My excuse for not doing the group project was cancer

First, a little backstory.  After an amazing gap year, I was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma cancer in August 2024. Not the gap-year-girl cliché I had in mind. Cancer was in my brain and lung. I went on steroids to control the tumour and was told I had three weeks left to live unless I had an operation. Post-operation, I have been undergoing immunotherapy treatment and a bit of radiotherapy, I’m still on this treatment.

I will never forget the moment I was told I had cancer. My mum’s strained voice, my dad’s silence, and the now comical moment when we left the room bumping into each other as we hurriedly tried to find the exit through teary eyes. My first, most important question wasn’t will I live, but will I lose my hair. Priorities may have needed adjusting. They didn’t know – there was little clarity at this stage, they didn’t know what treatment I’d be doing, or for how long, or if I’d even survive.

My second question was can I still go to uni?  The advice from my oncologist was a firm no. As I sat in the pub a week before uni, hearing all my friends talking about how excited they were, I still didn’t know if I could go. That night was the first of many where I felt isolated from friends. This made me determined to go to university. My mum was the hardest to convince. She promised staying home would be more fun.  I kindly told her that spending a year on the sofa would kill me before the cancer did. Days before term started, I finally convinced my parents, arguing my mental health should be considered as much as my physical health.

Freshers looked a little different for me. The steroids and operation I’d done 14 days prior left me arriving with a face like a spotty pufferfish, and, whilst everyone was putting on their Urban Outfitter’s gingham bedding, I put on disposable sheets in case I shat the bed. Thankfully I didn’t. Given my exhaustion from treatment, Mum even offered to pay a lady in Bristol to cook for me, however I firmly declined, not wanting the rep of the Hiatt Baker girl with a private chef.

I spent Freshers’ finding the balance between resting and going out, debating how much I should drink. Whilst others stressed about making friends, my stress was whether this cancer treatment would work.

My immunotherapy treatment works by getting my immune system to attack the cancer, but it can get confused and attack vital organs instead. Waiting to see which side effect I get is like playing Russian roulette with my health. Potential side effects such as diabetes, blindness, infertility, heart, liver, lung, and brain problems, among many others are what have been cited to me by doctors. A great excuse to get out of deadlines.

My thyroid was affected: hello weight gain, brain fog, hair thinning and low mood. On Christmas Eve 2024, I went into cortisol crisis and learnt I have a life-long condition where my body is unable to make its own cortisol. I am now dependent on hydrocortisone tablets, three times a day.  Things like fever, vomiting, stress and missing a dose can quickly lead to a cortisol crisis, which can be fatal. I’ve come dangerously close a couple times. My mum would tape my pills and injection kit to my body if she could! I had an infertility scare, which led to my therapist recommending we part ways as she was pregnant. During this period I wasn’t allowed to return to uni until March. I attend more hospital appointments than lectures, sadly with no ‘Fault in our Stars’ romance. Even now, a year later, my oncologist keeps demanding that I stay home instead of continuing to attend university, I was late to the start of the new term – and have missed so many nights out.

In January 2025, the tumour in my brain returned, I underwent targeted radiotherapy. As friends enjoyed the new term, the radiotherapy mask was bolting me to a table, pinning my face down so I couldn’t move an inch. I did get to keep the mask which does make a great Halloween costume! I returned to uni in March, bracing myself for bald spots from radiotherapy – perfectly timed for the polka dot trend. I hoped every time I brushed my hair that I wouldn’t see chunks falling out. By a miracle from God, I didn’t lose hair, despite the radiographer saying I would.

Spring/Summer term brought further challenges. My cancer means I should never tan again. My oncologist advises me to wear long UV protective clothing, a sun hat and stay inside or in shade from 12-3:00. I have left the Downs multiple times because of my sun-anxiety. However, no Bondi Sands bottle is good enough to match a natural tan so I am trying to find a balance.

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My second year at uni has started with me in a much better place, though my uni experience still differs from others. Right now, I am writing this article in hospital when I should be attending lectures. I often spend mornings in hospital with teenagers starting chemo, or critically ill young patients fighting for their lives – then I head back to Bristol in time for pres! I’m now adept at switching from cancer mode to party mode, grateful to be one of the patients still able to go out and live my life.

Whilst my friends are getting in new relationships, I get more sleepovers in hospitals, more intimacy from doctors touching my boobs during ECGs, and spent Valentine’s calling an ambulance and sleeping over in hospital with my parents. As friends use ChatGPT to find essay references, I use it for 4am panic questions about symptoms, side effects, whether I’m going into a cortisol crisis – and, high on my list, how I can get a tan without going in the sun?

Clubbing comes with some maths. Did I take enough hydrocortisone? Can my body keep up? On the nights I manage to stay until close, I feel victorious that cancer didn’t hold me back, having cancer is also a great excuse to miss my 9am the next morning. However, the reality is that I am often one of the first ones to leave the pub. Friends are running marathons, but my goal is to stay at WG on a Monday past 10:30, or have one day where I don’t feel some sort of side effect or need an afternoon nap.

And with many early morning appointments traipsing to Southampton hospital, there are a lot of 7am starts after late nights. My hangxiety looks a little different too.  With frequent scans where I lie there for several hours immobile, there is plenty of time to reflect on every drunk conversation in Daisy’s. I also avoid colds, coughs and illnesses with a vigilance akin to how Bristol students avoid UWE students because if I get sick, my immune system may not be able to fight it or will overreact and attack an organ.

During the holidays, against medical advice, I work as a waitress. I have spent mornings feeling nauseous or with a splitting headache, and, with alarming consistency manage to walk into work as if I was fine.

As my birthday approaches, I find myself in an unwanted medical suspense game, after weeks of difficult symptoms, reasons could be brain swelling which I pray it isn’t, to more dire side effects, to stopping treatment because my body can’t tolerate it anymore, so I await more scans, potential biopsies and tests.

After a year and a half of cancer treatment, (six months more to go, to target the cancer in my lung unless I have to stop) you’d think I’d have lots of meaningful life-changing epiphanies. But, honestly, I am still grieving my old healthy self who lived care-free, with no health anxieties, and who was always energised and felt 100%. The girl who wasn’t reliant on pills to keep her alive, didn’t think about death, didn’t cancel or leave plans early because she’s feeling crap, hadn’t lost control of her body, and didn’t spend half her time in a hospital. Or wondering if every headache I get is the tumour returning in my brain.

However, I am learning to be grateful for right now. It could be so much worse. Whilst I begrudge why me, I am still so lucky. I have many things to be grateful for, especially for my friends, family, and for God.

Having missed so much of first year and not having the same energy to socialise, I do feel on the back foot sometimes. But this illness has shown me where I should invest my energy at uni: and it’s with the friendly faces that don’t even know about my cancer but always greet me with warmth and smiles. To those closer to me who enjoy my company when I am on top form and when I am not, friendships that build me up.

Going forward, like a cliché Bristol girl I want to travel again, avoiding an adrenal crisis! In the next couple months, I hope to get my licence back after being banned for a year and a half because of the tumours.  I also hope to be cancer free this year and for it to never come back, and one day I hope I will never have to go to Southampton again!