Everyone who knows me knows that I love music. Music has helped me get through some difficult times and music played a part in my cancer journey.

All those days when I was lying in the back of the car on my way up to the hospital to receive radiotherapy treatment, my earphones were in and I would lie there listening to my favourite tunes. I have always had an existential amount of music on my iPod and so there was always something different to listen to. Throughout my treatment I tried to keep up with the latest music as I always had done, but sometimes I just felt too tired to do so. I found this really frustrating as I just wanted to be like I was before, finding new music and adding it to my playlists.

There was one song that stuck out particularly for me and Mum during my cancer treatment. It was a song that was played quite a lot on the radio when we used to travel up and down to the hospital. My Mum introduced me to it one day when I was coming to the end of radiotherapy. I was now sitting in the passenger seat of the car instead of lying down in the back, we’d got to the point where we felt confident enough to do these journeys solo. A song called ‘Rule the World’ by Take That came on the radio and my Mum told me to listen.

I had heard the song before but had never really listened to it, the lyrics etc. Mum told me how she thought that this song related to us. The lyrics in the chorus go “Yeah you and me we can ride on a star, if you stay with me girl, we can rule the world. Yeah you and me we can light up the sky, if you stay by my side, we can rule the world”. Mum told me that the first part was like her talking to me, i.e. stay with me, you’re not going anywhere. The second would be me talking to Mum, i.e. stay by my side and help me through this.

Even when I finished radiotherapy and wasn’t travelling up to the hospital every day, we would still hear this song. It seemed to appear on the radio every time that I had to go back to the hospital to receive my latest MRI scan results. At a time in which we would both be worried, keeping our fingers crossed that everything was still ok, ‘Rule the World’ would be played on the radio and we’d look at each other and smile as this became a sign to us that everything would be ok, and it was!

I still love music today and am still hoping that one day I’ll achieve my dream of becoming a radio presenter, being able to talk about and play my favourite tunes is a dream to me and I just hope that one day I’ll make it in the industry.