How pulling out of gig helped save life of drummer who needed major surgery to treat bowel cancer

A musician said cancelling a gig with soul singer Jocelyn Brown saved his life after he was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer and underwent major surgery to remove tumours from his intestine – and has now had the all-clear from cancer.

Mark Mondesir, 58, a drummer from Hounslow, west London, sought medical advice after experiencing abdominal pain and was shocked to discover that he would need a stoma bag fitted after having part of his bowel removed to cut out the cancerous tumours.

Initially wanting to postpone the surgery as a pre-op appointment clashed with his performance with soul singer Jocelyn Brown, Mark’s surgeon warned that he would die if he waited longer than a week for the operation.

Cancelling his gig, Mark had the surgery in 2018, followed by six months of chemotherapy and five weeks of radiotherapy, which he was recovering from when he attended Jocelyn Brown’s concert in 2019 and she “burst out crying” after spotting him in the crowd.

Mark, who has been a professional musician for 38 years and specialises in jazz, received the news last month that he was officially cancer-free, telling PA Real Life: “It is still sometimes strange to look in the mirror and see my stoma bag but it is something I have grown to accept as part of me.

“Missing that gig, which was something I was very reluctant to do, ended up saving my life. I’m very grateful and thankful that I am now able to carry on as a musician and do what I love.”

Dealing with a lot of abdominal discomfort, Mark sought medical advice in 2018 and was referred to a hospital where he underwent blood tests and a colonoscopy.

He said: “In hindsight now, the initial symptoms started as far back as 2004 or 2005 but I thought it was something I must have eaten because I was dealing with some form of indigestion, but things came to a head in 2018, that was my worst year.”

Unable to complete the colonoscopy due to pain which Mark described as “excruciating”, medics gave him MRI and CT scans.

The tests revealed that there was an obstruction in Mark’s intestine as well as a tumour that was growing outside of the intestine which he would need surgery to have removed.

Mark said: “After the tests, I was spoken to by a surgeon who told me I was fast-tracked for an operation and asked me to come back for a pre-op assessment but the date she gave me clashed with the concert I was due to perform in.

“Initially, I said I couldn’t make that date because I had a gig and rehearsal. This was my introduction to my surgeon’s gallows sense of humour because she said, ‘oh, right OK, we can leave this surgery for one more week and then you will die’. I realised then that I had to pull out of the gig.”

In 2018, the musician underwent the seven-and-a-half-hour op to remove the tumours by removing a section of his bowel as well as part of his bladder.

Due to the amount of his bowel that needed to be removed, Mark was fitted with a stoma bag. The tumours were also biopsied which led to Mark’s diagnosis of stage four bowel cancer.

He said: “My diagnosis came two and a half weeks after my surgery. It was big news to receive but, because I come from a family of stoics, my initial response was, ‘OK, what now?’”

Following surgery, Mark underwent six months of chemotherapy treatment which consisted of 12 cycles from late November 2018 to late April 2019.

In June 2019, Mark started five weeks of radiotherapy, which he said “took weeks” to recover from.

He said: “It’s been a bit of a long road in terms of the recovery. I’ve been diagnosed with stage three chronic kidney disease because I got an infection that developed into sepsis and it damaged my kidneys.”

While he was still recovering from the intense treatment, Mark attended one of Jocelyn Brown’s concerts in late 2019 and recalled how shocked she was to spot him in the audience.

He said: “She noticed me in the audience and when she saw me, she burst out crying on stage and the audience were initially mystified as to why she was crying.

“Then she made an announcement and told everybody about how I’d missed her gig and that things had been touch-and-go for me but now I was in the audience, and I got a round of applause as a result. It was very nice to receive.”

In October 2023, Mark received the news that he was officially cancer-free after his scans had come back clear for the past five years.

He said: “It was incredible because I was initially diagnosed at stage four, so I’m just so grateful and thankful that I was literally pulled back from the brink.”

Now, Mark has grown accustomed to his stoma bag and said he feels “more confident” about his body than he did prior to the surgery.

He said: “Bizarrely enough, I’m even more body confident now than I ever have been. How that works is that when your body has been modified in such a major way, it tends to level everything out and so you look around you, you look at all these people and you realise that we are all just inhabiting vehicles and from time to time they need to be patched up and maintained.

“It’s like the little superficial insecurities that we all have from time to time don’t matter as much and I’m less concerned about what people think.

“Despite everything I’ve been through, I consider myself fortunate. I’ve always been a positive, glass-half-full person and I’m just thankful that I’ve gotten through this very harrowing experience, I could very easily have gone the other way. I’m really lucky.”

Mark is supporting Stand Up To Cancer, a joint national fundraising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4. To get involved, visit: SU2C.org.uk.