A man who was diagnosed with stage three bowel cancer has shared his experience and the lessons he learned from it.
Jon Imondi, 43, underwent life-saving surgery to remove a tumour and now, two years later, he’s sharing his wisdom with others.
Speaking to GloucestershireLive, Jon expressed regret over his previous “it will never happen to me” attitude towards cancer. He said: “I just wish that I didn’t have the ‘it will never happen to me’ attitude. Cancer affects one in two and we need to start looking after ourselves more and what we consume and our lifestyle to make sure we’re not just another statistic.”
The Worcester resident also highlighted the importance of a healthy lifestyle in preventing cancer.
He advised people to be active, eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and take care of their mental health. He clarified that he wasn’t advocating for a vegan diet, but emphasised the benefits of adding more vegetables, fruit, nuts, beans, legumes and pulses to daily meals.
On mental health, he concluded: “Get some therapy. All of us carrying developmental trauma need some help somewhere and I believe that we hold on to a lot of stress and depression. We have a lot of emotions to suppress which suppresses our immune system and exposes us to these nasty diseases.”
Jon received his diagnosis in December 2022 following a botched colonoscopy due to a tumour obstructing the camera’s path. Regarded as “lucky” by doctors, he narrowly avoided a potential stage-four diagnosis, as the growth was on the brink of escaping his colon to reach his liver.
After undergoing laparoscopic surgery to excise the tumour and part of his colon, Jon, an IT engineer and budding therapist, now openly discusses his experience with cancer on YouTube. In one of his TikTok clips, Jon imparts wisdom from a cancer survivor’s perspective, urging people to ditch junk food and alcohol for fresh, wholesome produce.
He emphasised: “Hear your soul. If you are struggling with your mental health, get some help, seek out therapy, just don’t wait until it’s too late because once you get that diagnosis… wow.”
The UK, alarmingly, records the sharpest increase in bowel cancer cases among those under 50 in Europe, according to recent findings published in The Lancet Oncology. Professor Tim Spector, echoing Jon’s sentiments about dietary influences, voiced his concerns regarding this uptick on the Great Company podcast.
Offering a theory on why more young people are being diagnosed with bowel cancer, he suggested: “Or it could be again, due to our poor diets effecting our gut microbes, because there are increasing correlations between certain gut microbes and cancer that if you have a certain microbe in you, you have a like a tenfold increase of getting colon cancer in the next five years.”
The professor, who is the driving force behind Zoe Health, further added: “We are exploring all this stuff but I think the microbiome has got to be the main driver of this and I think poor diets is the most likely thing that has changed in young people.”