I couldn’t have got through cancer without my Youth Support Coordinator Clare

When I got diagnosed in July 2021, I couldn’t quite believe it. I’d been having symptoms for around seven months, and I was initially sent away when I went to the GP. 

I’d been planning to start university later that year. I was over the moon when I picked up my A Level results, as I’d got an A in Finance which I needed to get into my first choice of university. I didn’t know what my treatment would look like at that point, so going to uni still felt like a possibility. 

An hour later, I got a phone call to say that I’d be starting chemotherapy at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford the following week. 

I felt really defeated. I was diagnosed at such a young age and I felt like the next chapter of my life was taken away from me. All my friends were going to university, and I would be stuck in treatment.  

It was difficult to find people to relate to me as I was grieving for the future I’d lost, while they were celebrating getting into university. Some people said: “Well I’m deferring so I’m not going this year either’. But it was completely different because that was their choice. No-one got it. 

I met Teenage Cancer Trust’s Youth Support Coordinator, Clare, the first time I went to The Churchill. Clare is amazing. She is always there when I need her the most. I couldn’t have got through cancer without her being there for me.  

She came to see me each time I was in for chemo. I couldn’t have family or friends with me due to Covid restrictions, so having her there made a world of difference. I couldn’t concentrate on reading a book, so chatting to Clare helped pass the time. She’d also bring me a Costa coffee, which sounds like a little thing, but it would brighten up my day. 
 

She was a constant in my life, and she knew everything that was going on with me. We talked about medical things to start with, but then I got bored of talking about cancer as that’s all the medical staff would talk to me about. So, we started to talk about day-to-day things. She now knows my whole life story. 

She was there to listen to my disappointment of not being able to go to uni. Everyone else would say that things would get better, or they would try to give advice, but Clare would just listen to me and let me offload. She’d say: ‘I hear you. It’s tough.’ Her validating it was exactly what I needed. 

Clare also introduced me to some other young people with cancer through the social events which she ran. The events are really nice, and it’s so important to have friends who also have cancer and know what you are going through.  

I don’t feel alone now. We don’t even have to talk about cancer the whole time – just being around someone going through the same thing is reassuring. We all know how it feels and it is comforting.