Fit and healthy 26-year-old goes to the doctor with a sore rib before learning she has advanced bowel cancer that is 'probably incurable'
- Tegan Hollier, 26, from Auckland, was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer
- Doctors initially thought the softball coach simply had a kidney infection
- She will have surgery to remove the tumour, as well as half her large intestine
A softball coach was diagnosed with 'probably incurable' bowel cancer after going to the doctor for rib pain.
Tegan Hollier, from Massey in West Auckland, visited her GP with doctors initially believing the 26-year-old had a kidney infection.
But after Ms Hollier's abdomen pain worsened and she found blood in her stool, she was eventually diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer.
Tegan Hollier, from Massey in West Auckland, visited her GP with rib pain, with doctors initially thinking the 26-year-old had a kidney infection
During a gastroscopy in mid-January, Ms Hollier said she was 'easily' able to spot the tumour growing inside her body.
Doctors told her the cancer was 'teetering' on being incurable.
The keen softball player, and coach of the Waitākere Bears, said the diagnosis came as a complete shock.
'I hadn't noticed anything different,' she told Stuff NZ.
On Friday, the stepmother will have surgery to remove the aggressive tumour, as well as half her large intestine and a quarter of her small intestine.
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Ms Hollier will then undergo three months of chemotherapy.
She was also diagnosed with Lynch Syndrome, a condition putting those with it at a higher risk of getting cancer.
Despite the dire diagnoses, Ms Hollier is keeping a positive outlook for her future.
'I have cancer but I'm not sick. I can still do my day-to-day things. It's like a game between my mind and my body,' she said.
The keen softball player, and coach of the Waitākere Bears, said the diagnosis came as a complete shock to her
'We don't know how my surgeries and chemo are going to affect me, but I'll be there as much as I can.'
Bowel cancer is the second most common cancer in both men and women in Australia.
In 2016, bowel cancer killed 5,375 Australians; the second highest number of cancer deaths in the country.
