“Audrey, (my stoma) prolapsed again, been up all night holding my intestine in.”
That is how broadcaster Adele Roberts opened an Instagram Stories update this week. Audrey is her name for her stoma. “Tummy is sore but at least my stoma is staying in my body for now,” she wrote.
She put the cause down to a recent bowel prep and colonoscopy. “That’s the effect of the pressure put on my stoma by bowel prep and a colonoscopy,” Roberts wrote. “It forces my intestine out of my stomach wall.”
A history that started on a TV show
Roberts, the former I’m a Celebrity campmate, first noticed cancer symptoms while on the ITV show. She confirmed her bowel cancer diagnosis in 2021. Chemotherapy and an operation to remove the tumour followed, and a stoma bag was fitted in 2022. Later that year she announced she was cancer-free.
She has kept her followers up to date since. Last November she told them about a “concerning lump” on her neck that appeared four years after her diagnosis. It would not go away, she said, and it “grew into a bit of a monster”. Doctors could not tell what it was, and it did not respond to treatment, so a specialist removed it. Posting from hospital in a gown, Roberts said she was “absolutely buzzing” because the lump turned out to be benign. She admitted it had been “playing on my mind”.
She has also been frank about what chemotherapy did to her. On the Monday Mile podcast she said it took off her fingerprints, so she could not use touch screens, her phone or self-checkouts. The soles of her feet looked burnt. Her tongue turned black.
Charity walking, and a Macmillan campaign
The stoma update came alongside better news. Roberts and her partner, Kate Holderness, finished a Strava walking challenge and raised £50 for Cancer Research UK. “On our walk yesterday Kate and I completed our Strava challenge,” she wrote.
Earlier in the week she was announced as a supporter of Macmillan Cancer Support’s Fair Cancer Care campaign. She said that when people hear “cancer free”, they assume everything goes back to normal, but for many “life changes forever”.
“Living with a stoma has completely changed my relationship with my body and there are still daily challenges people don’t always see or understand,” she said. She talks about it openly, she added, because ostomies and cancer can feel like hidden disabilities and she never wants people to feel ashamed or alone.
Recovery, she said, did not end with treatment. “After treatment, I had to learn how to trust my body again. Even getting back into running felt like starting from scratch.” She called for more support in local communities for the part that comes afterwards: rebuilding confidence, managing the emotional impact and adjusting to what she called a completely new normal.
Sources
- Adele Roberts in new health update as she ‘spent night holding intestine in’
- Adele Roberts issues new health update after spending all night 'holding intestine in'
