Wife hopes for bowel cancer blog to be husband's lasting legacy - BBC.com

Two days after new dad Krunal Sharma had celebrated his daughter's first Christmas with his wife Nimisha, he passed away from bowel cancer. Since his death, Nimisha told the BBC, she has worked to keep her husband's story in the public eye.

Around this time last year, life in the Sharma family was brimming with plans and anticipation.

The young couple were expecting a baby and had moved into their first home in Lubbesthorpe, Leicestershire.

Cruelly, it was around this time they received the devastating news that Krunal, then 34, had advanced bowel cancer - a condition more typically diagnosed in people over 50.

"It rocked our world," says Nimisha.

"On one hand we were celebrating the start of life with the baby that was growing inside of me, but it was overshadowed by the darkness of the cancer that was within Krunal.

"Krunal had been going through chemotherapy at the same time I was going for scans for the pregnancy. The future felt uncertain for us.

"I can't help but wonder whether our situation would have changed if he had been diagnosed earlier.

"The delays were there and ultimately that cost him his life. Had they monitored him earlier there could have been a different outlook."

Krunal first began experiencing severe abdominal pain and diarrhoea in November 2020, while the couple were living in Rugby, Warwickshire.

"It was like a pain that he had never felt before," says Nimisha, 35.

"He was actually doubled over on the floor, rolling around, and it really scared me.

"This is my 6ft tall, very healthy, very confident husband who I have never seen in such a vulnerable position."

Nimisha said despite Krunal making trips to his GP and A&E at University Hospital, Coventry, she felt his symptoms were dismissed.

"In fact, medication he was given for digestive issues worsened his symptoms," she said.

"It was extremely frustrating because it didn't feel like IBS or acid reflux and his symptoms continued to get worse.

"There weren't any investigations being done, there weren't any referrals made for anything further or for a scan.

"We felt we were being dismissed and overlooked, whether that was down to Krunal looking healthy, his age or the assumption that because he was so young and healthy it couldn't be anything serious."

Gradually Krunal also began experiencing extreme fatigue and rapidly lost weight.

The family eventually paid for a private consultation where an MRI scan picked up on the cancer, but by then it had spread and had advanced to stage 4.

It is these frustrations that led Nimisha to write about their experience, in the hope it will help others notice the signs.

She has shared their long struggle to get a diagnosis, her fond memories and an emotional letter to six-month-old Siya telling her about her dad.

"Krunal was just the type of person who had this amazing, incredible energy," says Nimisha.

"He was the life and soul of every room he walked into and left a lasting impression on everyone he met.

"So I hope the blog is a lasting legacy of who Krunal was. The cancer was just a small element and doesn't define him, but ultimately that's what tragically took him away from us."

The couple's story has been picked up and shared by Bowel Cancer UK, which said an increasing number of young people were struggling to get a diagnosis, due to symptoms often being mistaken for digestive issues.

"Writing for me has always been cathartic and empowering," she says.

"When we found out there was no further treatment available for Krunal he told me that, no matter what happens, he needs me to carry on writing and talk about our experience, his legacy and what we went through.

"It's important for people to be aware of the things going on inside their body and to get it checked.

"If our story just helps one other person we count that as a win, and if it saves another life then that will be amazing."

Krunal's condition improved with chemotherapy before Siya was born and he was scheduled to have an operation to remove the tumour.

However in the 11-week wait for surgery the cancer progressed again and became untreatable.

Two days after the family-of-three had celebrated their first Christmas together, Krunal died.

"We tried to celebrate Christmas as our first one together but with the realisation that Krunal wasn't going to be here next Christmas," Nimisha says.

"It was very difficult. To me it felt like he held on just long enough to see Siya on Christmas Day."

Since his death, Krunal's friends and family have raised more than £33,500 for Bowel Cancer UK which will fund research and campaigns.

"We find that younger people with bowel cancer symptoms quite often go to their GPs several times before they get a diagnosis, and part of that is because it's rare in the under 50s," says CEO Genevieve Edwards.

"Bowel cancer is treatable, preventable and curable if it's picked up, but it is the biggest killer because people are being diagnosed too late."

She said during the coronavirus pandemic many screenings were delayed or rescheduled and the NHS was now offering screening tests in GP surgeries to speed up the process.

The NHS says cancer remained a priority throughout the pandemic.

"Diagnosis and treatment numbers have been back at pre-pandemic levels since last March, with record numbers of urgent referrals over the last ten months," a spokesperson told the BBC.

"NHS staff have gone over and above to support and care for patients, with more than 540,000 people having started treatment for cancer during the pandemic and 95% of those doing so within a month.

"It is important to emphasise that the NHS remains open and ready to care for you, so it's vitally important that people experiencing cancer symptoms come forward and get checked."