The 14th and final round of chemo - FEBRUARY 2023

I’m in Nottingham for my final round of chemo! 5 days, 110 hours of chemo away from ringing the bell. (60 cakes for nurses baked).

Cancer kicked the shit out of me. Whilst I’ve been honest throughout I’ve probably been a bit guilty of glossing over some of the nastier parts of the last year. Maybe until now my brain hasn’t really allowed me to look backwards, only forwards but here is my reality of having a Sarcoma.

My tumour haemorrhaged twice. I had a blood clot on my lung. I had a blood clot in my spleen, I still have tissue damage here. I have been neutropenic more or less since August 22, meaning I have no immune system to fight the smallest of infections. I had shingles, I had COVID, I had numerous colds, UTI’s and unidentified infections, all of which were scary as anything could have become life threatening. I have had 5 surgeries, 1 major. All whilst having cancer which in itself is pretty grim.

Over the past year my mum, my dad, my siblings and my boyfriend have been my carers. They watched me get worse, watched the hair disappear, the weight disappear. Thankfully the tumour disappear too. I can’t imagine what that was like for them all and whilst I know it’s stupid, I feel guilty that I put them through that.

At the start of this journey no one knew if the chemo would work, no one knew what the implications of surgery would be. My consultant said to us “some patients feel they need to know the prognosis, my question to them is always “how will that help?””. So I decided not to ask. But I knew it wasn’t good. We never spoke about it again, there was too much else to focus on.

Nevertheless I thought about it, of course. I am a 26 year old woman with notes in my phone addressed to all of the people I love most and a message drafted to my dad asking him to send them all for me.

Thankfully, I will get to say all those things to those people myself. And if this has taught me one thing it is how important it is to do so. Tell people you love them, forgive people, forget stupid little things and surround yourself with people that if worst came to worst would care. Surround yourself with the people that make your life worth fighting for, because one day you might have to.