One of the first things you notice about Rachael
is her hair. Flowing, slightly chaotic, and lightly brushed with split-ends. “I
haven’t cut it since I was given the all-clear”, she says, “I don’t care what
anyone says. It’s my hair, finally my hair, and I want to keep it while I
can.”
Rachael Flower (not her real name), a
“proper Geordie”, was diagnosed with Leukemia when she was just twelve years
old but her cancer has been in remission for the past three years. Rachael’s
fighter spirit pulled her through the depths of the disease and her lustrous
hair is not the only feat that she has achieved since leaving hospital. The cancer survivor recently completed
something she wouldn’t have thought possible at the beginning of her struggle:
she graduated from Cambridge University.
According to statistics from Cancer Research,
around 8,600 new cases of Leukemia are diagnosed every year. Only forty-five
percent of those people will survive for at least 5 years after diagnosis. Rachael
is at 9 years and counting.
Leukemia is the most common cancer in
childhood but most children are ignorant about the symptoms and the disease. “I
didn’t really have an understanding of the consequences when I found out”,
Rachael says, “I didn’t really know much about it so I just hid it away. I was
in denial for months, like most people. I wanted my life to stay as normal as
possible so I only told, like, two of my friends to begin with.”
The disease had a considerable impact on
her education and she started to miss school regularly because of the treatment
she was receiving. Rachael took her GCSEs alone in hospital. “I did pretty
shockingly”, she says. “I basically taught myself everything because in
hospital there’s nothing really better to do.”
She decided to stay and do her A-Levels,
despite the severity of her condition. “At the time”, Rachael says, “I thought,
I’d rather do something and drop out because it’s too hard, rather than just
sit around and think about the cancer.”
Thankfully, Rachael’s cancer began to go
into remission at the beginning of sixth-form. Taking A-Levels and applying for
university can be difficult in normal circumstances. Rachael decided to stretch
herself and apply to Cambridge. “I didn’t want to, like, go somewhere really
shit after everything I’d been through”, she remembers.
The application procedure marked the
beginning of a new era for Rachael and gave her life renewed purpose. “I wanted
to prove”, Rachael says, “that my life wasn’t that bad, that I could do
something, and that my life had meaning. I wanted to prove my teachers wrong.”
At her Cambridge interview she was asked if
she would be able to handle the workload. “I told them: ‘if I can survive
cancer, I think I can probably handle Cambridge.’” She was given a place.
Getting into Cambridge helped her to
finally beat the disease. “I thought to myself: ‘now I really do
need to do this –I have to go to Cambridge.’ I felt like I’d actually achieved
something and I had to see it through. I had a reason to go out.”
The transition to Cambridge and a relatively
normal life wasn’t entirely smooth. She initially found it difficult to
integrate into a student body that had largely come from a different background
to her. “I think it was my accent”, she says, “they’re really well-mannered but
I’m hardly Downton Abbey.”
“The work at Cambridge was a pretty intense
transition too. I went from hardly being in school to being in every day.”
She survived her three years reading History
and English Literature at Clare College, and she is about to return to the university
in October to start a masters programme.
It is still difficult to talk about the
cancer. “I don’t like to bring it up”, she says, “because as soon as I mention
it, it’s such a downer and everyone goes silent and then I have to fill the
silence, which is so awkward.”
There is still a tangible unease in Rachael
about the cancer returning. Doctors are notoriously reluctant about giving
cancer survivors the all clear. Rachel still keeps a close eye on all of the
tell-tell signs, such as excessive bruising and continuous bleeding. “Every
time I cut myself, I’m thinking, like, ‘please please stop’”, she says, “and if
I have an unexplained bruise I get really nervous.
“You’re always on edge –well, at least I
am.”
Her hair is the one thing that she can hang
onto. As long as it is there she is still doing okay.
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