Stephen Sutton - My Inspiration

This week's blog post must be dedicated to an incredible man called Stephen Sutton, who, unless you've been hiding from the news over the past week, has had a pretty turbulent time of late!

This time last week I was feeling incredibly low due to the fact that Stephen had given a "final thumbs up" as he thought he'd reached the end of the road. One of his lungs had collapsed and he was finding it very difficult to breathe. Over the next few days over two million pounds was raised for the Teenage Cancer Trust by people who were inspired by this amazing guy. A guy who has dedicated the last four years of his life to raising money for the Teenage Cancer Trust since being diagnosed with bowel cancer when he was fifteen. Now, it's very easy for someone to just recount statistics and information about how much money Stephen has raised and it certainly doesn't lessen anything that he has achieved, but when I met the man at last Octobers Find Your Sense of Tumour, my life was completely changed and so I would like to give a little bit of an insight into how he managed to do this.

Maybe it'll inspire you too...

When I met Stephen at the annual Teenage Cancer Trust event, a weekend that was created to help young people with cancer meet others who can relate to their situation, I was blown away by the matter of fact nature of the man. I had been diagnosed almost a year before and was still nowhere near coming to terms with the fact that for whatever reason, I had been diagnosed with Leukaemia. In all honesty, I was stuck in the "Why me? It's not fair" situation. Yet when Stephen Sutton ambled onto the stage with a slight hobble and his hands in his pockets I wasn't prepared for my life to be altered so drastically. This man had not only come to terms with the awful knowledge that he had terminal cancer and a terminal cancer that would mean that he wouldn't reach middle age, but he seemed positively buoyant when discussing it! I couldn't fathom how on earth he could feel so at ease talking about his illness and what it meant for his future, but soon I began to understand.

Stephen has a mantra which he strives to instill into people. He spoke of it when he was at Find Your Sense of Tumour and based on his Facebook page and Twitter account, he still lives by this belief.

Stephen could not emphasise enough that it is far more important to go out and live every single day as if it was your last instead of waiting for things to just happen. Getting the news that you have cancer is honestly very very strange. Yes, it's also ghastly and scary and all those other things, but certainly for me, there was a sense of "Oh...So what's next?" Stephen had those thoughts too it would seem. Now he chooses to go out and make "what's next" the best that it can be, and that just changed my entire view on being diagnosed. He has inspired me to make the most of every single day, to throw myself into activities that I love and enjoy and that help me achieve my goals. Now, Stephen pulled through this week and even "coughed up a tumour" doing so, believe it or not. However, even today he has posted that he is still riddled with tumours in his legs and lungs and as awful as it is, all that has happened is that he has been bought a little more time. But I know that he will be more determined than ever to make the most of his time left. He has inspired  more young lives than he can probably imagine and I am very thankful and feel so privileged that I am one of those many people whose life has been changed because of meeting him. I now appreciate what I do have to live for far more than I did this time last year and his optimism and hope for life has rubbed off on me just enough to make me enjoy life for what it is, rather than for what it could have been.

"Normal Will"

Again, apologies for missing another week's update but with exams looming, I'm still trying to juggle revision and well, pretty much everything else!

Physically, I've been feeling pretty good of late. I'm not too exhausted and my recent steroids weren't as grim as they have been and so I think it's just as important to acknowledge the improvements as well as the more difficult effects of the treatment.

Earlier in the week, I chose to take a few hours out of my revision to meet up with some friends in town and I bumped into a friend I'd made while on the Royal Albert Hall trip. It was a very strange experience from me as it felt like two very different parts of my life had come together. I've always tried to keep my social life and school life away from hospital, tablets and of course that includes fellow patients on the ward. I'm not saying that that is the right or wrong thing to do, but it breaks down the oppressive nature of always having the idea of "cancer" around me and therefore I feel more like a "normal" teenager. However, chatting to my friend from hospital in town made me realise that there doesn't have to be such a distinct difference between "hospital/cancer Will" and "normal Will". At home I'm a bit of both and that seems to work so perhaps in the future, I'll be less inclined to compartmentalise who I am.

Royal Albert Hall

Missed writing last week's post as I got caught up in an essay that I just couldn't put down, I seemed to keep going back to the same piece of History coursework over and over again!

Anyway, it would be remiss of me if I didn't recap on the incredible couple of days that I spent up in London with the Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall. The whole event seemed to pass by in a flash and it just reinforced my belief that the week of music and comedy commandeered by the likes of Roger Daltrey and Noel Gallagher, is the best event organised for and by the Teenage Cancer Trust every year. After spending a couple of hours playing some music, we were given the opportunity to meet the artists performing that night on stage! As you can see below, I was thrilled to meet Paolo Nutini as well as shake hands and chat with Roger Daltrey, who seemed as excited to meet us, as we did to see him!

The music began at 7:30 and as we were representatives of Teenage Cancer Trust, our tickets were some of the best in the house. Before Paolo played his set however, Roger Daltrey and his friend Wilko Johnson, who is suffering from terminal pancreatic cancer, played an impromptu 25 minute set to the surprise of the rest of the audience! At the interval, all of the Teenage Cancer Trust's representatives were brought onto the stage to voice our thanks to everyone who had donated to this amazing charity, just by coming to watch the concert and paying a little bit extra than would normally be expected for their ticket. 

While the money that was raised was completely fantastic, just as importantly, I felt that the time given up by not only the performers but also the Teenage Cancer Trust workers showed an enormous amount of  dedication and care which is just as valuable. 

Needless to say it's given me a tremendous lift which is just as well as I am embarking on my intensive revision for my forthcoming exams - I believe Philosophy tonight is focusing on The Problem of Evil and Suffering - something I consider myself a bit of an expert on!