19 Nov 2025 - Amy
I wish this second update was a more cheerful one, filled with exciting adventures and collaborations. Doing so, however, would not be the truth of this month. The truth of this month, and last month actually (although I wasn’t ready to write about it yet), is far more painful.
I wish this second update were a more celebratory one, filled with new collaborations and the excitement that often accompanies the early stages of a fellowship. Writing that, however, would not reflect the reality of the past month. The truth of this month—and, in fact, of the month before, although I was not yet ready to articulate it—is far more painful.
In the second week of my fellowship, I received a phone call from my sister to tell me that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. My parents had attended an appointment at the hospital that afternoon, but waited until I had finished work before sharing the news. My sister relayed it: my mother did not want to speak about it, and my father could not.
My parents live in Southampton, some distance from me in Leeds, and so, initially, I worried from afar. I called every day, but we all colluded—consciously or not—in maintaining a sense of normality. Our conversations revolved around Strictly Come Dancing and Albie, the family dog. At that stage, I assumed that little was known and that there was nothing practical I could do. Small fragments of information filtered through: my parents cancelled a long-planned trip to Australia to watch the Ashes; my mother, who works as a taxi driver, began quietly telling her regular passengers that she would soon be reducing her hours. None of this suggested that I needed to stop everything and go home.
That changed a few weeks later. A few days before my mother’s biopsy, my father called me in tears and told me I had to come back. I explained that I had just started a new job, that I had teaching responsibilities, and that, given the uncertainty, I would likely only be in the way. At that point, the silence broke. My mother did not simply “have cancer”; she had stage IV ovarian cancer.
It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I was working remotely in central Leeds. Panic set in. I left the café where I had planned to work and spent the train journey compulsively reading ovarian cancer statistics. If you have a loved one with a cancer diagnosis, I strongly advise against doing this. It was a bleak day, and the realities of my nomadic academic life—so often framed as freedom and adventure—suddenly felt less like opportunity and more like isolation.
I returned to Southampton in early November, drafting manuscripts at my parents’ kitchen table and, more importantly, spending time with the people I needed most. Unsurprisingly, my research progress has been slower than I had hoped. I am trying, with some effort, to accept that this is not only inevitable but also acceptable.
My mother is fortunate to be under the care of the NHS and to live close to the Princess Anne Hospital, where she is receiving excellent treatment. The tumour is large, and the cancer has spread to her windpipe, but there are reasons to be optimistic. She began chemotherapy this week, with surgery planned for the new year. Late-stage cancer is no longer the automatic death sentence it once was, and I hold genuine hope that my mother will live for many years to come.
All of this is to say that my research has not advanced as much as I would normally report in a monthly update. Work has continued, and I have still found moments of joy in doing science, but my priority at present is being present for my family. I am also trying to extend that same compassion to myself, acknowledging that this is a difficult period and resisting the urge to measure my worth solely in productivity.
I could attempt to turn this post into a broader lesson about compassion or resilience, but my primary motivation in writing it is simpler. To share only successes would feel disingenuous. The past two months have not been defined by research outputs or professional milestones; they have been defined by cancer. More importantly, they have been defined by my mother—by how fortunate we are to have her, and by how deeply I want to watch her grow old.
Maybe someday soon I’ll have something interesting or important to say about science, or past climate change, or the state of the world. This month, I’d just ask you to hold your loved ones a little tighter and, if you’ve money to spare, throw some of it in the direction of the wonderful folks at Macmillan.
I’ll see you next month.