'Fit and Healthy' Mom of 3 Learns UTI Is Something More Serious After Insisting on Full-Body Scan

A mom of three discovered her urinary tract infection was actually stage 4 colon cancer — and it was only discovered after she insisted upon a full-body scan.

Zoe Gardner-Lawson’s symptoms began in August 2024 with a dull pain in her lower back but the 36–year-old mom, who hails from the English town of Bracknell, says her doctor assumed it was a urinary tract infection, and prescribed her antibiotics.

However, after three doses of antibiotics, “there was just no change,” she tells South West News Service via The Daily Mail. “I'd really deteriorated. I was basically bedridden — I felt so unwell, and the back pain had spread to my abdomen.”

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The pain was so bad that in September, Gardner-Lawson, who shares a 5-year-old son and 1-year-old twins with her husband, Sam, went to the hospital, where initial tests led doctors to believe she had kidney stones. But when a surgeon told her “it looked like I had fluid build-up on my abdomen,” Gardner-Lawson says “I told them I wasn't going to leave until I had a full-body CT.”

And the test may have saved her life, as the scan showed that Gardner-Lawson had a 5-cm tumor on her bowel — leading the human resources manager to be diagnosed with stage four colon cancer on September 30.

Shortly afterwards, on October 3, she underwent a four-hour operation to remove the tumor. She’s now undergoing chemotherapy, and tells the outlet, “All being well, I'll need to be booked in for a second surgery — to remove remaining stomach lymph nodes and two tumours on my liver.”

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Her prognosis isn’t dire, she says, saying, 'I'm young enough that they're not considering it a terminal diagnosis just yet. If all goes well, I still have a chance at achieving a ‘no evidence of disease’ status, but it all depends on these next couple of years.”

Her family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for her treatment, sharing that she was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive variant that doesn’t respond as well to standard treatments.”

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Gardner-Lawson, who is sharing updates on her Instagram page, @cancer_is_a_pain_in_the_butt. also preparing for a 5K, explaining, “The impact of exercise on cancer is incredible so that is my motivation.”

Although she’s always been “fit and healthy,” Gardner-Lawson says she’s speaking out because she believes the colon cancer screening age limits should be dropped to “at least” 30. “If my disease was caught earlier, it would've been easier to treat,” she said. 

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