My name is Rachael and I’m a professional photographer as well as a cancer patient at Peterborough City Hospital. I’m undergoing treatment for Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma and I’m trying to raise money for Macmillian and Cancer Research UK by doing a photography book. I would like to find people suffering from cancer who would be willing to take part.
The theme of the book is the support from friends, family, organisations and the hospital staff that gets you through each day. I want the book to be quite real, but also to give hope to people who are about to start treatment, or are going through it.
I would like to find as many people as possible who would be willing to have a portrait in the book. With each portrait would be a caption that is personal to you. These will all be different but be broadly based on support you have received from friends, family or medical staff. For example a message in a card or something someone said to you that stuck in your mind or helped you before or during your treatment.
In addition I want to find some people who are happy to have a more in-depth presence in the book. If you are one of these people I will need to interview you, and ideally visit you both at the hospital and at home so I can photograph some aspects of your daily life that help tell a story.
Below are some shots that I have taken as examples.
If you would like to know more about this, and get involved you can also contact me on 07903460590 or email me at [email protected].
I look forward to hearing from you.
— Rachael
2016 – what a year! The first few days went OK but then David Bowie went and died and everything seemed to unravel.
I started to feel unwell at the end of January and saw my GP about it in April but it wasn't until August, and after a few misdiagnoses, that I was told I had Burkitt lymphoma – which later got re-classified as high grade stage 4 non Hodgkin lymphoma.
It was meant to be a year of celebration as I will be 40 in December. Instead I've been fighting cancer. Life is short, things don't necessarily turn out the way we want them. Nobody wants cancer, but the way you handle that news when you get it makes a huge difference. My husband, mother and little boy have both been amazing, so supportive, chilled, and just everything and more I could have wished.
While being ill I've had a lot of thinking time. Before I was diagnosed with cancer I found it very hard to keep still. I was a very busy magazine photographer and drove from Stamford to London most days, setting off early and getting home just in time to pick up my son from nursery. Cancer has made me reevaluate my life and the meaning of life. I think that sometimes you go with the flow until something makes you stop. The importance of a hug, going for a walk, feeling the wind against your skin, seeing the seasons change, things that you take for granted day by day.
Having cancer can make you feel very vulnerable and isolated, but there is so much help today from Macmillan, Cancer research and other support groups, so there is no reason to feel alone. My friends and family have been amazing, which has made me feel very humbled. I've had lovely cards, flowers, treat parcels, and lovely phone calls, as well as lots of hugs.
The support I've received gave me the idea for this book. It's a book about the pain of going through cancer, but with the message that you are not alone. On the days when you feel like that soggy bit of biscuit that has fallen into your tea, there are people there for you. Although right now, on chemo, I can't drink hot drinks, they taste funny!