THE countdown is on, my 40th birthday is in a month.
I know I’m not the first person to turn 40, and I certainly won’t be the last.
Most people dread the milestone, seeing it as just another reminder of growing old, a sign that life is running away.
You might be sad about the extra wrinkles, or feel like a failure for not achieving a long list of life goals in time.
Not me. I can’t wait.
I’m an emotional mess, bursting into happy tears at the very thought.
When I was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, I was told it was very unlikely that I would live to see my 40th.
I was 35 years old, and doctors told me I had a less than 8 per cent chance of living five years or more.
So not only is my 40th rapidly approaching, so too is my five-year ‘cancerversary’.
I can’t quite get my head around the idea of getting to see my five-year milestone, it feels too far away.
But for the first time, I am letting myself believe I will live to see my fifth decade.
The road to get here has been rocky, to say the least.
Only a few months ago the idea of making my 40th felt like a pipe dream, as the drugs that had kept me alive for years stopped working.
My liver started to fail and I had to have an emergency operation to insert a stent in my bile duct, to try and reverse the liver failure.
I got through the op and it worked, but then I was hit by a bout of sepsis.
Thanks to my incredible team at The Royal Marsden I recovered and was deemed fit for chemo again.
DOSE OF LUCK
It’s just another example of the huge dose of luck I’ve had along the way and the skills of the incredible medics treating me.
Thanks to their hard work and constant care, I have spent the last few days attaching hundreds of labels to my kids’ school uniforms – all while hooked up to my chemo pump.
And rather than hate every minute, each label is a reminder of how lucky I am to be here, doing it for them.
My daughter Eloise is off to secondary school, and with that marks another milestone in my cancer journey.
Seeing both kids off to big school didn’t seem possible, I was told I wouldn’t see them grow up.
I still might not and that breaks my heart, but to see them off to school yet again is a precious memory we can all now treasure.
These milestones have made me reflect a lot in the last few days and weeks.
MY JOURNEY
I’ve shared my journey here in this column Things Cancer Made Me Say since the beginning.
But I often get asked by people, ‘how did it start’?
I had all the typical symptoms, but I put it down to being a busy, working mum of two.
I lost weight, I had a change of bowel habits.
But most importantly, I was passing blood – on and off – in my poo. It was reddish blood, and I thought it was just a case of piles.
I went to my GP, eventually, and they thought it was IBS.
My blood and poo tests came back normal, and I didn’t get a follow up appointment.
A few more appointments later, and I was reassured each time it was just stress.
Eventually I paid to go and see a specialist privately.
I couldn’t get an NHS referral, because I didn’t tick any red-flag signs for cancer, or so they said.
I was too young, apparently.
I ended up having a colonoscopy, where they insert a camera into your bowel.
And there, staring back at me was a 6.5cm tumour. My consultant asked me if anyone was with me, and I now know that’s never a good question to be asked.
It was a few days before Christmas in 2016 when I found out that I had cancer.
Not just cancer either, late stage cancer that, as we found out a few months later, had spread to my lungs.
I was told I had a better chance of dying in my first year than surviving, and the chances of seeing my kids grow up got smaller and smaller.
But I am still here, telling you my story in the hope it will spur you on to check your bodies for signs of cancer, and act immediately if you do.
If I’d pushed a little harder maybe I would be cancer free by now, cured and back working as a teacher.
If I’d left it a month longer, maybe I would already be dead.
A BIRTHDAY PRESENT FROM YOU
So, do me a favour… see it as a birthday present if you will, next time you do a number two have a look in the loo!
Check your body every month for signs of bowel cancer, and other cancers.
Get in tune with what’s normal for you, and be alert if anything changes.
Early diagnosis saves lives when it comes to all cancers, I sadly am proof of that but not in a good way.
Never has this been a more important message than now, as we ride out the Covid pandemic.
The impact on cancer patients is terrifying, with missed screening appointments, missed symptoms and missed opportunities to get that early diagnosis.
Despite campaigners, cancer charities and patients shouting, screaming about it, the backlog is going to be brutal.
This isn’t about bashing the NHS, the health service is incredible and has worked tirelessly throughout.
It’s about urging the Government to give the NHS the money it needs to clear the cancer backlog, and waiting lists across the board.
My cancer story is no longer just my story.
It’s the story of 356,000 people who each year hear the same devastating sentence I did, ‘I’m afraid it’s cancer’.
