as a chef to help fund the big do.

Two months prior to that, the Brit began passing ‘quite a lot of blood’ during his bowel movements.

“In June, it started getting worse, and I rang my GP but they said that it wasn’t serious, told me not to worry and that it would pass in a week or so,” Robinson, of Dacorum in Hertfordshire, said.

“I told them that it had already been going on for a month but they just said to leave it another week.”

He assumed it was simply just stress-related and admitted he probably would have taken the ordeal more seriously, had he not had so much going on in his life.

The chef claimed doctors told him his symptoms were likely down to wedding stress (Kennedy News and Media)

Robinson continued: “It got really bad and I passed the most insane amount of blood so I phoned my GP and they told me to go to A&E [the UK version of the ER] straight away.

“When I saw the doctor I mentioned to him that my great nan had died of colon cancer but he said there was no chance and that I was too young.

“I went home with medication and took that for two weeks but nothing changed.”

With his bachelor party on the horizon he opted to push it to the back of his mind and deal with it later, as every health professional he had seen told him that he ‘definitely didn’t have cancer‘, he explained.

“They were saying ‘you’re fine, don’t worry, go and get married’ so I took their word for it,” Robinson said.

After their wedding he wanted to know exactly what was up with him, as he had shed 26 pounds in a short period of time.

“I went back to my GP. I rang them three or four times and they wouldn’t see me. They said there was nothing wrong with me or that it was just piles,” Robinson shared.

His wife Jasmin was left ‘absolutely crushed’ by his diagnosis (Kennedy News and Media)

“My wife went down there while I was at work. She stormed in there and forced them to see me.

“They got me in but my GP said they still didn’t think I had cancer, but they put me forward for a colonoscopy. That’s when they found a tumour the size of an orange in my colon.”

He continued: “I was dreading getting the [biopsy] results back. I was told I had stage 4 colon cancer, which had spread to my liver. It was the worst news possible.

“It’s so hard to put into words the hammer blow, it absolutely crushed my wife. Aside from it happening to her, it was the worst possible news I ever could have had.”

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.

A British man has recalled sitting in a stroke ward after an episode and being told his worsening symptoms were simply in his head.

Brit Matthew Collins has explained that he had a difficult time getting a diagnosis from doctors for months despite experiencing debilitating symptoms.

He said he first went to the doctors with complaints of severe headaches, seizures, temporary blindness and even suffered a stroke.

He said while sitting in a stroke ward, his fears were still being dismissed.

He said: “When I was in the stroke ward, I kept telling them I felt I was getting worse, and they said it was just all in my head. They just said I was anxious.”

However, months later, the then-35-year-old returned to the hospital for a CT scan, and it was revealed that he had an aggressive Glioblastoma brain tumor.

Collins said it was five months between first reporting his symptoms and his diagnosis back in October 2023.

Collins has said he was left frustrated as his symptoms were dismissed (Matthew Collins)

He has said the whole experience was ‘incredibly frustrating’ which sounds like quite the understatement.

While the prognosis for glioblastoma is generally 12 to 18 months, Collins has outlived these predictions thanks to treatments not available on the NHS. These privately funded treatments included immunotherapy, and the fact they are not available on the NHS is something Collins says needs to change.

After his diagnosis, the Welsh man wrote an article for the Wales Online publication as a goodbye letter to his family and friends.

Writing in November 2023, he said: “I knew that before I died two things would happen to me. That number one: I would regret my entire life, and number two: I would want to live my life over again.

Matthew had his symptoms dismissed. (Matthew Collins/The Brain Tumour Charity)

“Today I received the news I’d been told to expect: terminal stage four brain cancer (glioblastoma). I’ve had the tumor removed, and with radiotherapy and treatment, the average life expectancy is around 12 to 18 months.

“There are anomalies, but I’ve been pretty average in everything my entire life. I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to step it up.”

However, years have passed since this article, and in an article published this month in the Independent, he reaffirmed his determination to get any treatments possible that could help extend his life.

As well as spending time with his partner, Claire, and his friends and family, he continues to research therapies and lifestyle changes that can help him on his cancer journey.

A mom has shared how she felt like she was ‘made out to be crazy’ after her cancer symptoms were dismissed by doctors before her diagnosis.

Heather Barry had just given birth to her third child when she began to notice things that made her worry.

Months into welcoming her little baby, she explained that symptoms presented themselves which gave her pause, but nobody would listen.

Because she had not long given birth, her concerns were swept to the side and blamed on her post-partum body, but she knew something was going on.

However, she was determined to get down to the bottom of what was happening to her, and this led to a terrible discovery after months of doctor’s visits: Heather was battling cancer.

She told Today: “In an odd way, it was a relief because I knew I wasn’t crazy, and I felt like I was being made out to be crazy.”

Heather Barry was facing common symptoms that doctors believed were part of her post-partum condition (Getty Stock Image)

The mom added: “I was shocked, absolutely 110%. I will never forget that moment.”

According to Heather, she was advised to eat a high-fiber diet, to walk more and to take stool softeners and laxatives for her persistent constipation and pain troubles.

But that didn’t help.

Eventually, she began to lose weight, totalling to 30 pounds after going to the restroom became so painful that she started eating less to prevent bowel movements.

But after she kept pushing, a colonoscopy finally revealed her stage 3 rectal cancer.

However, this was a shock to Dr. Ted Hong, director of gastrointestinal radiation oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who treated her.

This is because she had absolutely no risk factors for colorectal cancer.

“She’s very, very healthy and very active. Quite thin. She did not have any risk factors that we would have thought of for colorectal cancer,” Hong told the outlet.

“There is still no obvious answer as to why we’re seeing this dramatic increase in young onset colorectal cancer.”

For Heather, her rectal bleeding, pain and constipation woes had been solved, but it was a long road ahead.

It began with ‘bum pressure,’ hemorrhoids and rectal bleeding during her pregnancy, which then stopped after she gave birth in May 2023.

Heather was diagnosed with stage 3 rectal cancer (Getty Stock Image)

While many women have blood in their stool postpartum, this can mask symptoms of a tumor, Hong said.

“The pregnancy may have been a little bit of a distractor in that seeing blood in the stool is so common after pregnancy that it wasn’t sort of realized that there was something atypical about it,” he added.

Heather noted that she was bleeding around 90 percent of the time when she would go to the bathroom, with ‘very little’ stool or ‘none’ coming out.

She said: “It felt like there was something in there, blocking.”

At the time, when she was asking for tests to be conducted, a colorectal surgeon told her that she had hemorrhoids, but told her as per Heather: “You’re fine. Hemorrhoids don’t lead to colorectal cancer, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“If you Google symptoms of colorectal cancer, I had every single thing, but now it’s three doctors who have told me I’m OK,” she said. “I was like, ‘Alright, I guess I’m just crazy.’”

As it turned out, Heather could not have her colonoscopy because there was a 2-inch tumor almost completely obstructing her rectum.

“None of this is normal,” she says. “Nobody should go through this.”

She was then sent for treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital and fitted with a colostomy bag so that she could eat, and pass movements, before her chemotherapy and radiation to her pelvis.

Then, in October 2024, she underwent surgery to remove her rectum and part of her colon.

Since then, however, the healthy parts of her colon have been reconnected, allowing normal bowel movements.

Now she feels ‘stronger than I have ever been in my life’.

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.

One woman who was confident she didn’t have cancer, and was reassured by doctors ahead of her diagnosis that it wasn’t anything too concerning, had a pretty devastating surprise during her pregnancy.

Pregnancy can put a strain on anyone at the best of times, and most are just happy and hoping to deliver a healthy bouncing baby.

There likely isn’t much more frightening than to learn that while pregnant, you have a life-threatening illness as well.

Well, 39-year-old Michelle Kaba from New Jersey had to deal with this reality, but the difference is doctors insisted that there wasn’t anything she should be concerned about.

Speaking about her cancer diagnosis in a candid report for the Stupid Cancer organization, she said: “When I was pregnant, I was diagnosed with pancreatitis. I went through 4 different hospital stays in the span of 5.5 months and was placed on a strict, low-fat diet.

Kaba was initially told that the growth could be removed after she had been given birth but complications prevented this (Stupid Cancer)

“After the birth, the pancreatitis was going to be gone for good and life would go back to ‘normal’.

“They said the growth they found while I was 20 weeks pregnant was benign, and it just needed to be removed after our baby was born. The doctors weren’t concerned, so neither was I.”

However, it soon turned out that the growth was no longer benign; in fact, it had even grown larger. Another biopsy was taken, and it was eventually revealed that Kaba had ampullary cancer.

After multiple tests and second opinions, Kaba and her family got some good news: the cancer hadn’t spread, it was still in stage one, and could be removed via surgery after some chemotherapy.

Speaking about her difficult road to recovery, she added: “My Whipple Procedure was successful.

“With part of my pancreas and small intestine removed along with my whole gallbladder, the tumor was gone and the pathology reports confirmed there was no longer cancer in my body.

“In a 3-week period, I was diagnosed and freed from cancer, all while becoming a new mom. It was a complete whirlwind that I still haven’t fully processed.”

What are the symptoms of ampullary cancer?

According to the Cleveland Clinic, ampullary cancer is a rare and aggressive type of carcinoma that forms in an area of your body called the ampulla of Vater.

This area is a small opening where your bile duct and pancreatic duct join.

Kaba received good news that her cancer was in Stage 1 and could eventually be removed (Stupid Cancer)

Due to its location in the body, there are often fears that the cancer can spread to the liver, pancreas and other digestive system organs.

Regarding symptoms, people with this type of cancer can experience jaundice – yellowing of the skin and eyes.

Other ampullary cancer symptoms include:

• Unexplained weight loss
• Loss of appetite
• Nausea and vomiting
• Abdominal pain
• Back pain
• Itchy skin
• Fever
• Diarrhea
• Anemia
• Pancreatitis
• Rectal bleeding
• Fatty poops (may be greasy and clay-colored)

If you begin to experience these symptoms, it is advised you speak to your healthcare professional and get tested.