After months of GP appointments and no answers, Tom found himself in A&E in serious pain. It was made very clear to us that the doctors were looking for cancer, it was just a case of finding it.

When Tom texted me that it was cancer, I was actually in a lecture. Me and my friend left immediately. A million questions were running through my head. I had to go into town to do a food shop and on the way, I rang my mum and spoke to some friends. Despite the fear that the ‘c word’ induces, I couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved that finally there was an answer for why he was so poorly. My attitude was kind of ‘okay, what do we do now?’.

It was also clear from the start that the cancer had spread and that this journey was going to be gruelling and lengthy.

Throughout the journey we were walking into, I have been very aware that I don’t want to intrude on Tom’s family, they need time together, and although it doesn’t feel it, I was a relatively new addition to Tom’s life at this point. But that evening his family picked me up and took me to the hospital. I am continuously grateful for how welcoming his family are to me. I stayed at the hospital that night, the last thing I wanted was Tom spend a night scared and lonely.

The next thing that really hit me and is still the thing I try to work on the most, is the fear of saying it aloud. Saying ‘my boyfriend has cancer’ and seeing people try to find the right words to say makes the whole thing horribly real. I was scared about the amount of people I would have to tell, but I didn’t even want to speak the words. Sometimes I wish it were tattooed on me, or on a big sign that I could carry around so anyone I might come across knows that I’m struggling. But a few days later Tom set up a fundraiser on Facebook, so I could share this and not actually have to say it! Winner, I had a bit more time to come to terms with it all.

Something I also thought a lot about at this stage was that I don’t want to only talk about the cancer. Tom is still an amazing person, he isn’t just his illness, and I spend all day everyday thinking about it so, can we just talk about something else? My friends have been phenomenal from the start and they totally get this. They check in on me, but no one forces information out of me, they know I’ll give it if I want to.

This would be the start of me learning so much about cancer, things I was clueless to before now. I still learn new things, and I hate to sound stupid, but I didn’t know that if someone was throwing up and having severe pain, that the underlying cause could be cancer. I don’t mean to sound ignorant, but I never thought about cancer’s symptoms, I only ever thought about the side effects of treatment. But obviously this all changed very quickly.

Evie