Luke’s story
I was fortunate to grow up in a loving and supportive family.
I constantly argued with my brother, John, but on the weekends we went orienteering together in the forests nearby.
I worked hard at school, had a very minor teenage rebellion and got a degree from a good university.
Whilst I had enjoyed adventures – in Russia, the Middle East and Africa – the traditional corporate career ladder beckoned.
Before embarking on my planned career, I spent some time working as an English teacher in Siberia.
Whilst there I also competed in ultramarathons in the Urals and ran trail races through the forests.
A persistent ache in my left shoulder eventually led me to visit the school nurse.
48 hours later I was back in the UK, with a biopsy needle sticking into my back.
On 19 June 2018, my doctor told me I had cancer.
A very rare and aggressive sarcoma.
It was already metastatic.
The primary tumour had spread to my lungs.
There were 13 nodules.
I was 24.
I began chemotherapy in July.
During my first round of chemotherapy, my brother, John, fell to his death in the Lake District.
John was 25.
I didn’t have a chance to grieve for John.
The next year saw me undergo chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy.
Yet I did everything that I could to keep living, richly and fully.
Half way through chemotherapy, in September 2018, I finished the Bristol Half Marathon in 1 hour, 20 minutes and 8 seconds.
I started a Master’s in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford in the autumn of 2018 whilst on chemotherapy.
I graduated a year later.
Read about my postgraduate year at Oxford University here
I kept on racing…
…and winning.
I continued my passion for travel…
… and made new friends.
It’s my firm belief that we all can live, richly and fully, even with cancer.
It’s up to us all to proactively create our own opportunities to live our best lives today, tomorrow & every day after that.
I then set out to live my dream: cycling from Bristol to Beijing on a tandem, joined by other CanLivers*, rewriting the narrative of what is possible with a cancer diagnosis.
*CanLivers (noun, plural)
A wide community of people living with cancer: facing the challenges and uncertainties of cancer on a daily basis, yet acknowledging that we all can live with cancer - richly and fully.
