Beautiful Alexandra (Zandie) Hearns 14/04/1986 - 19/7/2019.

Our beautiful daughter (33 years of age) lived in Sydney and had symptoms of lethargy, bloating, slight fullness in her rectum, sharp pains on occasion and just not feeling great.

Zandie made several visits to varying GPs and she was diagnosed with IBS with no examinations done.

She was a vegetarian, ate so well, was slim and tried naturopathy. But the signs were missed by several GPs (three over the course of six months), and no blood tests were ordered.

Our beautiful daughter, sister and friend came to live in Victoria for a sea change and I as her Mum insisted, she see my GP, as her symptoms were slight bleeding from the rectum. A colonoscopy was ordered and undertake privately as the wait in the public system was five months.

In February 2018 the specialist who did the colonoscopy found a mass in her colon, which after further PET scans showed had metastasised to her lungs. Five weeks later Zandie had a massive operation to remove her colon and she was given an ileostomy. Her ovaries were also removed just in case.

Seven weeks later the news came that Alexandra had Stage 4 bowel cancer.

Palliative chemo was suggested, our brave amazing child choose not to do chemotherapy as she was given just a year to live. She lived her life with courage and grace.

Zandie travelled until three months before she left this earth.

The oncologist said she hears stories every day of missed diagnoses in young people.

Please be in charge of your own health insisting for further investigation. If one doctor is dismissive seek another one - do not be embarrassed. A simple examination could have perhaps saved our daughter’s life