60: Stoma4Life with Raphaela Reeb - Episode 6060: Stoma4Life with Raphaela Reeb - Episode 60
UK Health Radio Podcast
Bowel cancer survivor Adam Cook shares how subtle bleeding led to a shock diagnosis, urgent surgery and life with a permanent stoma. His conversation with Raphaela focuses on early detection, body image, support, and choosing to live fully after cancer.
33:27•14 Apr 2026
“It Gave Me My Life Back”: Adam Cook on Bowel Cancer and Living Fully With a Stoma
Episode Overview
- Subtle signs like intermittent rectal bleeding should never be ignored, even in fit, younger adults.
- Blood tests and FIT tests can be clear, so pushing for further checks such as colonoscopy can be vital.
- A permanent stoma can offer better quality of life than incontinence, and many people return to all their usual activities.
- Talking openly with partners, family and peers helps with body image worries and emotional recovery.
- Screening kits and early action give the best chance of avoiding advanced disease and more intensive treatment.
“It hasn't stopped my life, it's given my life back to live to the full.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction? This bowel cancer awareness special from Stoma4Life on UK Health Radio follows Adam Cook, just 10 months on from his diagnosis, as he talks with host Raphaela about symptoms, shock, surgery and life with a permanent stoma. A year before speaking, Adam says he was at "the pinnacle" of his life – fit, busy and happy – when a bit of intermittent rectal bleeding appeared.
Like many men, he brushed it off, until his wife and even his reflexologist kept pressing him to get checked. Blood tests and a FIT test came back fine, and even the colonoscopist reassured him it was "98%" likely to be something minor – until, a few centimetres in, he heard: "We've got bowel cancer, Adam." From there, everything moved fast: scans, surgery, and waking up with a stoma on his left side, meaning it was permanent.
Adam is blunt about the fear, the frantic Googling, and the horrible two‑week wait to find out if it had spread. Yet the turning point came when his consultant said, "We can fix this... you will have a full life to live cancer‑free." Adam now talks candidly about body image, worries about his marriage, and the relief of finding a pouching system that works for him.
He jokes about sunbathing in Ibiza with his black bag on show and describes helping another man by simply taking his own shirt off by the pool.
For anyone facing bowel cancer, or supporting someone with a stoma, his message is clear: early checks save lives, shame has no place in this fight, and life can still be "lived to the absolute full." If bowel symptoms, screening kits or stoma life have been on your mind, could this honest conversation be the nudge you need to take action?
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