Recently, someone asked me about my choice to do chemotherapy, knowing all the brutal side effects that go along with it. I didn’t know how to respond – my overwhelming feeling was that it wasn’t a choice. Not one made after hours of careful contemplation and research and weighing up the options anyway. My diagnosis … More Choices?
Here are five more tips for helping someone with cancer. To read the first five, click here for Part 1. Gifts will brighten their day Thoughtful gifts are always a great way to brighten someone’s day and remind them that they’re not alone. Here are some ideas: Personalised gifts: Gifts that focus on healing and resting: … More How to Help Someone with Cancer (Part 2)
I know what it’s like to be a cancer patient, but I don’t know what it’s like to help someone through treatment. It must be awful to watch a loved one suffer, and not be able to do the one thing you want to do most – take the cancer away from them. The only … More How to Help Someone with Cancer (Part 1)
Thoughts on Confronting Cancer in your Twenties A decade of transition and uncertainty If you had to pinpoint one word to define your twenties, it would probably be transition. I have friends who are in full-time education, full-time work, full-time work and part-time education, living alone, living with friends, living with family, renting, meeting with … More On Young Adults & Cancer
What does a cancer diagnosis feel like? One of my favourite Michael Bublé covers is “That’s life”, originally by Frank Sinatra. One of the lyrics is “…you’re riding high in April, shot down in May” – a line I’d never given much thought to until 2022 happened. Here’s me riding high in April… …and shot … More Riding high in April, shot down in May
“After this cycle I’m taking the PET-CT results to the MDT to discuss ABVD vs BEACOPP efficacy chance on EFS. We also need more filgrastim to help prevent neutropenia and an X-ray and ultrasound to check PICC line positioning.” When I entered the cancer world, a few months prior to my consultant uttering these words, … More An A-Z of Chemo for Lymphoma
As I sat waiting in the oncology ward today, a man sat in front of me wearing a hat that said “THIS IS YOUR EVEREST.” Interesting, I thought. I suppose cancer treatment is the toughest endurance test many of us will face. It does seem right to compare it to summiting Everest, the highest mountain … More This Is Your Everest
Originally published on Shine Cancer Support. When something terrible happens, we don’t know what to say. We spend our schooldays learning how to play the recorder, apply Pythagoras’ theorem and recite Shakespeare verbatim. We spend no time at all learning how to be human and deal with the pain that life inevitably brings. I’ve spent … More When there are no words: what to say to the newly diagnosed
I tell all my colleagues that I’ll be back soonAs I slip from the office one spring afternoonTo a wonky blue chair in a brightly lit roomWhere I’m hit by a barrage of words spelling doom The shock takes my breath in the brutal surpriseI taste salt from the tears as they stream from my … More What does cancer feel like?
I don’t have time tofilter these thoughts, so here theyare unedited. We all said it wasbest not to Google. So ofcourse we all Googled. I felt nostalgicscrolling through wifi networksI’d connected to. And then I realised that googling my symptoms wasa form of self-harm. Impossible things have been said this week, things like‘prepare for cancer’. Drips of … More Haiku-ing through the early days…
Laura writes... 