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Gilly Mathieson: Celebrating the resilience and power of advocacy at ENTERO24

Gilly Mathieson/LinkedIn

Nov 21, 2024, 21:40

Gilly Mathieson: Celebrating the resilience and power of advocacy at ENTERO24

Gilly Mathieson, BBC journalist, shared a post on LinkedIn:

“On Friday, I was on stage at ENTERO24 – celebrating the resilience and power of advocacy with ‘young’ digestive cancer patient advocates and carers from across Europe.

A humbling experience – so many survivors are trying to improve things for those who follow.

A few days later, I was in hospital for the first in a series of tests (endoscopy, MRI, CT) to determine the progression of my stage 4b incurable bowel cancer. I will know on 10 December what is next for me…

Meeting the ‘young’ digestive cancer community in person was a boost for me, and I don’t feel so alone now. Almost everyone I know around the world with my type of cancer has already passed on, and they were diagnosed after me.

Many – including Jim from Falkirk in Scotland – have died in the last months. We urgently need more research and treatments for STAGE 4 – particularly KRASG12D/MSS.

Enabling New Treatments, Education, Research and Outreach for early-age onset digestive cancer is the big challenge as set out at the conference. You can learn more here.

I want to express my deepest gratitude to Digestive Cancers Europe for the opportunity to join a community of experts, patients, and caregivers, gain invaluable insights, collaborate, and be involved!

I am lucky. I am forever grateful for Luxembourg’s best-in-class healthcare and social security system. You get excellent help here when needed; unfortunately, that is not replicated across the EU and UK. Dice is working towards equity, and that is so important because everyone deserves the chance to beat this horrible disease.”

Gilly Mathieson: Celebrating the resilience and power of advocacy at ENTERO24