The Beating Bowel Cancer Fundraising Book

The Beating Bowel Cancer book published in November 2012

All efforts over the last 18 months have been on promoting the Lives & Times fundraising book. I had to get out a copy of my first fundraising book, Beating Bowel Cancer, ready to post out to a friend. It was fascinating having a flick through, and look back on some of the photography in it. I am actually very proud of it. On a poignant note at the end of the book there is a epilogue, which was written just after Mum's bowel operation in September 2012. It's a happy and positive piece with Mum having beaten the cancer. There was, of course, no way of knowing how things would pan out over the following four years.

In April 2012 the dreaded cancer word came into our family. One minute I was sitting with my mother expecting a normal discharge from hospital, and then in the blink of an eye our world was turned upside down when we were told that mum had bowel cancer. She had been having trouble going to the toilet and was sent to Wexham Park Hospital for an endoscopy, and it was at that point we learned she had bowel cancer. Her treatment involved radiotherapy and chemotherapy to shrink the tumour, before a successful operation to remove it was performed in the September. Over the following 4 years Mum had a number of operations to remove nodules from her left lung, which was a secondary cancer from the bowel. Towards the end of 2015 the cancer also spread to her brain. In spite of undergoing Cyber Knife treatment and having half her left lung removed Mum's condition deteriorated, and she ended up in hospital last summer following a brain seizure. Sadly she could not win thjis battle and she passed away in the St. Marks Nursing Home on August 29th, 2016

The care and attention mum received from the NHS primarily at Wexham Park and Harefield Hospitals was first class. In fact it was while mum was undergoing treatment that I decided I wanted to do something to raise funds for a cancer charity and give something back. After the book came out it became obvious just how important it is to raise awareness about bowel cancer as well as funds. Unfortunately running a business on my own imposes restrictions as to what I could do, but the idea of writing a book seemed the perfect solution. I have been a keen amateur photographer for a few years and the idea I had was to write a book featuring photos on various subjects, ideas and technical approaches. Beating Bowel Cancer therefore is a charity book featuring a collection of photographs and the stories behind them to raise funds for the Beating Bowel Cancer charity. All proceeds are donated to the charity with this book raising over £500 to date.

The ebook version on Amazon costs £1.99 of which the £1.01 I earn will be donated to the charity. It is for the Kindle, but there are freely available Kindle reader apps for Ipads, Iphones and computers. From outside the UK please use Amazon.com to buy the book.

The physical book version is available on my own fundraising website for £7.00 with about £2.50 going to the charity. It is also available for £7.21 on Amazon with just over £1 going to the charity.

For anyone who has kindly bought the follow up book, Lives & Times, this first book gives a great insight into how that subsequent book came together.

There is also a bundle offer on my Bowel Cancer fundraising website to buy both books together saving over 10%