“March 2020, the world locked down in response to the pandemic. In the early summer of this strange year, like so many other people across the globe, I developed long Covid. I felt like my body was failing me. My GP ordered a chest x-ray. Neither of us were expecting to find a three-centimetre mass in my left lung.
“After CT and PET scans, a consultant called me to let me know it was malignant. I had lung cancer. I felt as if a crater had appeared in my beautiful, flower-filled garden.
“I am a non-smoker, a vegetarian. I am usually in good health. It was incomprehensible. Was this all due to coronavirus? I could not compute what was happening to me.
“Since then, I have learned that lung cancer can affect anyone, regardless of gender, smoking history, age.
“I have non-small adenocarcinoma with an EGFR mutation. Increasing numbers of women and younger people are being diagnosed with this and other genetically driven lung cancers and enormous amounts of research is attempting to find out why.
Cancer angels
“My partner, Sarah, and I somehow navigated each step of this ordeal. Together in spirit but not always in body as I faced surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy alone due to covid restrictions.
To anyone facing treatment, I say this; we are all different. Our bodies respond to medical interventions in individual ways. It is astonishing what we can endure with the love, support, care and attention of those around us. We can do hard things. For me, chemotherapy was gruelling. For others I know who had the same regime, they were much less toxically affected.
“Sarah was my cancer angel. She still is. Together, we got through it. My three adult children are my constant champions and best friends. When the darkest moments hit, when I was hit by terror, I said their names repeatedly to myself. My mantra; Eloise, Fred, George. In fact, I still do except now I add my granddaughter’s name too.
A post-cancer world
“In 2021, treatment over, I stepped tentatively back into my life and tried to make sense of the world post-cancer.
“My mind, body and soul needed recovery time. The pre-cancer me thought that once people had finished treatment, they were better. Oh boy, how wrong I was. For many of us, we need as much compassion, kindness and love after as we did during the ordeal.
“I bought a step counter and started to build my stamina by walking 10,000 steps a day. During cancer crater time, there were days when I couldn’t manage a hundred. I began to develop a remarkable appreciation of a blue sky, a field of daffodils, a smile from a stranger, of my truly wonderful tribe of friends and my precious family. I began to untangle myself from cancer and build a new, changed but positive identity.
Recurrence
“In April 2022, a scan showed tiny suspicious nodules on both lungs. Too small to biopsy, the team of superheroes at my wonderful hospital monitored them every six months as I lived in this in-between phase.
The nodules were described as indolent. A fabulous word meaning lazy. I don’t think I have ever been lazy in my life. But lazy tumours? I’ll take them.
“I finally had a lung biopsy in April 2024. It was confirmed that I have a recurrence. The nodules are now classified as tumours. I have inoperable stage 4 lung cancer.
“I am lucky as I take a daily targeted therapy drug, Osimertinib, and like many of us I am a fully signed-up member of the Osi fan club. The drug inhibits tumour growth. So far, my side-effects are minimal.
When it stops working, and it will, I trust that the dedicated, remarkable researchers and clinicians will have other options up the sleeves of their white coats. There is much progress in lung cancer treatment. We are beginning to see it as living with a chronic health condition, not a death sentence.
“I am for the most part bouncy and happy. None of us know what the future holds. My ‘now’ is full of joy. I am a patient advocate for Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and an active member of a charity that supports people with the same mutation as me.
My Lovely Lungs
“I write too about my cancer experience, My Lovely Lungs. The creative connection with others through my writing is gratifying, humbling and beautiful. It heals me. I hope that my writing raises awareness about lung cancer, about all cancers. After all, one in two of us will be diagnosed in our lifetimes. I want to open the conversation, to speak up and voice the lived experience of all people with lung cancer.
“Cancer should not be a taboo. People with cancer can and do live with va-va-voom whatever their diagnosis, stage or treatment status. We carry on with the beautiful business of living.”
Read Mel’s My Lovely Lungs articles here