Blue Davies, a two-time cancer survivor, is a big advocate for services on offer through the Whanganui DHB such as the bowel screening programme. Photo / Supplied
Blue Davies, a two-time cancer survivor, is a big advocate for services on offer through the Whanganui DHB such as the bowel screening programme. Photo / Supplied
New Zealand Army veteran Thomas "Blue" Davies survived deployment in Bosnia and the Middle East and is now a proud survivor of bowel cancer.
Davies was relaxing in his Whanganui home back in January 2011 when a public health message came on the TV that listed the symptoms of bowel cancer and he realised he had at least four of them.
"That was the beginning of quite a journey," he said.
He said he had been getting a lot of pain "back there" and when he went to the toilet he was in a lot of pain and he noticed there had been a change in his bowel motions.
He then went and saw his doctor who referred him to Whanganui Hospital to have a colonoscopy.
"When the doctor first told me I had cancer, I didn't know what to say, I just walked out. I sat in the car in the carpark with my wife Louise and I just burst into tears, I was only 50 years old."
His wife then went straight back in and started asking questions and taking notes.
"I had kids and a wife; I had to do right by my family," he said.
"What was the alternative, terminal; dead in nine months."
Two months after diagnosis he had a week's radiation therapy in Palmerston North and then a seven-hour operation in Whanganui to remove the bowel completely.
"If you get diagnosed early, they can cut out the cancer. I was unlucky in that it was in a place where they couldn't just cut it out, so they had to take out my whole lower bowel. But I'm happy – I'm alive."
At 61, Davies keeps himself fit by playing "a mean game of golf" and although he does not have a bowel he said he loves life and still enjoys a good party.
He has continued to follow his career in the army and in Corrections as well as running a military academy at City College and now works as a wool bale tester for Elco Direct.
But after his experience with cancer he is keen to spread the message about being proactive and taking advantage of services like the National Bowel Screening Programme that provides test kits for men and women aged 60 to 74 years to take a sample at home.
"Yes, men don't like talking about this kind of thing; don't like facing up to it, but I say to them, go and talk to your doctor about it, take your mana off at the door and pick it up on the way out".
He reminds his workmates to go and get checked and said some of them were now doing that regularly.
Whanganui DHB made the programme available in October 2019. Photo / Bevan Conley
Davies has also survived liver cancer and knows because of regular check-ups he has been able to attend his boys' 21st birthdays and watch his two grandkids grow up.
"My boys and Louise have been rocks, it can be a hard road and you need family support. But I'm still here, and I enjoy life."
Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer in New Zealand claiming 1200 lives every year.
The Whanganui DHB launched the bowel screening programme in October 2019 and has started it again after the Covid lockdown.
Figures to the start of July show 3600 bowel screening test kits have been sent out in the DHB region, and 115 positive test results recorded.
The latest figures also show one person on average in the Whanganui DHB region is diagnosed with bowel cancer every month and five are identified as having an increased risk of cancer.
Overall participation in the programme is above 60 per cent, and Māori and Pacific participation is at the same rate as other ethnicities.
Participation for men is 5 per cent lower than women and work will be done to encourage men to complete and return their test kits.
