Hi. I came on here in August 2019, scared, after being diagnosed with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer. It has been misdiagnosed for around 2 years and was only really found when I was taken to A&E with sepsis. The cause? The bowel tumour has burst through and spread to my ovaries and, with more investigation, spread to my liver. Of course I looked at the stats..even though you are told not to. I consulted Dr Google.. .even though you are told not to.  I was 5 months from my 40th birthday and now I was being told I may not make it to that!

I couldn't really find any positive stories of people in my situation apart from Deborah James , but she wasn't exactly living a cancer free life. I almost resigned myself to my fate. 

BUT I had an amazing NHS consultant and oncologist and I was given a stoma to help build my strength up, was put on chemo -which extended but continued through COVID. I had the mother of all operations (a pelvic exenteration aka autopsy) in the middle of COVID followed by a liver reaction 3 months later. More chemo....then a CLEAR scan! No evidence of disease. That was July 2021 and I have remained NED since that date and had no further treatment. 

5 years...I have now hit the magic 5 years! I know I am very lucky and not everyone gets here, but I wish I could go back 5 years and tell myself not to compare myself to others, that you are NOT an out of date statistic and just take one day at a time.  

So here I am ..the positive hope story.  I really do hope those reading this get as lucky as me 

There will be awful days where you want to give up, but start each day afresh and keep your head up and keep going. X