Cancer picked
the wrong bloke.

Chapter 1

Not so long ago, life was ticking along beautifully

Early 2024. My wife Catherine was doing brilliantly with her hairdressing business. I was busy building my car body repair business. Our girls, Daisy and Rosie, were finally thriving after some genuinely tough times we'd been through as a family. We felt settled. Content. Genuinely lucky.

We had very little to complain about. And we knew it.

Then August came along and had other ideas.

Chapter 2

It started like any other evening — and then it really didn't

Work done, sorting dinner, girls home. And then out of nowhere the sharpest pain I have ever felt hit me in my back. Within minutes it was taking my breath away completely.

Being the stubborn bloke I am, I tried to ride it out. Then I felt a little pop somewhere inside, and just like that the pain eased off.

Catherine was not convinced for a single second. After more pain and more persuasion — she's very good at persuasion — I agreed to go to hospital.

Chapter 3

By the time we arrived, it was clear something was seriously wrong

The nurses didn't need much convincing — they could see it and hear it. "Likely a kidney stone," they said, "but we'll do a CT scan just to be sure." After what felt like an eternity and a very welcome dose of morphine, the pain became manageable.

And then we found out what was really going on. Not through a calm, considered conversation with a doctor — but through raised voices drifting in from the corridor outside my cubicle.

A severe haemorrhage in my kidney. A suspicious shadow on the scan. Possibly cancer, possibly not. More scans ordered. A surgeon put on standby. That night, lying there in the dark, it hit me properly for the first time — I could have died.

Chapter 4

And then came the hardest part — the waiting and not knowing

Scan after scan. Week after week. No real answers. Was it cancer? Was it benign? Was it something rare? At one point tuberculosis was even mentioned. I kept asking them to just remove it and find out. They kept explaining why they couldn't — not until they understood what they were dealing with.

By November 2024, the mass had grown from around 7cm to 12cm. That made the decision for everyone. Time to operate. They would remove the kidney entirely, and whatever was growing inside it along with it.

Chapter 5

Going into that operating theatre was one of the strangest feelings of my life

I had a quiet, private feeling before the operation that I might not make it through. I kept that entirely to myself — Catherine and the girls were worried enough without me adding to it.

Down I went, putting my trust in a surgical team and what I can only describe as a very impressive giant robot. I came round just after 9pm. I'd gone in at around 11 that morning. Ten hours. Definitely not ideal. My first words when I could speak?

It turned out I'd given them quite a run for their money in there. That made it the second time in a few months that my life had genuinely been in danger.

Chapter 6

There's a look that doctors give, and once you've seen it you never forget it

Seven weeks of waiting for the pathology results. Seven weeks of chasing phone calls and trying not to let my mind go to the darkest places. At week six, one of the surgeons who'd been in the operation gave me some real hope — with treatment, he believed I could be cured. Those were his actual words.

Catherine and I breathed properly for the first time in months.

And then came the follow-up appointment. I knew the moment I walked into that room. Before a single word was spoken. It's a look that doctors don't realise they're giving.

Chapter 7

I asked the question everyone in that situation is terrified to ask

Referred to an oncologist in Maidstone, I went in genuinely bracing myself for months. She explained I was incurable, that there was a significant recurrence, and that the cancer was an aggressive type. I asked whether they would still treat me.

"Of course we'll treat you," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

So I took a breath and asked the one I'd been dreading.

"Several years."

I felt genuine, overwhelming relief. I actually told her to wipe the look of doom off her face — the news, while devastating in one sense, was so much better than I'd been preparing myself for.

Chapter 8

Treatment started quickly, and somehow — so did living again

I'm on immunotherapy rather than chemotherapy, which is genuinely a blessing, though it still brings its own daily challenges that I won't pretend aren't real. Six months in, the results have been more positive than we dared hope. Lung tumours became unmeasurable. The remaining tumour started to break down. The disease is currently stable.

I don't know exactly how long I've got. Nobody does. Statistically the odds aren't in my favour — but I'm 46, which is young for this disease, and I'm still here, still fighting, still very much alive.

This past year has been one of the hardest of my life. And somehow, in ways I never expected, also one of the most meaningful. I no longer sweat the small stuff. I'm more present with the people I love. More connected to what actually matters.