For over three months now I have been menopausal. I was put on Zoladex to try and starve my tumour of oestrogen in hope it would inhibit its survival and the tumour would shrink. Zoladex is a hormone treatment that acts at the level of the pituitary gland, where it shuts off the production of [...]
Last week I was on the Victoria Derbyshire show discussing how the media portrays young women with illness. The discussion was following the publication of a controversial article by Cosmo. A woman's journey through numerous unrelenting health issues including cancer was documented, and how she had been gaining control and learning to love her body again by [...]
Today is a very bad day. My bad days are fairly rare, and in that way I have been lucky. My very bad days are rarer still, but today is a very bad day. Usually, I write on a good day when my mind is clear and rational, but as mental illness is so [...]
Self-care, not to be mistaken for ‘self-love’ (a common mistake of my male friends): ‘actions that individuals take for themselves, on behalf of and with others in order to develop, protect, maintain and improve their health, wellbeing or wellness’. Sounds fab right! As a young adult on treatment for a tumour it is certainly something [...]
Exercise has a huge range of benefits, both physically and mentally. This is something everyone is aware of and in recent years there has been a huge push in getting more people active. Yet there is still a damaging misconception that people with cancer need to rest up and take it easy. The benefits of exercise [...]
There is a Light: Brightlight is a production based on new research, the first of its kind, which is a 5 year nationwide study looking at the experiences of 1100 young adults through cancer. The production was performed by a mixture of actors and people who have had cancer in the past, and it was beautifully [...]
Happy International Women's Day! I wanted to honour this wonderful day by writing about uteruses and periods, because for most people this is still an uncomfortable and awkward subject. 51% of the world have a womb, a vagina and periods. Yet God forbid anyone talk about it! As a woman with a gynae tumour, society's attitude [...]
Cancer has taught me a lot, I have probably grown as a person more in the last four months than at any other point in my life. A silver lining I would happily do without but a silver lining none the less. I would love to write of novel ideas and revelations that blow your [...]
Hello Readlings, I am Lydia and welcome to my blog. I am the fresh young age of 24 and in November 2016 I was told I had a rare uterine tumour. There are only 10 cases of a uterine inflammatory myofibroblastoma in the literature, my consultant referred to it as 'vanishingly rare', rather poetic I think. [...]
Young, Wild and Fibroblastic 