About Me

I was diagnosed with bowel (colon) cancer in March 2014. Two years later, I was told that it was terminal, and moved onto palliative care. In April 2018, I started sharing my story…

At the point of my diagnosis, I’d been married to Julie for 15 years and my daughters, Emma and Ceri, were 12 and 10, respectively. I didn’t want to burden them with the thoughts swirling around my head, so I started a journal.

As the months of journal entries turned into years of journal entries, I realised that I had put together something useful. Something that could help prepare other cancer patients for their journey ahead.

A blog was the obvious way to get my story out there, but first I had three obstacles to overcome:

  • My lack of knowledge about blog sites and blogging, which made it difficult to know where to begin.
  • My ongoing battle with depression, which made it very difficult to start working out how to begin.
  • The ‘chemo brain’ side effect of my treatment, which meant I was unable to concentrate anyway.

Which meant it took some time but, by April 2018, I was ready to go, and the site went live.

Ready and raring to go before my lung resection in July 2018.

Initially, the site had two main aspects: this Cancer Dad blog, and; my Chubby House Hubby blog. I quickly found that constantly writing about, and reliving the memories of, my experiences with cancer was nudging me back towards depression. So I needed a distraction; another outlet, and the Chubby House Hubby blog was born. A place where I could write about my life as a stay at home dad, bringing up teenage girls and battling with my weight.

By the end of 2018, though, I felt that the levity of Chubby House Hubby was out of place with the needs of people visiting a site called Cancer Dad. Being diagnosed with cancer was one of the most traumatic moments of my life. I doubt that I am alone in this. So, anyone looking for advice on what their experience with cancer might include, is likely to want to be able to focus on just that. Which is why, in January 2019, I split the site. Anyone wanting to visit the Chubby House Hubby site, can do so here.

Way back in 2014, half way through my first course of chemo, when Julie and a couple of her friends came up with this T-shirt… I do like my cakes!

To date, my experiences with cancer have fallen into two categories:

  • Coping with Cancer – which details the time from my initial diagnosis to the point I was told I was Cancer Free;
  • Living with Cancer – which covers the point of my first recurrence, through to now.

The Coping with Cancer category is arranged in the date order in which the posts were made, which is to say; oldest to newest. This is so the posts act as sequential chapters on the site.

The Living with Cancer category is ongoing, and, as such, is arranged more traditionally with the newest posts first.

Additionally, from January 2019, as I’m up to date with my treatment, I will posting in new categories:

  • Things that are said to cure cancer;
  • Things that are said to cause cancer.

Each month I’ll do my best to study one in each category to discover whether there is any truth in the claims. If anyone has any suggestions as to what I should investigate, please let me know.

Additionally, if you need further information about anything I’ve written, please get in touch, and I’ll help if I can.