Lisa is talking about 'icky' things so others don't go through what she did

Her father and his father had both had haemorrhoids so she assumed it was the same.

"You know how you go to the doctor and they say 'oh is there anything else I can do for you today?' and you say 'oh, no, no, no, I'm fine'? After 18 months of that... I said to the nurse 'well, I've got a little bit of bleeding but I think it's probably haemorrhoids'," Ms Duce said.

With four weeks she was at the Chris O'Brien Lifehouse getting radiation and chemotherapy for stage three bowel cancer.

June is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. It's Australia's deadliest cancer for people aged between 25 and 44-years-old.

Bowel Cancer Australia says the disease kills 103 Australians every week. But it's one of the most treatable types of cancer when detected early.

Six million Australians aged between 50 and 74-years-old were invited to participate in the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program in 2022. However, only 40 per cent took part.

It was a scary statistic, Ms Duce said, especially knowing how easy the testing is.

In the Dubbo local government area the statistics are even worse. Screening rates are 10 per cent lower than the Australia average.

"People in our area, a lot of them are farmers. They raise animals, they breed animals, they muck out stalls. We help calves being born and sheep being born. We're used to having our arms up to the elbow in it and yet everybody is so scared about putting a glove on and poking a little stick into a bit of poo," Ms Duce said.

"If it was one of our animals we would do it without hesitation."

Ms Duce spent 12 weeks getting radiation and taking chemotherapy tablets. It shrunk her tumour down to "scar tissue size".

But despite that, 12 weeks later she had surgery to remove her rectum, anus and 20 centimetres of her colon. She also had an ileostomy, which has a bag to collect waste.

"With bowel cancer there's such a huge recurrence of it they tend to take more than what you think they would...So even though it was probably pea size it has the ability just to continue growing and to spread," Ms Duce said.

During the 18 months she ignored her symptoms, Ms Duce didn't let the word 'cancer' enter her mind. Evern after the colonoscopy and CT scan she was ignorant about what was happening.

It wasn't until two weeks after the colonoscopy that she realised how serious it was.

"Hubby and I were on the way [to Dubbo] and my GP rang. I said I was on the way to see the specialist... and she said 'okay, just know I'm here for you and whatever happens, it'll all be okay'," Ms Duce said.

"That's when my mind started ticking going 'oh, this might be a little more than what I think'."

They drove from Mendooran to Dubbo in silence.

But both of her parents had already had cancer and Ms Duce had brought up to be strong, so she never let herself think the worst.

"Mum and Dad got through their cancers and I never had an inkling or a belief that I wouldn't get through it okay. It was just something I had to deal with and I did," she said.

"We come from a strong line of women and it's just the way we do things."

Ms Duce's doctor later told her she had likely had the tumour for six or seven years. She still kicks herself for not listening to her body and mentioning something to the doctor earlier.

In 2022, 5.7 per cent of people who took the test had a positive result. It meant blood was detected in their sample and further investigation was required, in the form of a colonoscopy.

However even then only 13.5 per cent had a colonoscopy within the recommended 30 days.

Three years after her diagnosis, Ms Duce said she was finally starting to feel like herself.

She's open about her diagnosis and experience because she wants to see change.

"There needs to be a lot more education about getting the screening test done. There shouldn't be a stigma in talking about it. No cancer is a good cancer but other cancers get better names because people like to talk about them and support them. We need education. We need it to not be so icky," Ms Duce said.

"It's scary that people have this fixation that they couldn't do it because it's yucky. It needs to change. Because if we don't there's going to be more people like me walking around with a stoma for life."