The diagnosis

Right there and then it felt like my world suddenly fell apart. Surely this can’t be happening?

So many questions were rushing through my head- am I going to die? Who will look after my kids? I just wanted them to take me down to surgery there and then and get the thing out! But cancer is a tricky bugger, it’s not as simple as that. They were very thorough, and went through the plan, however further scans had revealed cancer was not only in the large tumour in the bowel but also spread to the liver and surrounding lymph nodes, which incidentally were in a very awkward place, next to vital veins and arteries, which would make surgery that bit more risky. The decision was made to have 4 rounds of chemotherapy to shrink the tumours and then operate, with a further 4 chemotherapy sessions to follow up afterwards.

Knowing this wasn’t going to be a quick fix was very daunting. It seemed like such a massive mountain to climb and I honestly feared the worse, but I didn’t have a choice, and so the journey began….