Welcome to my blog. I promise to take you with me through my journey in living with a stage 4 cancer diagnosis. In this blog you won't hear the words fighting, battling, winning or loosing. I'm neither a victim or a heroine. I don't like to stand out, prefer to blend in. I feel secure and protected like that. I choose to find peace in my new reality instead. I choose to make every single day on this Earth worthwhile, I choose to live. So if you are looking for some profound inspirational quotes I suggest you go to B&M and buy some "wall art" instead, you won't find these here!
I am a fashion designer, prior to my cancer diagnosis I've worked in the fashion industry for over 13 years. I don't like to blow my own horn too much but I ran quite a successful fashion design company and worked with many clients from all over the world. Every time I hired a new member of staff I remember telling them "Don't worry. It's just clothes, nobody will die!"
People tend to take fashion very seriously and get wrapped up in their own bubble and there was always a drama so I really wanted to get across to people not to forget where we are and what we actually do. Did I listen to my own advice? Probably not, I obviously got wrapped up in my own shit and took things too seriously. Everything was very important and it had to be done NOW. As well as being a firefighter and constantly dealing with the ups and downs of running a small business I launched my own womenswear brand called GUARDI. Which I adore by the way! However it was too much. Of course I kept going and going. I did more and more. I wanted more. I was spreading myself too thin for far too long. On top of the huge piles of work I also had a 5 year old and a 1 year old boys to look after, but more about my two little boys in another blog! This madness continued until July 2022 when I got officially diagnosed with what was back then stage 3 bladder cancer. And even then I was at a photoshoot in the morning and then running to an oncology appointment in the afternoon!
I had no idea that this would be only the start of my journey but I knew I needed space to breathe. To pause. To look up. For the first time in my life I knew I had to stop. Because this time it wasn't just clothes, and in fact there was a high chance I could die.
Don't get me wrong I don't think fashion is shallow, fashion can make people feel strong, empowered, happy, confident in their own body even when they feel insecure. There is a special magic in it really. And that's what I loved most about my job. You may wonder why I speak in past tense. Because just like motherhood, I thought cancer is not going to change me or my life. "It will fit around me and my lifestyle not the other way around!" Ha what an idiot. Seriously?! Cancer has changed me to my core. Obviously it doesn't completely define me, I'm a lot more than a cancer patient. I am a mother, I am a wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a lover and creator of beautiful things. However there is no running away from the fact that the big C has changed everything - my daily life, the people around me, my believes, my purpose.
I am so grateful I got to do what I did for so long, I was so lucky to be in such a competitive industry and to do what I truly loved for a living. But now I prefer to spend my time researching and focusing on buying myself extra time on this planet. So thank you fashion, we may or may not meet again. Nobody really knows what will happen. For now I am off to London today to have a drug in my veins called atezolizumab ( I can't believe I managed to spell that! ) as part of my immunotherapy trial at UCH. More about about my treatment in my future blogs...
Love, V x