Ruby was a lover not a fighter. A dyed in the wool pacifist who avoided all forms of conflict.
She was the child in the kindergarten playground trying to broker a peace-deal between friends who had fallen out.
🧵1/n
Being diagnosed with cancer means you are recast as a warrior, whether you like it or not.
This doesn’t happen with other medical conditions. We don’t talk about battling heart disease or a broken leg.
2/n
When Ruby was diagnosed with cancer, well meaning friends told me she was tough. A fighter. That she was going to be okay.
She really wasn’t a fighter. But she was determined to live.
And she did everything the doctors told her to, to give her the best chance of this.
3/n
Louise Dillon, whose son Fred died of cancer the same month as Ruby, wrote
“There is a reason we don’t send children to war. If cancer is a battle, it is one that nobody volunteered for, that no one understands and everyone would run away from if they could.”
4/n
If Ruby had ever faced conscription she would without doubt have been a conscientious objector.
But as oncologist @marklewismd says, when it comes to cancer: ‘There is no conscientious objection here. Malignancy turns lambs to lions and then slaughters them anyway.’
5/n
Saying that people lost their battle with cancer suggests that, had they tried harder, they might have survived.
But Ruby & Fred didn’t die of cancer because they didn’t try hard enough.
They died because we haven’t yet found a treatment that will cure them.
/ends
PS - Fred should have been turning 18 next week
His friends & family are asking people to donate the cost of a birthday drink to childhood cancer research
So that more effective treatments can be found to save children & teenagers like Fred and Ruby ❤️
It’s Dying Matters Awareness Week. The theme is how we talk about dying.
Most people hate talking about dying & - medical professionals included - tend to shy away from naming it directly
(This is our last photo of Ruby, 6 days before she died)
1/n #DyingMattersAwarenessWeek
Yet we’re all going to die. It’s one of the few certainties in life.
When we were told Ruby’s cancer could no longer be cured, Ruby’s greatest fear was how she was going to die. We asked her consultant, Rob Dowse, if he might be able to talk through the likely scenarios.
2/n
He sat with Ruby & me for over an hour, talking calmly about all the ways that a teenager might die from leukaemia - & the support that would be offered to ensure she wouldn’t be in pain.
(Here he is with a younger patient - photo from the Royal Marsden)
It’s the last day of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, & I wanted to share this photo of Ruby, 2 weeks before her diagnosis. She’d been poorly for a few weeks; doctors were sure her symptoms were due to allergies. You can see a raised lymph node in her neck.
#ccam 1/n
This is a key symptom of lymphoma. But of course it’s also a symptom of many other less serious illnesses.
But this plus the unexplained bruising on Ruby’s stomach should, together, have been the red flag that meant she needed urgent tests. 2/n
She’d had a blood test, but lymphoma doesn’t show up in a standard blood test - it lurks in the lymph nodes meaning you need an X-ray or scan to identify it. Lots of emphasis is put on parents knowing what to look out for, which is certainly important. 3/n