I feel a bit like a fraud in this place, I'm two years on from a stage four lung cancer diagnosis but I'm still alive and not planning to cash in my chips just yet.

I'll start at the beginning. In January 2018 I felt perfectly fine but I rolled up at the GP complaining that I couldn't do handwriting any more. That 10 minute appointment stretched out to half an hour, with the senior doctor at the practice popping in to add his opinion too, and the upshot was I got sent straight off to hospital with no say-so in the matter. Everyone who spoke to me was amazed I had been able to walk to the GP surgery in the first place - scary!

Long story short, I had a brain tumour, that got cut out and the bed irradiated. That tumour was the spread from a lung cancer (confirmed because whenever they cut something out of you they analyse it afterwards.) I had just the one lung tumour proper, a few dodgy spots in my lungs here and there plus well enlarged lymph nodes between my lungs. The consultant gave me six months, tops. I was more frightened than I could imagine was possible.

After that, though, so far it's been good news all the way. I tested 80% suitable for immunotherapy and went straight on to 200mg pembrolizumab at 3-week intervals. The lung tumour is still shrinking and is currently at 3cc from an original 30cc. The dodgy spots in my lungs seem to have cleared up and the lymph nodes have shrunk down to normal. Recovering from the brain tumour took longer than they told me to expect - after six months they assessed me as recovered but I disagreed and a total of 18 months had passed before I stopped getting "Oh, that's working again!" moments. (I'm also aware that the thing I'm using to assess my mental recovery is the very thing that has been damaged.)

Much gratitude and kudos to the Hospital, who could not have been more thorough, professional and caring in every conceivable way.

Cheers, Steve