Ciara Mageean

Because the reality is, I don't know.

I don't know what the results are going to be after my next set of scans.

I don't know if they're going to say we're going to give you more chemotherapy, you can have surgery.

And even at that, that's such difficulty of booking something.

And I think it's something that really resonates with people on a journey like mine.

I have a CT scan due at the end of June and my next PET scan is mid-July.

I'm pursuing some second opinions.

I had a lovely conversation with a doc from down here in Dublin, an oncologist here in Dublin.

This morning, I'm going to

nip into him next week so everything is constantly evolving and moving and it is a difficult thing I'm obviously being treated at home in the north in the NHS I'm going to get some second opinions from some of the hospitals within the NHS my MDT team is going to approach other hospitals for that advice there's a hospital in New York Sloan Kettering that is really pivotal and kind of on the

on the forefront of new research into bowel cancer in particular.

I'm going to try to reach out to them and the doctors that I'm with and the doctors that I'm getting opinions from have connections there.

And it is tough because whenever you start reaching outside of that, all of this stuff costs money.

And yeah, there's that.

You seem to be doing a fairly decent job of that.

I'm trying.

I'm trying.

And don't get me wrong, there's days whenever I was on the chemo, I would be...

MIA for a week I would just be in bed and feeling very ill I had a syringe driver to try to get the drugs into me because I was vomiting my anti-sickness pills up so there is days where I just have to listen to my body and stop but equally now whenever a friend sends a message through do you want to come to something I'm like I'll obviously look I'll be like make sure there's no hospital appointments that day yes I'm going do you want to grab a lunch yeah Ellen Keane had tickets to Kingfisher in Belfast she had messaged I'm like right Ellen we're going and

Do you know, there's so many little things I'm like, yeah, grasp that because we all go through our lives and opportunities come up and we're like, oh, I fit that in.