I would wake up each morning, have the regular shit, shave and shower routine, preparing for a 90 minute commute. There were days of course when I let the stubble show, I mean shaving every single morning wasn’t possible. But I was mostly clean shaven, never with a beard. Yet when cancer came along things changed. I no longer had…
Are you struggling to finish writing your book? Is it writer’s block or perhaps its procrastination? Do you feel guilty for not writing each day? Does the word count stay static every single day? I know completely how you feel because I was there not so long ago. I would dream about my book being on Amazon, on people’s bookshelves, in…
I had my 3 month CT Scan to monitor things last Saturday, 2nd June. I am very relieved, reassured and grateful to report that things are all still stable. A couple of nodes even reduced by 2–3 mm. For context I’ve now been off the immunotherapy for over 1 year, with the disease stable during this time. I took out…
I went to what was probably one of the shittiest schools around me; it was forever failing Ofsted inspections. A school where chairs would go flying across the room, where supply teachers would walk out crying, to the amusement of the class. I remember when my head of year, while in year 10, called us in for an emergency assembly.…
3 years ago, 14th April 2015, I was signing consent forms giving the surgeons permission to take out my colon, stomach, abdominal wall, spleen and any other parts they felt necessary. I questioned what would be left of me. Nurses marked an X on my belly for the ideal positioning for a stoma. I was scheduled for a major surgery…
I went to bed last night not knowing whether I’d wake up this morning. In fact I’ve been going to bed every single night for the past 3 years with this uncertainty. I’m not going to bed being negative or pessimistic, but rather with an appreciation that no day is a given. A reminder that each day counts, that each…
This week the U.K. goes to the polls. Here is an example of one MP, my MP Keir Starmer helping me, a constituent in a desperate health crisis, when the Health Secretary for State said “sorry I cannot be more helpful”- Jeremy Hunt offered no help at all. Last April (2016) I had a £200,000 fundraising target to get access…
