Alice… what's the matter?

breast cancer blogger

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Introvert. Online waffler. Breast cancer fighter. Dreamer. Maybe a writer, one day…

  • Girls just wanna have fun

    In the last 12 months, I have definitely had more fun, felt more alive and been more “in the present” than in most of the previous 7 years.

    It all started with a conversation at lunch on New Year’s Eve 2012. A friend of mine (Kristy) and I were talking about our working lives and our feeling that we were now struggling with feeling unfulfilled. Something needed to change. We started to imagine what we could do… Perhaps we’d go off traveling? For a long time now I’ve fancied visiting New Zealand – and Kristy suggested that a camper van would be the best way to see all of the sights. Suddenly we had something to fire our imaginations.

    You see, a few years ago, Kristy had already made a life-changing decision to move from her career in design to ecology – the reasons are not mine to tell, but I do know that I admire her hugely for making that change. So she had already set a precedent for seeing positive outcomes from being intrepid. For my part, I was only semi-serious about leaving my job at that moment because it seemed to me that I would require new reserves of bravery to walk away from something I’d done for 13 years just after spending 2012 doing battle with cancer. I loved the idea of it though and over the next few days had a number of conversations about places in the world that I would see if I could. 

    As it turned out, the decision would come sooner than I’d originally thought during that lunch on New Year’s Eve: When I got back to work on 7th January 2013, I had a meeting to discuss my exit from my company in the morning, and a meeting with my surgeon to discuss the removal of my boobs in the afternoon! Either of those would be big milestones in anyones life, so it was interesting trying to wrap my head around having two such momentous discussions on the same day.

    Eleven months, two new boobs, many new business meetings and nineteen airports later, I’ve certainly taken life by the scruff of the neck and done something a little different with my time. I feel like I’ve finally had the year out that I didn’t take after I graduated. 

    February last year seemed to whirl past. I was leaving work, and was sad that I would no longer be working with a lot of people I liked and respected. It helped me to know that even if I stayed though, the company was already fairly unrecognisable from the thing I’d helped to build and would continue to change radically after I left. I felt excited to have time to think about something new. I helped to organise a charity launch party, signed up for loads of courses and started to talk to friends about possible trips.

    My last day working for my company was on the Friday 8th, the night before my op! Luckily I’d already had lunch with quite a few people I wanted to say goodbye to in the weeks before that, so I was able to have a “goodbye boobs” party with some friends and family that night. By early morning the next day, I was in the hospital waiting to be prepped for a fairly major operation and luckily, recovered well from that and went on to attend the Keeping Abreast launch party 2 weeks later.

    In March and April I had enrolled myself on various courses in London and spent some time networking. I got involved with a startup company and created a brief for a major collaborative web project for them, which is in the process of being built at the moment. I also took my first trip of many to Brussels & Bruges on the Eurostar with “Mosschops”, my friend from Uni.

    In May I took the trip of a lifetime with Martin and Guy on the Orient Express. We travelled for 2 days (overnight) via France and Austria to Venice and stayed there for 3 nights, then visited Florence for 2 nights, flying home from Pisa. It was a proper gastronomic as well as cultural exploration. We started our trip in style by staying in a hotel in London near Victoria station (where we would embark on the first part of our journey on a Pullman train). That evening, during a discussion over cocktails at the bar in the Grosvenor, I discovered that the barman was from Italy and had recommendations for places for us to visit in Venice.

    The Orient Express was wonderful; we made the most of the expectation of smart dress at all times and became immersed in the experience. We were served gorgeous food from the minute we sat down on the Pullman to the coast. Once we climbed aboard the Orient Express on the other side of the channel, I walked the length of the train, taking in all of the different decor, marquetry and furniture in each one. There was a piano being played in the bar car and we had some more cocktails as the train rumbled through Europe. We found out that one of the two cabins we were staying in was the one that Agatha Christie had stayed in.

    Venice was as beautiful and strange as I’d imagined, and we talked about how difficult it must be logistically to move offices there, by boat! All of the research I’d done on best places to eat paid off and we had some truly memorable food, lots of seafood and pasta and some beautiful wines. We visited Murano to have a look at the glass shops and went to the Guggenheim art gallery. Florence was also really interesting – full of strange shaped romanesque buildings faced with marble. A highlight for me was walking to the top of the Boboli gardens on the hillside to the South of the river, taking in the views across the whole city. With Guy there in full shopping mode, it’s also not entirely surprising that I came back with a nice leather jacket as my souvenir.

    In June and July I took a few days to visit the coast in Norfolk. I’d heard that the Gunton Arms near Cromer had a great reputation for food, so I wanted to try it out and go to the beach. During June, July and August I developed a working relationship with another start-up company based in Nottingham. It has been really interesting and is an ongoing involvement for me now.

    Kristy and I decided that we would take a week’s trip somewhere so I suggested Seville, as although it would be very hot that time of year, I’d heard it was a very beautiful city. I wasn’t sure whether there would be a week’s worth of things to see so I booked a hotel with a pool. As it turned out, we got the best of both because there was so much to see; such a mixture of architectural styles and colourful tiles and gardens everywhere. Each day, we were able to go back to the hotel pool to cool off between 4pm and 8-9pm when the sun finally set, with dinner eaten at about 10pm. I had the best tapas I’ve ever eaten, and also the cheapest… €32 for a meal for 2 people including 4 dishes, 4 glasses of wine and 2 coffees. What a bargain!

    July was packed with trips. I was only home for a few days before racing off up to Lancashire to pick up Liz, and fly from Liverpool to Lisbon this time to spend a few days on the windswept and rugged coast of Portugal, at an old fort in Cascais. We had time to really relax and catch up properly and our trip to Lisbon was pretty epic, I think we covered most of the centre of it on foot – the most steps that I’ve done in a day since I went to Paris in 2012. That brought the total number of airports to 9 so far…

    In August I went to France for 10 days with Curt, seeing the sights in Lyon for 3 days, meeting some French friends of his and then venturing out into the countryside to a small town (Riorges, near Roanne) where we stayed and attended a French language and cooking course. I’d heartily recommend L’école des Trois Ponts. This language school teaches French in the mornings and cooking in the afternoons (all in French of course), the people are lovely and really supportive, everybody learned something and improved – some people didn’t speak a word of French before they arrived and were talking French at dinner by the second day! I really felt like I enriched my life and my education with that holiday and met some really interesting people from all around the world who had some great stories.

    Not having yet had enough nights away from home that month (haha), I then went camping at the End Of The Road festival down in Dorset until early September. May I recommend that buying sleeping bags by their weight and ability to pack down misses the essential point of them keeping you warm enough. I cannot express how cold I was even in two of those bloody pack-down-small sleeping bags, all of my clothes and another sleeping bag over the top of me! I won’t make that mistake again! 😉

    By September I was fully into the swing of traveling – this time to Chicago & New York! Guy and I went as stowaways on Martin, Richard, Haydn and Tom’s business trip, spending our days wandering round and nattering to each other and then meeting up with the others in the evening for meals. Both cities were amazing and inspiring and  I plan to visit them both again, though I think Chicago won in terms of atmosphere as it was more relaxed and more friendly as a city than New York, where people barge you out of the way in their rush to get anywhere. I got the chance to see LOADS of famous sights in both places as well as spend time with the boys in some fun places in the evenings, including drinking 18 inch cocktails in “Howl At The Moon Chicago”, sitting under a rather distracting painting in “Raoul’s” in New York, and watching Michael Bay direct the next Transformers movie right outside my hotel.

    October brought the wedding of Natalie, a dear friend of mine, in the New Forest. I was so happy and proud to be asked to do the reading! The weather was still warm then luckily, and we got some great photos. I then went travelling via Lancashire and the Lakes where I caught up with Mosschops again. From there, I carried on up into Scotland and to the Isles of Mull and Skye. Scotland was fantastic. We were really lucky with the weather which had been rotten until about a day before we arrived. I clambered some hillsides and visited some castles, captured some dramatic skylines and enjoyed the bright colours of Tobermory and the amazing light for taking photos.

    In November? I turned 40… what better excuse to PARTY! It was a pretty epic do with everyone making huge efforts with their fancy dress for a pop time tunnel theme, and the band and DJ were awesome. I’m tempted to do a smaller version again this year. 😉 By December I was busy preparing for Christmas and signing myself up for loads more interesting events, gigs, courses and travels in 2014.

    On a serious note – I do realise how very lucky I am to have been able to do all of the things I’ve done in 2013. Were it not for my health scare in 2012, I wonder if I would have got around to doing all of the new things I’ve tried doing? Probably not! Having a brush with serious illness changes your perspective on life, grabs your head and shakes you and says “HELLO! You might not be around forever… so make the most of it.”

    This year and onwards, I pledge to try to be more fun, more enterprising and more audacious than ever before. I still haven’t driven the camper van around New Zealand… or got around to hang-gliding yet… but I hope to at some point in the next year or so!

    Some boys take a beautiful girl,
    and hide her away from the rest of the world.
    I want to be the one to walk in the sun,
    oh girls, they want to have fun.
    Oh girls just want to have…
    That’s all they really want.
    Some fun!
    When the working day is done
    Girls, they want to have fun
    Oh girls just want to have FUN.

    😀

  • King of Pain

    I have suffered problems with my periods and hormones since my early teens. Not just the usual period pain… Nooooo! The kind of pain that makes you not know where to put yourself, that makes you cry, and that makes you try sleeping with your legs resting up the wall or curled in a ball to see if it makes any damn difference.

    Of course, at the age of 15 I didn’t know why I was presented with such a challenge. I just “got on with it” and tried to work through it each month. I became so good at mentally focusing on other things and not the pain, that to this day I can still have fillings in my teeth without an injection.

    It was only in my 30s that endometriosis was diagnosed, and that was because I had collapsed in such severe pain that the doctor had to come to my house and my upcoming holiday was cancelled. Part of that pain was from my shoulders going into spasm and my chest tightening so it became difficult to breathe. That’s when it became apparent that I wasn’t just a whinging female and that there was something more serious going on.

    I was sent to have tests. At that point, two endometriomas were found by ultrasound, one 3cm and one 5cm, on my left and right ovaries. Endometriosis has cost me a lot of lost time over the years, curled up in pain with embarrassing and distracting cramps and severe IBS. It has forced me to undergo laporososcopic surgery in 2005 to remove some of the scarring and tissue that shouldn’t be in my stomach cavity, in the hopes of alleviating the symptoms. Endometriosis also lost me a baby.

    On 8th May 2006 I’d been in London that day, meeting with clients. I had stoically ignored the pain as usual, walked across Green Park in the sunshine to the meeting and got on with it. I remember that on my way back to the office on the train I was slightly annoyed that the ibuprofen I’d taken just weren’t touching the pain and I was starting to break out in a sweat. Hey – no problem, I could do this I thought… it was nearly the end of the day in the office, so I sat at my desk and concentrated on my breathing and answering emails. Then the pain worsened.

    I was starting to feel faint so I lay on the floor with my legs higher than my head like they always tell people to do in the movies. Once I was down on the floor though, I felt like something was really, really wrong. It was no longer time to be brave and stoical me and it was time to ask for help (I’m not good at that!). I called a colleague over, giggled about me being on the office floor, and then asked him to fetch my husband, who worked in another office in the same building. After a very brief discussion where I explained that I couldn’t move around or sit up again without an excruciating pain in my side and I didn’t think there was any way I could go to hospital in the car, the three of us agreed that perhaps an ambulance would be best!

    I started to realise that this was pretty serious when the nee-naws were switched on and I zoned out a little as the ambulance wove its way through the streets. When I arrived in the hospital the ambulance guy explained to the team there that my blood pressure was seriously low and they agreed that I needed fluids – fast. I grumbled quietly and politely as drips were put in both hands and both feet and I started to look like a marionette. I don’t remember it clearly but it felt like there were about 8 people around me and that they were sticking needles in me and wheeling me down corridors at the same time.

    As we sailed down the corridor of the hospital, I suddenly had an epiphany. To this day I don’t know why I had it then or there, but I believe it helped save my life. I grabbed my husband’s arm, and in a slightly embarrassed stage whisper (why hadn’t I realised?!) I said, “I think I might be pregnant” and I knew something was really wrong. He immediately told the nurse, and that’s when things began to move faster.

    I was prepped for surgery within a couple of minutes as they began to correctly suspect what had happened – an ectopic pregnancy – which had ripped open my right fallopian tube and caused me to lose about 5 pints of blood already… They had to perform an emergency caesarian section. I’m assuming all that blood was sloshing about in my abdominal cavity though I don’t remember being able to feel it.

    Obviously, I don’t remember anything else at all after that until I woke up in the ICU, but my husband will tell you that it was one of the longest nights of his life, listening to shouts for “more blood” and watching people speed-walking up and down the corridors whilst all he could do was wait. Once I was out of the ICU, I was moved to a ward with 7 other ladies of varying ages, who were all having some kind of gynaecological ops. I vividly remember not getting a great deal of sleep those few days because one of the women had also had something traumatic happen. I know this, mostly because she kept letting out a hideously distressing wail of anguish every so often and this would bring at least two of the nurses rushing over.

    Meanwhile, I was finding it hard to get anyone to notice that I needed some help. Eventually I became so frustrated that I burst into tears. I remember thinking that it is so wrong that a grown woman has to bawl before she can get someone to offer her any pain meds! I made sure I was up and about and eating healthily as soon as I could be so I could get out of that place. It was not a fun time.  I was pretty stunned by the experience for a long time, particularly as it felt like I was being stupid or self-indulgent to grieve, so I didn’t, really. After all – it wasn’t really a baby it was a thing, a pre-baby, a small thing, and it was only mine and known for a few minutes. In the scheme of things, I felt that far far worse things have happened to “real” babies and to people that knew they were having them.

    I reckon it took me 6 weeks to recover physically from the op, and 6 years to recover mentally and emotionally. However, what it never did was make me angry with or jealous of other people who do have children. My path is my own and whilst I resent the choice not totally being mine, having kids was never in my original life plan so there’s really no point getting grumpy about it. I’m also very lucky to have some amazing nieces and nephews and children of friends who I can spend time with. Plus, I get to hand them back when I’m worn out!

    There’s a little black spot on the sun today
    It’s the same old thing as yesterday
    There’s a black hat caught in a high tree top
    There’s a flag pole rag and the wind won’t stop
    I have stood here before (inside the pouring rain)
    With the world turning circles (running ’round my brain)
    I guess I always thought that you could end this reign
    It’s my destiny to be the king of pain

    Lyrics by The Police – Sting, Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland

  • In the waiting line

    Now, they say protein
    is good for you, I don’t like
    that this one is not.

    CA-125
    It doesn’t sound too scary
    but it is, to me

    It’s inaccurate
    and an inconclusive test
    and it makes me sad

    So I spend my time
    keeping myself occupied
    with my small projects

    and the chances are
    I will be none the wiser
    at this time next week

    but in case I am…
    I just wanted to say that
    I’ve had a nice life.

     

    Wait in line, ’til your time
    Ticking clock, everyone stop.
    Everyone’s saying different things to me, different things to me
    Everyone’s saying different things to me, different things to me
    Do you believe in what you see?
    There doesn’t seem to be anybody else who agrees with me…

    Do you believe in what you see?
    Motionless wheel, nothing is real.
    Wasting my time, in the waiting line
    Do you believe in what you see?

    Lyrics by Sophie Alexandra Jessica Barker, Henry Binns, Sam Hardaker and performed by Zero 7

  • I really love my woolly hat

    I really love my woolly hat
    I wore it during chemo
    to keep my bald head warm at night
    (It’s not my favourite green, though)

    It has the word “POW!” on the front
    which was a funny thing
    a friend of mine would say a lot
    when work was full of WIN.

    I had a painting with that phrase
    hung on the office wall
    And tried to find fun things to do
    when work was still *my* call

    But I became a ball of stress
    as work and love unravelled
    and needed to escape the mess
    of problems that we juggled

    I struggled with unhappiness,
    but after a long while,
    a renewed hope for the future
    was the reason for my smile.

    So you may understand
    my sadness that the time was brief
    before my diagnosis,
    and how I shook with disbelief –

    I sat alone in hospital,
    being brave and sturdy
    as the bottom fell out of my world:
    “Breast cancer, in my thirties”.

    Keeping calm and writing notes
    did help me process better
    the great stream of information,
    from consultants and their letters

    “Is there anybody with you”
    Became the warning sign;
    The news not good? I understood
    and greeted them wide-eyed.

    “The cancer’s spread to the lymph nodes”
    “You’re on the chemo list”
    “How soon?” I asked, and in a flash,
    sat with the oncologist:

    “Four each of FEC and Taxotere,
    another op and Radio…”
    The nurses were all kind, and said
    “You’re being very brave, you know”

    The hat? A simple gesture of
    support from “Nice Young Man”.
    (I think it came from Etsy;
    He’s an arts-and-crafts big fan)

    I made the most of time before
    my course of treatments started
    With trips, and friends, and family,
    at fun and lively parties.

    Informing all the teams at work
    seemed the best thing to do:
    I didn’t want it getting weird
    when it’s obviously not ‘flu

    As calm as anything, I sat,
    explained the situation:
    The chemo, hair loss, wig and then
    avoiding all infections.

    I worked as much as I could stand
    (which was still quite a lot)
    though it was sometimes difficult
    with concentration shot.

    The needles took their mental toll
    and tears became more frequent,
    by August I was glad to have
    a third week between treatments.

    I took Nice Young Man with me
    to walk along the Seine,
    a trip I’d longed for many years
    to undertake and plan.

    Paris was a stunning trip
    and whilst it wasn’t easy,
    I took pics from the Eiffel Tower
    and walked the Champs-Élysées.

    Then the chemo-brain kicked in
    at work, during September.
    Stood at a colleague’s desk, red-faced,
    struggling to remember

    what seconds earlier had been
    a such important question,
    that I had waited minutes
    for her to end her conversation

    For several months just eating right
    took lots of motivating
    (When *your* food tastes of rusty socks,
    you’ll understand my meaning!)

    The “POW! ” hat was pulled down at night
    to cover up my eyes;
    They watered with no eyelashes,
    and made me want to hide

    By October there were very few
    hairs left on me at all;
    The cold winds whipped my face
    and made my eyes a waterfall.

    I staggered blindly when outside,
    had help to cross the road,
    and gradually it seemed
    I was becoming my own ghost.

    It became a struggle
    just to function normally;
    My bathroom breaks a horror…
    although I tried hard not to scream.

    Finally, I reached the end
    Of chemo’s devastation,
    and took the BRCA blood test
    to uncover my mutation.

    It was no great surprise to me
    (young relatives had died).
    My cancer had genetic cause;
    I was glad it was defined.

    The Nice Young Man? We said goodbye
    with much regret and sadness;
    He’d been my steady anchor point
    Through all the cancer madness.

    I went to Cornwall at New Year
    to recover from it all;
    and asked a friend if she “and I
    could run away, at all?”

    “In a little VW camper van?”
    And both of us were longing
    to drive across America,
    with very few belongings.

    And then… my job, the stumbling block,
    no longer was a problem!
    So taking time to make some trips
    would be my compensation.

    I booked my op for February:
    Mastectomies / reconstruction.
    Had lots of friends to visit me,
    to aid recuperation.

    I still do grieve for what was lost
    and now replaced with saline
    It’s cold and strange but hopefully,
    in a while, they will feel fine.

    Tamoxifen’s a daily chore
    to help prevent more cancer:
    Bones ache and I’m hot and cold,
    or have inexplicable anger

    Last night I tried my trusty hat
    to cover up my eyes,
    but my brain was having none of it
    and wide awake stayed I

    So tears fell on my woolly hat
    at 7am today
    because I haven’t had a wink of sleep
    for lack of aromatase

    But I really love my POW! hat
    ‘Cos I wore it during chemo
    It kept my bald head warm at night…
    (It’s not my favourite green, though)

  • I got my mind set on you…

    Cancer research and testing

    Whilst I would never want to be ignorant, the burden of knowing that I have the BRCA2 gene mutation weighs heavy on my mind. The decision that I am making about whether… or when to have a bilateral salpingo-oophrectomy is one that only a few years ago I probably wouldn’t have been faced with, simply because nobody even knew about the BRCA gene.

    The first, BRCA1 (for BReast CAncer gene), was discovered in 1994, and the second, BRCA2, in 1995. At least 7 other genes have been identified as possible contributors to hereditary breast–ovarian cancer syndrome. 45% of cases are still either unidentified or multiple genes seem to be a cause. The search for other genes continues.

    There are lots of dedicated scientists out there, mapping the human genome. A lot of pharma companies developing tests for cancer detection. Only this week the Baylor Research Institute announced it is showing very promising results for finding cancer-related microRNA in the blood before a tumor develops in the colon. However, depending on the type of test it will vary in accuracy, and depending which pharma company develops it, it will cost a lot and might be beyond the reach of most GPs’ budgets.

    When your DNA sustains damage, at some point it’s going to send something in you a bit haywire. Common sense, really. Too much sun? You might get skin cancer. Pumping lots of chemicals into your body? You might trigger off a hormone reaction that can no longer stop itself. So it’s a question of whether your genes, an accident or something else gets you. If you are one of the lucky ones who live to a ripe old age, statistically the older our population gets as a whole the more likely it is that one of the things you’ll get is cancer. The lifetime risk is now 50%.

    Would you want to know?

    That being the case, would you want genetic testing to be able to tell you which cancer is most likely? Would you want to know?

    In the case of ovarian cancer, where survivability is not as high as with breast cancer, hell yes I’d certainly love early detection so I can do something about it.

    A new test for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer

    Whilst there isn’t yet a cheap, quick, simple test for ovarian and pancreatic cancer on the market, there is hope that there will be one soon – hopefully in the next few years… because a rather clever and determined teenager is getting ready to have his work published in medical journals about his development of a test for pancreatic, ovarian and lung cancer.

    His name is Jack Andraka.

    “I got my mind set on you”

    At the age of 13, after a close family friend died of pancreatic cancer, Jack decided he wanted to find out everything he could about the disease – he felt it was unacceptable that so many people were dying because it wasn’t detected early enough. 85% of all pancreatic cancers are diagnosed too late in the disease progression, at the point when a person has less than a 2% chance of survival. Fewer than 4% of people diagnosed are still alive after 5 years.

    Currently, the test in use for detecting pancreatic cancer costs $800, and because it’s so expensive, it is only used to confirm a diagnosis that is already suspected. Even then, the test being used is 60 years old and inaccurate – it misses 30% of cases.

    Jack knew he had to find a better way. A rapid, sensitive, accurate test.

    “Its gonna take plenty of money”

    The first challenge Jack faced was the number of paywalls in front of valuable scientific research. Scientists would publish their work, and then the publications would put an overhead on even students being able to access it.

    Jack’s mum ended up spending a lot of money to give him access to the research he needed to be able to develop his test, and Jack believes strongly that this shouldn’t be the case, because it’s potentially stifling thousands of ideas.

    “A whole lotta precious time”

    Jack set his mind to the problem and never gave up. He spent many months trawling through papers and analysing results. If it weren’t for his youthful enthusiasm and perseverance, he would probably not have found the answer he needed.

    He managed to find a list of EIGHT THOUSAND possible protein markers that might give an indication for pancreatic cancer, and decided to work through each one in turn to try to find one that would allow him to detect cancer. That kind of single-mindedness and focus is rare in anyone, let alone a teenager! It was on his four thousandth attempt that he found a possible candidate – a biomarker protein called mesothelin.

    Levels of mesothelin in the blood are normally pretty consistent – but they rise to a level of 10 ng/mL at the very earliest stages of pancreatic cancer – a stage when the potential survival rate is 100% if action is taken.

    “Its gonna take patience and time”

    So Jack had a possible protein he could test for, but no test. How could he develop a simple, cheap enough test?

    To create his test, Jack had an epiphany. He was reading an article about carbon nanotubes under his school desk whilst his Science teacher was teaching his class about antibodies. Carbon nanotubes are pretty new in technology terms – about 10 years old as a discovery.

    Jack realised that if he mixed human mesothelin-specific antibodies with single-walled carbon nanotubes in solution and used it to coat strips of ordinary filter paper, the paper would become conductive and when there were higher levels of mesothelin proteins, they would bind to the antibodies and that would affect the conductivity of the nanotube-soaked paper.

    The next challenge? Finding a lab that would take him seriously… and would let a child conduct research. Jack Andraka’s mentor, Professor Anirban Maitra, said: “I have been delighted and honoured to have him in my lab.” [4] – but he was the only one out of 200 professors who actually replied to Jack and took him seriously enough to say “maybe” to his lab and research plans.

    “To do it, to do it right”

    The test is administered like a dipstick for pregnancy or diabetes testing and 10 tests can be performed per strip, taking 5 minutes each. The cost to develop the test? 3 pence or 5 cents. “It’s 168 times faster, over 26,000 times less expensive, and over 400 times more sensitive than our current methods of diagnosis,” Jack says.

    Jack’s test won the $75,000 Grand Jury prize at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2012 and this year, along with various speaking engagements he is managing to keep up with his school work and only attends about 4 days a month.

    Jack Andraka at the TEDxHOP event, 14th June 2013
    Meeting Jack Andraka at the TEDxHOP event,
    14th June 2013

    Having lost a number of loved ones to cancer, cancer research has always been a cause I’ve supported. One of my heroes, Steve Jobs, died of pancreatic cancer. And… I first heard of Jack Andraka from the TED website when I read about him last year whilst I was having my own chemo treatments. So his research, any groundbreaking cancer research, is something that means a lot to me.

    When I found out Jack would be one of the speakers at TEDxHoP event at the Houses of Parliament in London, on Friday 14th June I booked a ticket. I wanted to find out more about this surprising young man. I wasn’t disappointed.

    It was a truly awe-inspiring day from start to finish, with a whole bunch of very clever, witty people talking about democratisation of information and ideas, the dangers of misinformation and lack of fact-checking, society and equality…

    Jack’s speech was both funny and moving and he got a standing ovation at the end of it.

    I met him that evening, and was pretty chuffed to be able to say “Thanks” in person to this 16 year old for everything he’s already achieved.

    “I know if I put my mind to it…”

    “So what’s next?” I asked him.

    He’s been working on ironing out all the gaps in his method that he realised once he started working in the lab. My understanding is that to get the accuracy he’s after there is still some work to do, but his method of using carbon nanotubes is one that a lot of scientists hadn’t tried before even though they had already tried to use the same types of proteins to detect the cancers.

    AND he’s already working on his next challenge: the Tricorder XPRIZE, a competition in which he and a team of teens will compete against adult teams and big corporations for a $10 million prize – the goal being development of a medical tricorder device the size of a smartphone or smaller – that uses light and can scan through your skin to detect disease.

    His take on how he was able to overcome challenges that other people were not? “Fresh pairs of eyes are more likely to solve problems in new ways”.

    He said “I do a lot of math competitions and my math coaches always tell us that although you can use brute force to solve a problem that looks really complex you should think about other tools and figure out a more elegant way to solve it. My math heroes can reduce a really difficult proof to a few elegant lines.” [2]

    You can see a version of his talk here: “My 3 cents on cancer: Jack Andraka at TEDxSanJoseCAWomen”

    I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set on you.
    I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set on you.

    But it’s gonna take money, a whole lotta spending money.
    Its gonna take plenty of money, to do it right child.
    Its gonna take time, a whole lot of precious time
    Its gonna take patience and time, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it, to do it right, child.

    I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set on you.
    I got my mind set on you, I got my mind set on you.
    And this time I know it’s for real, the feelings that I feel
    I know if I put my mind to it, I know that I really can do it…

    Lyrics by Rudy Clark
    (original song recorded by James Ray in 1962 and more recently by George Harrison in 1987)

    Sources of statistics and information:

    [1] National Human Genome Research Institute – BRCA1 and BRCA2 Gene Study 

    [2] Forbes article January 2013 – Cancer innovation and a boy named Jack

    [3] JackAndraka.net

    [4] The Independent – The first early test for pancreatic cancer – devised by 15-year-old Jack Andraka