Monica Ackermann had been unable to go to the bathroom for two days when she began to feel unbearable abdominal pain.
The 31-year-old woman was in such agony she could barely walk down the stairs in her home to walk her dog.
A concerned friend rushed the young Australian woman (now living in Split, Croatia) to hospital, but nothing could have prepared her for what happened next.
Until now, doctors had not taken her concerns seriously, but this time they ordered urgent tests.
SoThe next thing Monica knew, a surgeon had told her she had a huge tumor blocking 90 percent of her colon.
As she was wheeled into the pre-op area for emergency surgery in January 2024, Monica arranged for a friend to feed her dog who was waiting for her at home.
“At that point I still thought I would get home to walk him in the morning,” she told FEMAIL.
‘I didn’t even call my parents. They were on a cruise. So I called my sister and told her I was going to have surgery and I would talk to her in the morning.’
Monica Ackermann was just 31 years old when she was diagnosed with colon cancer.
An hour and a half later he realized that things might be a little more serious than he thought.
“By 10pm there were already 25 nurses and doctors in the ward. They told me they didn’t see this kind of thing in young people,” said Monica, a director of the real estate and construction sector.
‘This kind of thing’ turned out to be stage four bowel cancer.
And while it is still considered “rare” and “shocking” for young, healthy adults to develop bowel cancer, it is becoming much more common.
Experts say there has been a 50 percent increase in cases among people aged between 20 and 40 in just 30 years.
JAMA Surgery data shows that colon cancer is expected to increase by 90 percent in people ages 20 to 34 by 2030.
While acknowledging there are likely “several” contributing factors, leading experts have suggested a common childhood infection could be partly responsible for the rise in young cases of the disease, known as colon cancer in the United States.
In an interview with The Health Foundation, Dr Charles Swanton, clinical director at Cancer Research UK, spoke of “emerging data” showing that a specific type of E. coli bacteria contracted in childhood could “contribute to at least some of the cancer-initiating processes”.
Alarming evidence of this comes from fellow cancer specialist Dr Kimmie Ng, an American specialist in early-onset colorectal cancer, who points out that many of her young cases are actually in children.
The Australian woman was diagnosed in Split, Croatia, where she had lived for two years previously.
Data from JAMA Surgery showed that colon cancer is expected to increase by 90 percent in people between the ages of 20 and 34.
Monica has befriended many young women who have been diagnosed with the disease, reflecting the shocking data.
The young Australian woke up from surgery in agony and had a stoma, an opening in the abdomen to allow bowel movements.
“They had stapled me back together with huge staples. I was told I would have to make some tough decisions in the coming weeks,” she recalled.
After her first operation, doctors told Monica she had three months to start chemotherapy, so her first step was to freeze her eggs. She dreams of starting a family one day.
Originally from Sydney, Monica had settled in Croatia two years earlier after falling in love with the lifestyle during a visit when she was living in the UK.
Her friends and family wanted her to move home after the devastating diagnosis, but she remains incredibly optimistic.
“I love my life here. I live quietly in a beautiful apartment by the beach and have a view of the beach,” she said.
“I don’t think I’ll die from this. I do everything the doctors tell me to do.”
She jokes that she needs to outlive her dog at least, since “no one will love him like she does.”
She said she did not feel sick before her diagnosis, but had gone to the doctor for recurring stabbing pains in her stomach over the previous six months.
In August 2024, the optimistic woman, now 32, underwent her second major surgery: a lymphectomy and to reverse her stoma.
In the future, she plans to fight cancer with all her might.
“My time is not up. I will do everything I can now to improve so that in two years my time will not be up,” he said.
Monica said that while people treat cancer patients like they are very sick, she doesn’t feel that way most of the time.
She was “healthier” than she had ever been in the years leading up to her diagnosis and when she’s not actively doing chemotherapy she still feels strong.
“I’m active and healthy, I walk the dog and take about 15,000 steps every day,” she said.
Monica admitted she was still in shock over her diagnosis months after her first surgery.
He felt healthy and suffered from some fatigue, but assumed it was due to his busy lifestyle.
Monica says she needs to survive her dog, a rescue dog she got when she moved to Croatia
In the six months prior to the emergency visit to the hospital, she had been to see the doctor for stomach pain four times.
But they had never suspected that they had cancer.
“I figured because I’d been eating well maybe I had too much fiber or something,” she said.
“He disappeared after a couple of days.”
The next time she saw a gynecologist who did some tests, everything came back normal.
In the previous months he was so fit that he took part in a boxing match.
Bowel cancer can cause blood in the stool, a change in bowel habits and a lump in the bowel that can cause blockages. Some people also experience weight loss as a result of these symptoms.
She hopes to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer so that they can find answers faster than she did.
“I also don’t want to blame the Croatian health system, as I have received many messages from people around the world who have experienced something similar,” he said.
She wants doctors to consider performing colonoscopies on young women to rule out any cancer-like disease before it reaches an emergency stage.
People under 50 with stage four colorectal cancer have a five-year survival rate of 20 percent. Monica was initially given two years, but was immediately ruled out.
Monica’s post-operative scans show she is now cancer-free.
Warning signs of bowel cancer include bleeding, changes in bowel habits, weight loss, tiredness, pain or lumps, and bowel blockage.