It was very eerie arriving at Sydney airport. Our plane had to circle around the city for 45 minutes due to delays caused by the bushfires. There were fires raging furiously all along the eastern coast of Australia and Sydney was surrounded by them. Apparently only two roads in and out of the city were […]
Blog 10: Into The Unknown…
Happy new year from 40,000 feet up in the sky… I’m sipping a Virgin Mary in business class while my 3 year old daughter and 73 year old mother slum it downstairs in economy. I’m on my way to Australia to try to get into the only trial in the world for colo-rectal cancer that […]
Blog 9: November
EXPLANATION: I wrote this blog back in November after 6 months of chemo. I was feeling pretty disheartened and never got round to publishing it. It took a few weeks to get my mojo back. Unfortunately the cancer also got its mojo back and an early scan in December showed progression. Which led to the […]
Blog 8: Gut Feelings
WARNING: In this Blog I talk a great deal about my bowel function or lack of it. I’ve just found out that I’ve got a campylobacter bacterial infection in my gut. More commonly known as food poisoning this little bastard lives in at least half of all raw chicken. And is most common in late […]
Blog 7 – An Update and A Backdate and a Plan forward.
March 18th 2019 Tomorrow I find out the verdict on my latest scan. Crucially this is going to tell me whether the radiotherapy I had in the autumn has worked or not. If it has worked then I may yet have a chance of getting rid of the inoperable cancer in my pelvis. However, for […]
Blog 6 – The Plus Side of Cancer
WARNING: I TALK ABOUT MY VAGINA IN THIS BLOG. My mother in law has written a play about the love life of a woman in her 60s. My husband, Liam, is pretty sure it’s about her own love life and has not been able to bring himself to read it. However, this Thursday (21 Feb), […]
Blog 5 – A slice of cancer
So this is what a slice of my bowel cancer looks like. Its been preserved in formaldehyde and embedded in a wax block. The mouldy green fringe is actually dye to delineate the edges under the microscope. It is quite profound for me looking at this still slide of flesh that has wreaked havoc with […]
BLOG 4: The adventures that substances formerly forming parts of our bodies have
I’m trying to break into the pathology lab to get a slice of my tumour to send to China. Quite a lot has happened since my last blog. First things first I’m not a match for the work they are doing at the National Institute for Cancer in the US. However this does not deter […]
Blog no. 3: My Great White Hope…
I know its very bad karma to wish cancer upon others but selfishly for the sake of my children I wish Bill Gates would get my type of KRAS mutated colon cancer. Just briefly and then obviously cure it and cascade that knowledge to the rest of us lowlier and less affluent cancer victims The tools […]
Claire’s Blog – post #2: An emotional afternoon in the Beatson and a win on the sweet contest
Today I’m in the Beatson again for a scan. It’s to plan my radiotherapy treatment which will start in a couple of weeks unless I find a cure for cancer before then. …read more…
Claire’s Blog – post #1
So much has happened to me in the last 15 months that it will take a while to put it all down here. I really don’t want to go on about the awfulness of my situation as it is a total downer for everyone including me. Rather I’d like to focus on the positive and very amazing things that are happening around me on this “journey” through hell and back. …read more…
