My 'bucket list' to improve mental health support for cancer patients

As Express journalist Robert Fisk marks his second year of treatment for incurable bowel cancer, he writes movingly about reaching the milestone, his campaign to help others and his determination to have as much fun as possible

- By Robert Fisk

WILL I ever get used to strangers touching my nipples? It's a question I ask myself increasingly frequently these days. Sometimes they pull my T-shirt down to touch them, sometimes they ask me to roll up my top for better access to my chest.

After knowing these people for two years, I suppose I should call them associates, rather than strangers. I wouldn't call them friends, but I'd stop to say hello if I saw them in the street. I know which one likes tuna mayonnaise on her jacket potato; which one says their partner is like a Tyrannosaurus rex because, apparently, she has deep pockets and short arms; which treats herself to an M&S ready meal on a Friday after a busy shift at work and which one's son loves to play Roblox.

They are the NHS nurses who have been looking after me since I was diagnosed with incurable bowel cancer. And they touch my chest because I've recently been fitted with a port-a-cath which, as far as I understand it, is a device used to drip chemotherapy into a vein close to my heart. They do it out of necessity as they need to fit tubing and remove dressings, but it still feels a bit odd.

Now looking ahead to my third year of fighting the disease, I know the last stranger to touch my nipples will be the undertaker who puts me in a lovely cornflower blue shirt I've chosen to be buried in, so I'll at least look a bit presentable before I'm lifted into my coffin.

But I won't know what they like to have on a jacket potato, and I assume everyone who organises my funeral will be too upset to ask.

This isn't something I'd ever thought about before being diagnosed with stage four cancer back in the summer of 2023.