Hope. It’s a small word… but today it feels enormous.

Back in September 2025, I read the words no cancer patient ever wants to see:

“Enhancing mesenteric soft tissue measuring 5.2 × 4.0 cm… another similar soft tissue… bowel wall thickening…”

I remember staring at the report and thinking, very eloquently:
Oh S*.**

Two sizeable tumours. Inoperable. Sitting quietly in my bowel, as if they’d hired the place for a long stay.

Further tests followed — puncture biopsy, PET CT — each one tightening that knot in the stomach. And then the confirmation:
My stage 4 melanoma had returned.
Not politely either. It was, as I described to friends, “having a party in my bowel.”

Treatment began with combination immunotherapy — IPINIVO.
Powerful. Clever. But not without its price.

After just two infusions, my immune system decided to get a little too enthusiastic, and a severe bout of colitis brought treatment to a halt threatening a hospital admission. At that point, I genuinely wondered whether we’d even get the chance to see if it worked.

That’s the thing about immunotherapy — it doesn’t behave like traditional cancer treatment. It doesn’t attack in a straight line. It teaches your own immune system to recognise the enemy… and sometimes that lesson is messy.

Last week, I had my follow-up scan.

Today, I sat with my wonderful oncologist — a lovely lady who has walked this rollercoaster with me for years — and she said the words that felt almost surreal:

“There is no measurable disease.
The small bowel deposits have resolved.”

Let that sink in.

Tumours that were there… are no longer there.

This is what modern melanoma treatment can do.
This is what immunotherapy has changed.

A decade ago, this story might have ended very differently.
Today, we talk about control.
We talk about response.
We talk about living with stage 4 cancer — and sometimes, beating it back again.

I will now continue on single-agent Nivolumab — a gentler partner in this extraordinary class of drugs — helping to keep my immune system watchful, trained, and ready.

It’s not the end of the journey.
With melanoma, we never pretend it is.
But it is another summit reached.

And if climbing mountains has taught me anything — from Kilimanjaro to Toubkal — it’s that you don’t climb looking only at the ground beneath you.
You climb looking up.
Always up.

Immunotherapy is one of the greatest advances we’ve seen in cancer treatment.
It has turned what once felt like inevitability into possibility.
Into time.
Into memories.
Into grandchildren growing up.
Into future plans rather than final chapters.

Today, I feel overwhelming gratitude —
for science,
for persistence,
for the NHS teams who never stop pushing forward,
and for the remarkable research that continues to transform melanoma from a terminal diagnosis into a treatable disease.

And most of all, gratitude for hope.

Because hope is no longer wishful thinking.
It’s evidence-based.

Onwards — one infusion at a time.

On a completely separate and very selfish note I’m now looking forward to claiming my state pension which becomes payable in five years time!