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

If you were told you had just a few weeks to live, how would you spend them? 

This was the situation we were in 4 years ago. Ruby’s cancer was back & a cure was no longer possible.

Options were limited by Covid lockdown: typical bucket list activities were way off limits.

1/8 And the blood cancer that was killing Ruby was sapping her energy more & more each day.

There was literally no time to lose. We had to make every moment count.

2/8

Why does cancer evoke so much talk of conflict?

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

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