A woman said she was dismissed by doctors multiple times and told she had other health ailments, when it was actually two growing cancers.

Lauren Toole noticed blood while using the bathroom in 2023, but she initially thought nothing of it. After a few months, the bleeding became more frequent, and Toole, 27, eventually felt a lump in her private area, according to Kennedy News & Media.

“It wasn’t happening all the time. I wasn’t having any pain, and it wasn’t really bothering me at that time,” Toole, a mother of three, recalled of when she first noticed the bleeding.

“After going to the doctor, they did an examination and told me I had hemorrhoids and prescribed me some more creams and suppositories,” she continued.

Added Toole: “They told me it was a common problem with moms. At that time I didn’t really suspect anything.”

Lauren Toole.Kennedy News and Media
Over time, Toole’s condition worsened, so she went back to seek medical help. But even after being prescribed medication for hemorrhoids multiple times, her problems failed to improve.

“As the symptoms got worse and the different creams hadn’t improved anything, that’s when my concerns grew,” Toole recalled. “It got to the point where I had to push the lump back in myself. There would also be blood clots when I was wiping.”

“Every time I went to the toilet, I would have bleeding,” she added. “I’d flip between constipation and loose stools. A doctor noted down that I could have irritable bowel syndrome.”

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At one point, Toole was put on antidepressants to treat what her doctors described as “health anxiety.”

“I’ve known there was something wrong with me for a long time. I’d gone to the doctors for other problems like tiredness, not feeling well, palpitations, [but] no one thought the issues were related,” she said.

“It’s easy as a young mom to get dismissed and told you have anxiety,” continued Toole, who said she was dismissed “eight times” overall.

Lauren Toole.Kennedy News and Media
Back in April, Toole was admitted to the hospital with suspected appendicitis. She said she was offered a colonoscopy for “peace of mind,” and the test ended up finding that her issue was actually polyps, an abnormal group of cells that form on the lining of tissue inside the body.

After one of the polyps was removed and tested, Toole learned that it was a neuroendocrine tumor, which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a rare type of slow-growing cancer. A biopsy of another polyp came back as a tubulovillous adenoma, a precancerous polyp that is an early warning sign for colorectal cancer, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

“I wasn’t expecting anything like that. To be told that, I was very upset. You start thinking about the worst-case scenario,” Toole said. “If I’d left both of them, I could’ve potentially ended up with two different types of cancer.”

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Toole is currently awaiting further testing and will undergo one or more surgeries in the future to make sure all of the neuroendocrine tumor has been removed. She will also have to have the precancerous polyp taken out.

“Being told I had anxiety, IBD, hemorrhoids — if they’d maybe tied those symptoms together and sent me for a colonoscopy, it would’ve been picked up sooner,” she said, adding: “My advice to others is to always get a second opinion and speak up for yourself.”