Here is Neil’s story of his health journey in his own words.
My name is Neil and I’m a solo recording artist from Manchester now living in Rugby. A few years ago, I had a major health scare. About late 2014 I was experiencing mild stomach gripes which was put down to IBS and the buscopan was alleviating the symptoms so I thought no more about it. Then, in September 2015 it started becoming worse. So I had a colonoscopy which, strangely, didn’t show anything up. Then about two weeks later it got unbearable so I took myself to A&E where it was confirmed that I had bowel cancer. Stage 3 as well so it’s puzzling that a colonoscopy didn’t pick it up. Anyway, things moved on quickly and before I had a chance to get my thoughts together properly I was under the knife for a bowel resection. Luckily the cancer had confined itself to my bowel so the operation had a huge chance of being successful. There were traces of cancer in 2 of the 28 lymph nodes they removed so there followed 12 rounds of Chemotherapy. It made me quite uncomfortable, nevertheless, I carried on working, just to cling on to some semblance of normality. I only managed 10 out of 12 sessions because the fatigue and mouth ulcers were getting a bit too much and the side effects were lasting longer with each cycle. After the treatment finished, my CT scan showed all was clear. My follow up scan a year later showed a different scenario. The cancer had, in fact, metastasised into my bowel lining. Another, rather pioneering operation followed (cyto reductive surgery with HIPEC) and only a 30% chance of success. This altered my perception of life somewhat and I started living in the moment as I was scared of thinking too far into the future. I’d prepared myself for the fact I might’ve seen my last Christmas or birthday and decided to start enjoying things a bit more, especially things I’d taken for granted. Even things like waking up in the morning. After getting a couple of subsequent all clear scans, I started to become more optimistic. When I met my now fiancée Tracey in 2018, I was very loathe to start a relationship just in case the worst happened. Luckily, she was prepared to take the risk and so not too long after, I moved to Rugby to live with her. Strangely enough, I’ve not creatively written about my cancer experience, maybe for fear nobody would listen, maybe because I don’t want to take myself back to the time where I was more emotionally unstable than I let people believe. For now, I’m cancer free, extremely happy and sharing my music with the world. Long may it continue.
