ah, shit.

In April 2018 I was diagnosed with a skin cancer. That is, a skin cancer up. my. bottom. In other words, *anal* cancer. 

I mean, no cancer is sexy, but after saying “anal” six times a day to a series of horrified faces, you start to wish for the relative grace of some other less … bottom-y body part.

2018 was filled with many blurry months of tests, appointments, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and a particularly punchy 2.5 weeks in hospital for pain management.

I was served a bunch of lessons throughout this mess. One of them was, that relatively ‘young’ (ahem) people don’t talk about cancer much. And when they do, they don’t talk about it honestly. I found it enormously helpful to share what I was going through, enough to outweigh the embarrassment of chatting about my bottom to strangers.

So if you or someone you love have a front-row seat to the shitshow, firstly - I’m sorry. Secondly, hi. It’s shit. Want to get sweary together?