Just two weeks after his operation for colon cancer, Phil Jeynes, director of corporate strategy at Reassured, has got the all clear, and returns to work today.
But without private medical insurance (PMI), it might have been a very different story.
In an interview with Health & Protection Jeynes spoke of his journey and the role that health insurance and protection insurance played in ensuring that he was able to get through this as smoothly as possible.
His story started in early December when he noticed some changes in his bowel habits. He had had some previous stomach issues before, though nothing serious, but it had made him sensitive to any changes. And he had noticed some blood which was alarming.
Through his company Jeynes had a corporate PMI policy with Bupa, which allowed him to access its virtual GP service.
It was that which perhaps saved his life, because it helped to reduce the time it would have taken before having his operation.
“I used the Bupa virtual GP service, because getting into see my own GP as everyone knows would have been weeks. But with Bupa it was literally minutes,” Jeynes told Health & Protection.
At just 45 years old, Jeynes was not in the danger window for colon cancer, and was also seemingly in very good shape.
He had recently joined a gym and thought he was ‘fighting fit” – fitter than he had been for 25 years. It was also comforting that technology at the gym told him that his body was 10 years younger than his actual age.
So had he been another person, he might have ignored the warning signs, but working in the industry, Jeynes was not going to take any chances.
“Had I not been in this industry and quite switched on – as we all are – I could easily have just said ‘Well, let’s see how this goes for a bit and see if its just is one of those things that will work itself out’,” he continued.
“But I didn’t do that.”
Speed of the essence
The speed between deciding to get checked up to having his operation was a big reason for his successful recovery and if he had started the process months or even weeks later, the result might have been quite different.
“According to the consultant, we were dealing in potentially weeks rather than even months,” Jeynes said.
“If it had been delayed, the type of cancer and where it was it wouldn’t be operable.
“It would be treatable, manageable, it wouldn’t necessarily have done me in within the next six months, but it would be a life sentence.”
After a colonoscopy in early February he was told the doctors had raised further concerns.
“They didn’t use the word cancer at that point, but again, I’ve worked in his industry for more than 20 years – I know what it is,” Jeynes said.
High praise
Jeynes had high praise for the professionalism of the NHS, as within a week several other tests had been conducted.
“They sent me for a bunch of blood tests, CT scan, MRI – all within the same week. So the NHS on this occasion were just unbelievable, incredibly quick,” he continued.
“At that point they confirmed it was cancer and the consultant was optimistic that we had caught it reasonably early and it was operable.”
Less than three weeks later he had his operation – earlier in March.
“Two weeks afterwards that, I got the phone call to say no further treatment is required and that there is no spread or anything like that,” Jeynes reveals.
“So yeah, its been kind of a surreal experience to go from an initial diagnosis that there’s something wrong to a quite short span of time later being told you’re basically all fine again – just go away and get better.
“It’s just bizarre. You go through a lot of highs and lows emotionally over those few weeks,” he noted.
Benefit of Bupa and Royal London
Jeynes had a PMI policy with Bupa and a critical illness policy with Royal London – both of which proved very important.
“I think the ease and the speed of Bupa was huge,” he continued.
“My employer paid me throughout this and they gave me all the support I could possibly want. And financially, I didn’t have any worries.
“But if that wasn’t the case, the way that Royal London dealt with it, and the speed with which that money came through, would have been absolutely huge.“
Don’t ignore symptoms
The whole process has left him with two big takeaways.
“Number one, if you see any symptoms that you don’t like the look of don’t rule them out just because otherwise you feel fine – because I did I feel absolutely fine,“ he highlighted.
The second one has to do with understanding your own health.
“The second thing is just having that view of your general health and wellness,” he added.
“I think it’s super important so you can see the changes. You’re more in touch with things.”
Apart from Bupa and the NHS, another help was his life and critical illness policy that he had taken out in his early 20s.
Jeynes actually had another operation to deal with an unrelated stomach issue at the same time.
“I had a fairly major operation,” he continued.
“Removing the actual tumour was quite easy, but this other stomach issue I’ve had, they did the whole thing at the same time – it’s not related to cancer. So I’ve got a few months of recovery around that, just to kind of take it easy and let the body heal up.
“No further treatment is needed for the cancer – they got it early enough so it hadn’t spread. So they removed the tumour and took biopsies around it, and that showed that the cancer hadn’t spread beyond that tumour.”
“It reinforces that if something isn’t right, get it looked at. Do not procrastinate. Don’t delay. Don’t wonder if it’ll get better on its own accord.
“Don’t think – I’m smashing records at the gym so it can’t get anything serious.
“Because if I had delayed it, if I’d thought, ‘You know what, let’s wait until after Christmas’, it might be a different story.”
The worst bit
But the worst bit of the whole experience was waiting for the confirmation that he had cancer, Jeynes revealed.
“The worst bit for me was between the colonoscopy where they find it and although they don’t use the word cancer, but you know what it is – and the actual sit down with a consultant where they tell you what it is and what’s going to happen.
“That period was just over a week.
“That period was the hardest bit, because you just don’t know what you don’t know whether you’re going to walk into that office and be told ‘Get your affairs in order because you’re done’ or you’re going to get told ‘It’s not even cancer, it’s just a weird polyp or something and we’ll snip it out and you’ll be back riding your bike within a week.’
“You don’t know which end of that spectrum you’re going to be on. Obviously, I was nearer to the snippet out and ride a bike again, but you just don’t know, right?”
“Dealing with that and how much you tell people, what you tell your family – my parents, they’re in their 70s – I didn’t want to alarm then unnecessarily, but I didn’t want to not tell them what’s going on.
“You know, all of those things are just super hard to deal with.”
