COMMUNITY

From the moment I was diagnosed with breast cancer, the fear of recurrence was something that occupied a lot more of my headspace than it should have.  But I didn’t for a moment think we wouldn’t be able to get rid of it the first time. Yet here I am, a year into treatment and […]

I wonder if you’ll think it was worth it?” This was a question my best friend asked me as we chatted about the critical illness cover payment I received when cancer cast a shit shaped shadow over my life. I’ll be honest it was a question I had been asking myself from the moment the

Reading about the feisty ladies beating breast cancer has got me envious. Hold up, no, I’m not envious of having breast cancer, I’ve just gone green for all the truly fantastic awareness campaigns that highlight their stories. I have a cancer of my own. My cancer is bowel cancer (stage four with metastasis to the

In theory marriage is a wonderful concept. 2 people totally committed, in love, who want to do anything and everything for each other FOREVER. In reality its an impossible dream. I’m neither facing or nearing divorce (I hope), but I am the cause of extreme change in the course of a marriage and worried that

As females, we all carry with us our own personal feelings about pregnancy, childbirth and motherhood. These feelings change and develop over time depending on our life experiences. It may be that you have never wanted to be a parent, you may feel pressure to be a mother, some people are scared of the prospect

Part of going through something inexplicably traumatic and random is realising the invisibility of suffering, or rather, the extent to which it is a solitary experience. There is great power in the privacy of the self – a dark limitlessness uninterrupted and unseen by others. But when something we want to communicate is suddenly too

26 November 2013. The day my husband passed away from a brain tumour, aged 42.  20 March 2018. The day I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 17 April 2018. The day I was told it was actually stage 4 metastatic breast cancer. In a way I was lucky – I married my husband knowing he

The day that everything changed was just an average Friday. I was sat at home a week before starting a new job, staring into space and playing with my necklace, when I felt a little lump on my collar bone. Fast forward four weeks and after numerous tests, scans and a pretty visual neck-biopsy while

I’m afraid that you need to have a mastectomy”, said the breast surgeon with the dodgy wig who couldn’t meet my eye. This was when the wall of emotions that I’d been carefully building to protect myself from the future completely collapsed and I began to sob. Not only would I soon be bald as

I never thought that cancer would become part of my story, but it has. It has completely changed my life and my journey, despite the fact that I’m extremely lucky that I haven’t even had it myself. Yet everything has changed. It was 6.14am when I watched my beautiful mummy take her last breath. I