She had been suffering issues such as bleeding and tiredness, but thought she had irritable bowel syndrome.
Mrs Ainscough is cancer free thanks to experimental immunotherapy treatment at the Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester.
She said: “I remember being in the kitchen ironing and she [Dame Deborah] came on the news and she just mentioned something that caught my attention.
“And I turned to my husband and said: ‘Those are the symptoms I’ve been getting, maybe I’ve got bowel cancer.’
“He kind of just shrugged it off and it was from that moment that I actually decided to go and get checked.”
Her GP sent her straight for a colonoscopy in June 2022.
She was 38 at the time, had been chatting to nurses in the room when suddenly “there was an awful silence”.
“I could see something on the screen… it did not enter my mind for one minute that it could be cancer.”
