Before you read on, one of the qualities that I know helped me survive all the situations that were thrown at me was tackling everything head on. This included talking about what was happening, so be warned that the following includes medical details which may be confronting.

On May 28th 2016, shortly after returning from representing Australia at a Trans Tasman Touch Football tournament in Auckland (NZ), I had an appointment with a specialist to discuss hemorrhoids which we had been treating. A few years earlier my brother had a tumor on his bowel discovered while having his appendix removed. For some reason I had a strong feeling that I needed to have my symptoms looked into further. As we were already planning some more invasive measures for the hemorrhoids treatment, I requested we perform a colonoscopy as something just told me that we needed to look into it further.

I will never forget the look on the nurses face when I woke up after the colonoscopy. That look and the fact I was in a private room, I could tell something was wrong.