'I was packed for holiday when the doctor wanted to "check something". Her instinct saved my life.'

If you want to support independent women's media, become a Mamamia subscriber. Get an all-access pass to everything we make, including exclusive podcasts, articles, videos and our exercise app, MOVE.

"Well," she started, looking at the scan, "we don't see anything obvious, but there is some thickening in the wall of your bowel."

She looked at me with a thoughtful expression and said, "I'd like to do a colonoscopy just to be sure."

I was supposed to be going on holiday the following week with my partner at the time, and I remember feeling a little unsettled by her suggestion. But without hesitation, she picked up the phone and called a colleague of hers, arranging for me to get in for an appointment and a colonoscopy, which was scheduled for Friday the same week.

I had no idea what lay ahead, but I knew something wasn't right.

Friday came around and I went off to the hospital for the colonoscopy. All packed up ready for the holiday leaving the next morning, I went in thinking it would be a routine colonoscopy, and maybe they would find something. I was not thinking they would find anything major.

Watch: Carly Dober on post diagnosis grief. Post continues after video.

Anyway, I came out into recovery and woke up, and the surgeon was sitting on the bed beside me. He said to me, "Nicole, you're not going anywhere. We're admitting you. You have bowel cancer".

The frightening thing about all of this was that I had very little to go on in terms of symptoms. There was no real, consistent pain to report, just a bit of niggling discomfort and the sharp pain that day in the office. Physically, everything else seemed to be functioning relatively normally.

I had noticed, though, that I had lost a little weight and wasn't as hungry as I usually was. My stomach had been upset a few times, and I thought maybe I had an allergy to dairy or something else that was causing it. These were really the only signs I had, along with feeling super tired, more tired than usual. But I brushed it off as just being busy, and let's face it, I was burning that candle at both ends, managing everything in my life.

Image: Supplied.

So, it began. I was admitted to the ward at the hospital. The doctors explained to me that they needed to immediately send me into surgery and create a stoma in my stomach because I was just a few days away from being completely blocked, unable to go to the toilet at all. I would have been an emergency case had I not come in for the colonoscopy when I did, and it would have been far worse.

A stoma is a small opening created on the outside of your body, usually in your abdomen, to help with waste removal when part of your digestive system isn't working properly. It allows waste (like stool or urine) to exit your body into a special bag or pouch attached to the stoma. The stoma is often the result of surgery, and it can be temporary or permanent, depending on the medical condition being treated. It's typically used when the colon or bladder can no longer function as usual.

It was a shock to hear, and my mind was spinning. The surgery was scheduled right away, and they performed another colonoscopy during the process. That's when they found something even more alarming; another mass of cancer at the top of my bowel.

Image: Supplied.

I now had two cancers growing inside me, one at the bottom of my bowel and one at the top. The surgeon told me that my bowel was riddled with polyps, and we had a serious conversation about what to do next. He laid out my options:

Option A: he could cut out the cancer and reconnect my bowel, and I could go home.

But the reality was that, given the extent of the cancer, he would most likely see me again in the next four to five years.

Option B: he could remove my entire large bowel, and I could live with my small bowel in operation.

The prognosis wasn't great either way. He told me I was very lucky to have come in when I did, as most of the cases he sees now have far more severe symptoms, and the cancer has often spread to the liver and lungs. In my case, however, the cancer was still completely contained within my bowel. The relief of hearing that was momentary, as I tried to process the fact that I had cancer in two parts of my body, but the weight of it all was still very heavy.

The surgeon's words stayed with me: "You're lucky you came in when you did."

But in that moment, I didn't feel lucky at all.

Feature Image: Instagram / nicoletrimboliwellness.

This is an extract from What A Sh!t Show by Nicole Trimboli. What A Sh!t Show takes you on a brave and confronting journey through the chaos of burnout and the brutal reality of surviving two different cancers years apart. Nicole's story shatters the myth that success demands self-sacrifice, revealing a harsh truth: neglecting one's own well-being comes at a devastating cost.