I have stage 4 bowel cancer. I probably still have a year to two years to live because it hasn't progressed yet to other major organs. The primary tumour was removed but it had already spread to lymph nodes that can't be removed so it will get me in the end, just a question of where and when
I was diagnosed almost a year ago, a couple of weeks before Christmas. It's been a difficult year for me personally but I am coming to terms with my own life and death and I hope to face up to it all with grace and dignity. I've had a good lifeand I'm grateful for everything I've experienced.
The thing that is breaking my heart though and haunts me daily is knowing how this is going to affect my husband, Mum, sister, grown up children. I know how I would feel if this had happened to one of them. In many ways it's going to be so much harder for them because my eventual death will just compound the grief they're probably already feeling now. At least for me, it all ends when I die. I only have to find a way to make the most of the time I have, and I don't have to worry about what comes after, from my own perspective.