14/12/2025
Six years ago, my life split in two.
There’s the version of me who existed before cancer, and the one who has learned how to live alongside it. Not “after” it. Alongside it.
Because cancer doesn’t politely leave. It changes the shape of your days, your body, your plans, your sense of time.
Six years is a strange thing to mark. It’s long enough that people assume you’re “fine now,” and short enough that your body still remembers everything.
The scans, the surgeries, the waiting rooms. The way your life can hinge on a phone call.
I’ve lost things I didn’t know I was allowed to grieve – certainty, spontaneity, the ease of imagining a future without an asterisk. I’ve gained things I never asked for – resilience, perspective, a fluency in survival.
This anniversary isn’t about celebration. It’s about acknowledgement. About honouring the person I was when I was told my diagnosis, and the person I’ve had to become since.
About recognising that continuing to exist inside an ongoing illness is an achievement in itself.
Six years here.
Six years adapting.
Six years still showing up.
Even on the days I don’t feel brave or strong or hopeful.
And that counts.
