I have a cold, when you are on chemo this feels like u have been hit by a bus. Maybe I finally realise what ‘man flu’ is like 🤧😷🤒🤣.
The hardest thing I have found with having cancer is the mental battle I have had to fight with myself. I tell myself…..Get out of bed. Smile and be a happy mummy around the boys. Don’t feel sorry for yourself, it’s not that bad. Get a grip.
However, right now, feeling like crap. I am just really BORED OF MYSELF and totally over it. I am over feeling ‘meh’. I am over blood tests, 100s of tablets, diarrhoea, nausea, peeling skin, sore feet, tiredness. I am tired, all the time 🙄🙄 💤…….. And you all maybe ‘over’ this blog 😂
I think I am feeling this way because I am hoping that this is all going to end soon. That a potential finish line is in sight. Of course it will always be with me. Many scans and tests and scares will be coming my way. However, the ‘no treatment for a while’ horizon is so close!
It makes me think about how many people, right now, are thinking, feeling, hoping the same things as me. How many people are reaching their 5 year clear mark. How many people are facing devastating news and huge setbacks.
This is because 1 in 2 of us, yes 1 in 2, will get cancer in our lifetime! It’s a depressing figure. As a result it is the second biggest killer in the UK.
However, more and more people are surviving cancer and living with cancer. This is because of the amount of research that is done in regards to cancer. Cancer gets a lot of attention due to its common appearance in our lives, no one is not touched by it. As a result lots of fundraising happens for it. Not all diseases are that fortunate.
One thing we have learnt, through research, is how we can look after our bodies to help ourselves in preventing cancer.
Sadly it is not a way to avoid it all together. I am not overweight, do not eat a lot of red meat, am relatively active. However I could reduce my alcohol intake and I did used to smoke 🤔. So these learnings have helped and do help.
If we focus on my cancer, bowel cancer, you can see how much a difference clinical trials and research does make.
Having been affected by cancer and learning how individual it is, how every case seems to be different, that it maybe a lazy cell growth or the devil itself, has taught me that they may never be a cure. However it has also taught me that the money people give and raise for this horribly common disease, really does make a difference.
It makes a difference to me, as it gives me hope. It has enabled me to have my treatment at home. It has meant I can live, love and laugh for hopefully a while yet. It tells me to get a grip and stop being ‘over it’, because I am, so far, responding to treatment and doing really well.
So thank you for all the marathons that are run, the cakes that are baked, the beards that are grown, the multitude of challenges undertaken, the money given. It really does make a difference. It really is driving change.
Look after yourselves as best you can XX
MySemiColon 
Hi, I came across your very well written blogs.
I am one of those approaching 5 years following stage 3 bowel cancer, diagnosed November 2012. 51 now.
Your account of your chemo rung many bells. I also had the cabacetamine (however it’s spelt!).
Good news is you recover quickly once it stops. Now, 4.5 years later chemo seems like a long time ago.
Almost 5 years of scans and one more to go. Hoping it is clear like all the rest. I don’t see 5 years as having any magic. The fear of recurrence will still be there, but still it will be a cause for some celebration…hopefully. If the news is good December 10th will be 5 years and the first I will celebrate – didn’t went to jinx anything before.
So, well done on your excellent blog. Onwards and upwards.
Andrew
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