Writer, researcher, music lover, cancer survivor with CMMRD ("double" Lynch syndrome)
I’m planning some webinars/workshops on creative writing for people living with and after cancer. Topics might include writing poetry, writing your memoir, getting published, blogging, self-care, exploring identity, exploring body image and more.
If this interests you, it would be extremely helpful if you could fill in my survey to let me know the types of online events you’d like to attend. Please also share the link with anyone you think may also be interested. Thank you so much in advance!
I don’t have any photos of me in the hospital or in a gown or anything like that. I don’t have many photos at all of me during the time of my diagnoses and surgeries. However, I have dug out a few from around my first diagnosis in 2010 and my second and third in 2018, to show in picture form what my cancer experience looked like from the outside. Brace yourself:
My memoir Gut Feelings: Coping With Cancer and Living With Lynch Syndrome is out now on Amazon!
“Lynch syndrome is a genetic condition that makes it more likely for a person to get cancer. In other words, it’s the world’s worst loyalty programme.”
Colon cancer, uterine cancer, duodenal cancer. Colostomy bags, infertility, genetic testing. But also, joy. Also adventure. Also grit.
GUT FEELINGS spans ten years from the author’s first diagnosis to the life-changing surgeries for her second and third. Racking up a collection of medical experiences – and losing countless organs along the way – Sam Rose has stories for anyone facing the uncertainty of cancer or Lynch syndrome, to help patients and survivors feel less alone.
Gut Feelings in the Media
An extract from my memoir is available on the Bowel Cancer UK website.
I appeared on The Hope-Makers Podcast chatting to Erica Bowen about my book and my experiences.
I wrote an article about the writing of my memoir for Lucy Turns Pages.
Part of my story appears on the Womb Cancer Support UK blog.
In March, I’ll be on an episode of Radical Care Podcast.
Gut Feelings is out now in paperback and on Kindle at Amazon!
This has been getting some attention on Twitter – it’s a campaign to encourage people to go for cervical smears. It’s based on the statistic that 57% of women don’t want to go to their smear test because the beauty salons are closed. (I question this figure later.) And the campaign is to get people to share a photo of a cat whose fur best represents their pubic hair, in order to raise awareness.
It’s #CervicalCancerPreventionWeek ?
Here’s how you can help to raise awareness:
? Share an image of the cat that best reflects your undercarriage/flower/bits (technical term vulva!) current look.
#⃣Use the Hashtag #myCat.
?Tell and tag your friends to let them know. pic.twitter.com/8aHf96ynjT— myGP (@myGPapp) January 18, 2021
In light of the news this morning that clinically extremely vulnerable people will start to get their letters this week inviting them to get the covid vaccine, I wrote this little parody – to the tune of Mr Sandman, of course:
Mr postman, bring me a dream (bom, bom, bom, bom)
Make it an invite for the covid vaccine (bom, bom, bom, bom)
Say it will reduce my risk of exposure (bom, bom, bom, bom)
And that the pandemic will soon be over
Postman, I’m vulnerable (bom, bom, bom, bom)
And all this shielding can feel miserable (bom, bom, bom, bom)
Please help me get the vaccine
Mr Postman bring me a dream
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom,
bom bom bom bom bom!
Earlier this year I was invited to be on the WhyMe with Vera-Lee podcast, and the episode has just been released!
During the episode, we talk about my three cancer diagnoses, Lynch syndrome, my PhD research and my writing. Vera-Lee and I had such a great connection, and I loved our conversation. Give it a listen and let me know what you think! I’m happy to talk about any issues brought up in this episode.
I’m slightly late with it, but it’s that time of year when I get all introspective and retrospective and all the spectives, really, and think about what I achieved in the last year and what I’d like to achieve next year/this year. It’s been difficult to get into that headspace this year – even though the time between Christmas and new year is usually my most productive and thoughtful time, it hasn’t come naturally, probably because – well, look at the state of this year.
Regardless, I’d like to have a little think about it, look at my previous goals and set some new ones. So this is what I said I wanted to achieve in 2020:
standing at the back door accommodating
winter in gusts, the clear sharp moon in my throat
and my friends on a screen on my coffee table
but I can’t hear them over the bangs and they
have left their seats already to watch their own
displays. I had run upstairs with Peter and counted
again, at least eight of them, like I did on November 5th.
It’s the first year I didn’t hear a countdown – I always
forget the Hootenanny ignores the coming of the
new year, carries on, and the TV was muted anyway,
but this time, with just the two of us in the house,
at least in flesh, we did not count but we did kiss late
and the bang and crack and light that had been going on
since daylight now overtook the house, everyone’s house
as our web conference brought six of us together in stereo.
Amidst the madness I was grateful for the fireworks blurring
one year into the next because the expectation would have
been too much weight to place on one count, on ten numbers
standing separate and fragile, so instead the community
decided we would have a gradual bringing in of cheer, a blurring
of time, as it had been all year, and watching all the displays from
the back door, the clear sharp moon in my throat made me hopeful,
each blast of light and sound proving that despite everything,
so many of us were standing upright on this earth
and celebrating, still finding some glimmer of joy or hope
and throwing it in the air like a penny in a fountain.
As is customary, here is my end-of-year rundown for 2020. I published 16 poems/prose pieces in 13 literary magazines and anthologies, as well as four articles/guest blog posts.
My Lynch syndrome memoir Gut Feelings is now available to pre-order on Kindle!
If you like your books in electronic flavour, pre-order now and my guts will be spilled onto your device on the official release date of 7th February 2020!
Here’s the blurb:
“Lynch syndrome is a genetic condition that makes it more likely for a person to get cancer. In other words, it’s the world’s worst loyalty programme.”
Colon cancer, uterine cancer, duodenal cancer. Colostomy bags, infertility, genetic testing. But also, joy. Also adventure. Also grit.
GUT FEELINGS spans ten years from the author’s first diagnosis to the life-changing surgeries for her second and third. Racking up a collection of medical experiences – and losing countless organs along the way – Sam Rose has stories for anyone facing the uncertainty of cancer or Lynch syndrome, to help patients and survivors feel less alone.
© 2026 Sam Alexandra Rose
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