“I was inspired to become a MOTR model to show that women living with lung cancer can and do live happy, full and fruitful lives.”
Julie’s Story
“The last thing I expected to find myself doing following my lung cancer diagnosis was strutting my stuff on the catwalk!”
I’m 59 and was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2021. At the time I could not say the “C” word let alone put it with the “L” word. I felt like I had been kidnapped from my real life and transported into a horror movie. I’d had no symptoms and was feeling really well when the lung cancer bombshell was dropped.
I experienced immense difficulty adjusting to my new and unwelcome role of ‘cancer patient’. I found the journey to be a terrifying and lonely experience as I embarked on what felt like a relentless round of scary tests and scans prior to undergoing some pretty gruesome sounding treatments.
At that point all I felt was fear and panic. I could not envisage how anybody went from this point to accepting their new reality and learning to live with cancer. Fortunately I stepped out of my comfort zone and into Maggie’s where I received an incredible amount of both practical and emotional support.
I began to mentally prepare for what I had been warned would be a gruelling treatment programme; concurrent chemo/radiotherapy. Part of this treatment regime involved twice daily radiotherapy sessions with a chemo session thrown in at midday for good measure.
Bad news seemed to be constantly followed by more bad news. I was warned that my type of cancer liked to rear its ugly head……..in the brain. I was advised to have a preventative treatment called Prophylactic Cranial Irradiation (PCI) which involved 10 sessions of radiotherapy to the brain or in the words of a friend, ‘Having my brain microwaved.’
I was fitted out with a custom made face mask (very Hannibal Lecter) which clipped me to the trolley and felt like being strapped in the electric chair. Fortunately I don’t seem to have become any more bonkers following the PCI.
I had already lost my hair due to chemo and was warned that PCI could cause permanent damage to the hair follicles which may result in my hair never growing back. However, I’m happy to report that after a slow start my hair seems to be making a full (although grey) reappearance.
Shaving my head before my hair fell out in clumps had been much more traumatic than I had anticipated and I became quite weepy and emotional. An unrecognisable woman stared back at me from the mirror. I was looking at a bald ‘cancer patient’ and facing up to the reality……she was actually me.
I didn’t get along well with my new blonde wig, it never felt quite ‘me’. It was also quite uncomfortable to wear but thankfully Maggie’s had introduced me to HeadWrappers, (a charity helping women cope with hair loss due to cancer treatment). I learnt lots of exciting ways to style my head and made lots of new friends among the other follicly challenged ladies at our fortnightly Tea, Topknots and Turbans virtual get togethers.
After my treatment finished, I was approached by Cancer Research UK and offered a place on a clinical trial looking at the effects of immunotherapy on my particular type of cancer. It’s a blind study so I don’t know (neither does the trial doctor) whether I am being given “Durvalumab” (the immunotherapy treatment) or a placebo. Either way I am feeling great and incredibly grateful.
I’m now nine months into my cancer journey and preparing for my role as a model in Maggie’s on the Runway. I’m taking part as I would like to change people’s common perceptions of a lung cancer patient, remove some of the stigma and show that we can feel good, look great, beat some pretty grim odds and thrive whilst living with lung cancer.
I’d like to thank my fellow feisty “lung ladies” who gave me hope and inspiration when I felt helpless and petrified. Without your support I would not be where I am now and most definitely not preparing to strut my stuff on the catwalk.
