Category: Coping with Cancer

Life after bowel cancer starts the minute you’re given the all clear. In my case, I was told that I was ‘Cancer Free’ in April

And so here I finally am; at the end of my initial experiences with cancer: when I was Coping With Cancer. My depression after bowel

This will be the penultimate post recounting the first stage of my ongoing experience with cancer. The stage that I’ve come to think of as

In a recent post, I discussed the impact of your cancer on the people around you. In that post, I suggested that, ‘to some extent,

Before my bowel resection surgery, I was warned that I might end up living with an ileostomy bag. As it was, I woke up with

Cancer, when it happens, it doesn’t only happen to the patient, it happens to the other people in the patient’s life. I wasn’t diagnosed with

In the UK, there is a public health service, known as the National Health Service (NHS), which provides comprehensive, universal health care, that is free at

Chemotherapy after surgery for bowel cancer is a lot like chemotherapy before surgery for bowel cancer. And I’ve already written about that.  To which end,

Having woken up with a colostomy bag, following bowel surgery to remove my primary tumour, and deciding that the bags were better than irrigation, it

Having unexpectedly woken with a colostomy bag, and then choosing to continue using colostomy bags over irrigation, it was just a case of living with

Waking with a colostomy bag after bowel surgery was something of a challenge. But the next one was just around the corner. Deciding on whether

After my bowel cancer surgery, waking with a colostomy bag was something of a shock. Particularly as I’d got my mind around the idea that I’d