14/09/2026
On 4 January 2023, my life changed in a way I could never have imagined.
For several months, I had been experiencing significant pain. I had previously undergone a hernia operation, so initially I thought the pain might be connected to that. But in September 2022, it became so severe that my wife, Hazel, took me to A&E.
The doctors could not immediately identify the cause, but they recommended that I complete a Faecal Immunochemical Test, commonly known as a FIT test. When the result came back positive, I was referred for a colonoscopy.
Although I was sedated, I remained conscious enough to watch the procedure on a screen. I could tell from the reactions of the medical team that they had found something serious.
Biopsies, MRI scans and CT scans followed. Then came the news none of us was prepared for: I had stage 4 bowel cancer. It had already spread to my liver and lungs.
The cancer was treatable, but I was told it was not curable. Doctors estimated that I had between two and three years to live.
In that moment, everything changed—my plans, my assumptions and the way I viewed the future. Like many people receiving such a diagnosis, my first question was, “Why me?”
As a Christian and a pastor, I also found myself asking where God was in all of this. Yet, alongside the shock and fear, I experienced a peace that made no logical sense. I came to realise that the diagnosis belonged to the doctors, but the prognosis belonged to God. I believed that God had numbered my days, not cancer.
Treatment began with chemotherapy, intended to shrink the tumours in my bowel so that surgeons could remove them. Soon after starting treatment, my Fitbit alerted me that my heart rate had risen dramatically. The chemotherapy had triggered a heart arrhythmia, and I needed cardioversion—an electric shock to restore my heart to its normal rhythm.
Once my heart had stabilised, surgeons attempted to remove the bowel tumours through keyhole surgery. Unfortunately, the join in my bowel began to leak, causing extraordinary pain. I needed emergency open surgery which, although successful, left me with a colostomy.
Of everything I experienced, adjusting to life with a colostomy was one of the hardest things to accept.
More chemotherapy followed. Surgeons then attempted to remove the cancer from my liver, but when they began the operation, they discovered that it was more extensive than expected. They could not proceed as planned, although my gallbladder was removed during the operation.
There were moments when it felt as though every hopeful step forward was followed by another setback.
I went on to receive immunotherapy, and a later operation to remove the cancer from my liver was successful. The final liver metastasis was removed in December 2024.
Attention then turned to the cancer in my lungs. I underwent ablation procedures at the Brompton in April and August 2025 to target several lung tumours. When some of the cancer continued to grow, surgeons removed a metastasis from my left lung in March 2026.
The remaining tumour in my right lung was treated with highly targeted SABR radiotherapy, completed in May 2026. Shortly afterwards, I became seriously unwell with a temperature of 39.6°C and was admitted to hospital with an infection.
Then, in August 2026, three and a half years after being told that I might have only two or three years to live, I received news I had hardly dared to imagine.
My latest scan showed that the radiotherapy had destroyed the final visible tumour. There were no signs of cancer currently showing in my body, and I was told that I was no longer considered terminal or under palliative care.
My treatment port, which had been surgically implanted years earlier, could finally be removed. I am also being assessed to see whether my colostomy can be reversed.
Cancer has taken me through chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, heart treatment, repeated operations, a colostomy and more hospital corridors than I care to remember. It has affected every part of life—not only for me, but for Hazel, our sons and our wider family.
There have been dark days, fear, exhaustion and uncertainty. There have also been moments of laughter, extraordinary peace and overwhelming kindness.
Throughout it all, my prayer has been that I would receive the best of Jesus and the best of medicine. I am deeply grateful for the skill, care and persistence of the NHS doctors, nurses, surgeons and oncology teams who continued treating me when one approach after another presented new complications.
My questions have changed along the way. “Why me?” became “Why not me?” Eventually, it became a much more helpful question: “What now?”
That question led me to write my book, The Big C in Me (link in comments), and to create a community for people living with cancer and those walking alongside them. The proceeds from the book are helping WayMaker International work towards providing medical care for communities in Africa where people do not have access to the treatment that helped save my life.
Cancer is big. I would never pretend otherwise. But it is not the biggest thing in my life, and it does not get the final word.
Every morning I wake up with one simple thought:
I’m still here—so what are we going to do with today?
— Andy Robinson
