I feel like I should be sitting in a room full of strangers in a circle. I announce: My name is David and I have cancer.

How did I get here and how’s it going, this one is life changing and I want you to journey with me.

Back in about 1994 I was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and although not thyroid cancer I was treated at St Mary’s in Portsmouth with radioactive iodine, this resolved my problem for some years and then I started hitting the ceiling again, a repeat of the treatment really put paid to my thyroxine output and made my hypothyroid.

Fast forward to 2020 and the day after my 60th birthday I was given a diagnosis of Tonsil cancer caused by HPV and my first radiotherapy treatment was lockdown day 23rd March. 6 weeks of radiotherapy cured the cancer and I just needed the checkups just in case.

Autumn 2023 I was diagnosed with tonsil cancer on the other side, radiotherapy was 1st choice but needed to be backed up with chemo and the removal of a string of lymph nodes from my neck causing damage to the tongue muscle but nothing I couldn’t deal with. Christmas Day was Christmas dinner in a bowl full of gravy.

Early autumn 2025 and I’m back at Queen Alexandra hospital in Portsmouth for a biopsy of my tongue and the jawbone, reporting takes a while because it’s takes time to deal with the bone. Eventually we understand the bone is clear but the tongue is bad.

Now learn what’s going on and how it’s going to affect my life and all around me.

If you feel like I do that more research is necessary to help the medical services gain better outcomes for people suffering cancer then please donate. Nearly 50% of us are going to go through some form of cancer in the words of the National Lottery ‘It could be you’

Please donate.

David