Victoria's Story - Bowel Cancer

“It hit me so hard and was so terrifying that my initial reaction was to push Angus away. Why would anyone want to go out with someone with cancer? Having suffered so much with my dad’s illness, I didn’t want to put another loved one through it.

“But Angus kept coming back, and every time I pushed him away, we would find ourselves being drawn back. He was my new best friend and so supportive.”

Victoria had surgery to remove the tumour followed by six months of chemotherapy. But then in March 2022, scans revealed the cancer had spread to Victoria’s peritoneum.

“I didn't even know what the peritoneum was,” she said. “The only words I heard were 'it's not good news. I'm sorry Victoria, your cancer has spread. It's not curable.'

“I couldn’t understand - how could that be? It totally turned my life upside down – all my plans for having children, starting an awesome new job, all the things we strive for when we assume a long life were scuppered, just like that.”

“That’s when our love really shone,” she said. “The idea that my life was going to be shortened very considerably made us just want to be there for each other - make each other happy in the here and now and be damned with the consequences.

Angus had planned to take Victoria back to the spot they met in Hyde Park to propose and organised champagne and a taxi to get them there. However, Victoria was taken ill on the way and they had to divert to hospital. Instead, he got down on one knee in the ward and asked her to marry him.

Victoria organised the wedding in six weeks from her hospital bed. She said: “Our ‘little big day’ was magical and an absolute miracle it happened at all.”

The couple, from London, married in a beautiful ceremony in Chelsea on 4th August 2022, surrounded by family and friends.

Four weeks later, on 2nd September, Victoria died at the age of 33.

Now Angus and Victoria’s family are urging people to support Stand Up To Cancer.

Angus said: “Victoria was a beautiful, fit young woman with a boundless enthusiasm for life. Cancer can affect anyone’s life, at any time, so we really have no choice other than to unite against it and help support the scientists to keep making new discoveries.”

Victoria was fully supportive of Angus’s dating app, Sliding Doors, and urged him to continue developing it in her memory.