A mum-of-three who took on a 40-day rowing challenge across the Atlantic Ocean started experiencing bowel issues on her trip, resulting in a diagnosis of stage 3 bowel cancer – but she is now cancer-free, crediting her “positive attitude” to helping her get through it. Felicity Ashley, 47, a former head of marketing, rowed 3,000 miles from the Canaries to Antigua but during her journey, she started to have problems with needing the toilet a lot.
Back home in April 2022, the mum noticed blood in her stool and booked a doctor’s appointment, where she was referred for a colonoscopy. In May 2022, Felicity was diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer and underwent chemotherapy after having surgery to remove the deadly mass.
Now cancer-free, Felicity hopes to take on another physical challenge once she has had the official all-clear and credits her “positive mindset” to getting her through the ordeal. Felicity, who lives with her husband, Paul, 47, who works in data innovation, and their three children, Sam, 10, Ben, eight, and Grace, five, said: “Because of the circumstances I was in on the Atlantic, the idea of it being cancer never crossed my mind.
“I was in complete shock to receive my diagnosis but I have always been an optimist.” Setting off on her adventure on December 12, 2021, Felicity embarked on a 40-day rowing expedition from the Canaries to Antigua.
Joined by her younger sister and two other women, the team of four took turns taking two-hour shifts to row themselves across the ocean. With everything they would need, food, water, medical supplies, all stored on the 28-foot rowing boat, once they set off, Felicity said they were “alone on the ocean”.
Two weeks into the challenge, however, Felicity, who lives in Oxfordshire, started experiencing bowel issues. She said: “I have always loved to take part in sport but nothing to this scale before.
“We were eating dehydrated food packs and rowing for 12 to 16 hours a day, so I assumed the changes in my bowel movements were down to the unusual eating patterns, excess exercise and unusual food I was eating. Still, I couldn’t get through some of my rowing shifts without needing to go to the toilet. I had quite a lot of discomfort and cramping in my tummy, but I assumed it was my body reacting to a new and very strange eating schedule.
“My other crew members noticed my notable toilet trips and I even won a joke award from my team for the ‘most likely to need an inconvenient poo’. When I needed the toilet, I couldn’t wait until my rowing shift was over and I had to go straight away. My stools were definitely looser, but I was going to the toilet in a bucket in a small rowing boat and throwing it over the side into the ocean, so I didn’t give it much thought and didn’t have the time to think much more about it and carried on rowing.”
Arriving in Antigua on January 21, 2022, Felicity was met by her family waiting for her on the dock. She added: “I felt on top of the world and slightly invincible and so proud when I saw my family and parents waiting for me just after the finish line on Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua.”
Back home, Felicity’s symptoms grew worse and by April, she had noticed blood in her stool. Booking a doctor’s appointment, she was referred for a colonoscopy where the procedure revealed a tumour.
Felicity said: “During the colonoscopy, a trainee started doing the procedure but then I became aware that the senior clinician had taken over. I had gas and air to ease the discomfort so I felt slightly out of it and unaware fully of what was going on. I remember someone in the room asking “are you awake, can you hear me? Look at the screen, do you know why you are here and what that is?
"I told them I was here to rule out cancer which the endoscopist bluntly replied, ‘that lump on the screen is a tumour. You have bowel cancer’.
“I was in total shock and disbelief. I called my husband and was as blunt to him and quite simply said, ‘I have cancer’.
“My husband arrived at the hospital just after I was back from a CT scan and was in as much shock as I was, whilst being incredibly strong and supportive for me.” As Felicity came to terms with her diagnosis, she also faced breaking the news to her three young children.
She said: “They were aware to a degree, I wanted them to know it was cancer, but I didn’t want to make a big deal of it and I didn’t want to frighten them. One of the most difficult things was telling my children I had cancer ahead of my chemo.
"They knew my dad had terminal cancer so we had to tell our children that I had cancer too but a different type of cancer. We tried to explain I had a type of cancer I could get better from. Dad sadly died on August 9, 2022, the day after my first round of chemo started.”
In June 2022, Felicity underwent surgery to remove the 5cm mass from her bowel at Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Felicity added: “I had a type of keyhole surgery called ‘robotic anterior resection’ to remove the tumour. Local charity Occtopus, the Oxford Colon Cancer Trust, was an early donor to the establishment of the robotic surgery programme in Oxford, which meant I was able to have minimally invasive surgery to help aid my recovery.”
Recovering from surgery, the mum-of-three started chemotherapy for three and a half months in three-week cycles. At the end of her treatment, Felicity was “delighted” to hear that tests showed there was no sign of cancer.
While she will not receive the all-clear until five years have passed, she has finished her treatment and is now cancer-free. She said: “I’ve always had a very positive attitude and that has really helped me. I am an optimist and chose to see the positive in everything.
“I’d love to take on another challenge in the future as the Atlantic Row was such an incredible experience but, as I’m currently at risk of my cancer returning, I will need to wait at least another year before I can start planning the next adventure. Being hopelessly optimistic really pays off and I hope this helps anyone else going through their own cancer journey. I am currently feeling fit and well again and excited for the future and living my life to the fullest.”
Felicity is raising money for Occtopus, to donate visit: justgiving.com/page/felicity-ashley-occtopus
