I found out I had bowel cancer on my wedding day - despite doctors saying I was 'too fat' to have it
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A woman was horrified to discover she had bowel cancer on her wedding day - despite claiming doctors 'fobbed her off' as being 'too fat' to have the illness. Claire Boulton, 47, from Thornbury in South Gloucestershire has been battling the disease on and off for the last five years after a shock diagnosis in April 2019.
![[Claire and her husband at their second wedding in Sidari, Corfu. It was also the day Claire was told the cancer had been contained]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/09/94111925-14286779-Claire_and_her_husband_at_their_second_wedding_in_Sidari_Corfu_I-m-18_1736933897170.jpg)
Just hours before marrying the love of her life Matthew Boulton, the bride-to-be was having her hair styled at the hairdressers when a nurse phoned her to say they had found cancer in a polyp they had removed from her rectum. 'I was shocked,' Claire said. 'You can't write my life.
![[Claire and Matthew Boulton at the registry office in Kingswood - hours after she had been told doctors had found cancer in a polyp they had removed from her rectum]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/09/94111929-14286779-image-a-11_1736932572448.jpg)
'It was a nurse that rang me up and when I said, "I'm literally sitting in the hairdressers about to get married", she was like, "oh my god I'm so sorry, if I had known I wouldn't have told you.". The mother-of-two went to the registry office in Kingswood with her fiancé before jetting off for their honeymoon in Palma Nova, Spain.
![[Claire, who suffers from irritable bowel syndrome, claims she complained of stomach pains, nausea and blood in her stool to doctors for five years prior to her diagnosis - but was never taken 'seriously']](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/09/94111927-14286779-image-a-13_1736932587018.jpg)
'That week wasn't really a honeymoon, Claire said. 'That whole time it was like s**t, I've just found out I've had cancer and I still might have it in my body somewhere and I won't know for six weeks. It played on my mind.'. While awaiting the results to reveal whether the cancer had spread, Claire flew to Sidari, Corfu, with her husband for their second wedding.
![[Claire was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2009, a chronic condition spreading pain all over the body, and gained four stone after it caused her to lose mobility in 2016]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/11/94111935-14286779-Claire_was_diagnosed_with_fibromyalgia_in_2009_a_chronic_conditi-a-1_1736941475315.jpg)
Claire Boulton (pictured) from Thornbury in South Gloucestershire has been battling cancer on and off for the last five years after a shock diagnosis on her wedding day in April 2019. Again, just hours before she walked down the aisle, the hospital called to inform her that the cancer had been contained.
![[Claire, who has been fitted with a stoma bag, is urging others to 'listen to their bodies' and to be unafraid to ask for a second opinion rather than being 'fobbed off' by doctors]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/15/09/94111923-14286779-image-a-17_1736932612684.jpg)
