Many people in the last few weeks have wished me a much better 2019. I very much appreciate the well wishes but just want to set the record straight about how I live my life and how I wish we all could live.

2018 was a year and a half. Between the end of last year and today, I have experienced the worst of times and the best of times. I have been tested to my limits by things out of my control and tested myself to my limits by choice.

I have found a depth of feeling I never knew I had, a resilience that I had merely scratched the surface of until now and I am still experiencing the biggest test of my true self to date. It is hard to over-state just how traumatic suddenly losing your hair, breasts and fertility is. I keep going, I move forward but I feel invisible. I am almost moved at times to show people photographs from last year – ‘This is the real me!’, ‘You are mistaken!’ – but I do not. I am me, I am just reconditioning to how I am perceived in my new mould. It is fascinating. For those of you thinking – but why is she making it so hard for herself? Why not get surgery and some fake boobs? Surely that would help?

You are right in the sense that fake boobs or even prostheses, would help me to blend in, would have people ignore me less (not kidding) and treat me more like a normal human being but that is exactly the reason I won’t do it. Every morning when I get dressed, I am reminded of the challenges I have faced and still face. I am reassured by the fact I am minimising my risks (as much as I am able), making any recurrence easier to spot, minimising unnecessary surgery and by the fact that I am 100% me.

Until surgeons are able to create breasts that are safe, realistic and do not involve destroying healthy tissue elsewhere in the body, I will not have any.

I take full responsibility for the life I am making for myself.

Some of you know, many of you do not, that I was recently diagnosed with a genetic mutation in the CDKN2a gene. Catchy, huh! Very little is known about my specific mutation other than it caused my father to have 8 primary cancers and one secondary cancer of 4 different types over 13 years. Oh and a team in Leeds have known about my carrier status since 2003 but did not think it was important to tell me – much more on that later, it is going to be one hell of a story.

This mutation undoubtedly pre-disposes me to many cancers and will result in more prophylactic surgeries in the new year to help protect me as much as we can.

It also very much impacts my world view! I have said it before and will keep saying it. We cannot change what we are, which illnesses we are pre-disposed to or whether we will die younger or in old age. We can only impact what we chose to take from our life experience and how we chose to spend our time.

My chosen activities from now on might not make me popular, but will change how people are treated and, I hope, save or extend a few lives and empower a few more people to fight for what is right.

In the meantime, I will remember 2018 as a year I fought and won – not ‘against’ cancer, cancer is part of my life, I have to work with it, manage it and try to understand it – but against anyone who has tried to tell me I can’t do something or who has not done the right thing. Each small victory has empowered me to keep going.

If you feel it is right, if you believe something needs to change; make that change happen. Each small change starts a process by which much bigger change happens. Find out why you are here and make your brief visit on earth count.

In 2018, I did not have the life I dreamed I would have. It was different but so much better. And on we go…

Happy New Year!