Alexis C’s story

I didn’t choose this life, but it’s the one I’m living.

When I was found to be anaemic in July 2021, I followed the sensible next step and had a colonoscopy. I didn’t expect it to lead to cancer, or to surgery the very next day because my bowel was thought to have ruptured. There was no gradual entry into this world — I was dropped straight into it.

I was told I had Stage 3C bowel cancer. Serious, but still something that could be treated with intent. I did the six months of FOLFOX chemotherapy, got through it, and slowly returned to a life that felt recognisable again. For a while, cancer was something that had happened, not something that was happening.

That changed in November 2023, when metastatic disease was discovered.

There’s a particular kind of shock that comes with that word. Not panic exactly – more a quiet, hollowing realisation that the ground has shifted again. What followed wasn’t heroics or dramatic resolve, but decisions. Conversations. Weighing risks. Choosing what was worth attempting.

In January 2024, I travelled from Queensland to Sydney for surgery. It was a deliberate choice, not a desperate one. The operation lasted 12 hours and included a radical hysterectomy, gall bladder removal, peritonectomy, liver resection, and intra-operative chemotherapy. I spent 16 days in hospital afterwards. It was exhausting in ways that are hard to explain. That surgery wasn’t about wiping cancer away forever — it was about giving myself more ground to stand on.

After that, I moved through treatments that didn’t work as well as we’d hoped, and others that did. FOLFIRI with bevacizumab taught us what my cancer wasn’t responsive to. SIRT showed that local control could be effective. A single rib metastasis, treated with SBRT, showed that not every setback had to be catastrophic.

The real shift came with FOLFOX and panitumumab. The response was strong and clear. Scans quietened. Markers fell. That wasn’t a miracle – it was information. It showed that my cancer has patterns, and that those patterns can be worked with.

Since then, life has been less about milestones and more about balance. Some lesions still exist on scans, but they’re inactive. Blood results fluctuate. Appointments come and go. None of it is simple, but it’s also not the constant crisis people imagine cancer to be.

Hope, for me, doesn’t look like believing everything will be fine. It looks like trusting that there will be options, that decisions will be made thoughtfully, and that I can keep living a life that holds meaning even alongside uncertainty.

I’ve learned that I don’t need to be endlessly positive, or brave in a performative way. I just need to keep showing up to my own life – to the ordinary days, the quiet moments, the things that still bring steadiness.

This isn’t about fighting or winning.

It’s about living well enough, for as long as I can, in the life that’s here.

And that, for now, is enough.

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My one piece of advice:

Seek second opinions, choose your medical team and make sure your goals are aligned.

Read and research, or find an advocate who can. Learn about your specific cancer characteristics and what that might mean for treatment and other options. you want to be an active participant in your care.