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| 1 Feb 2021 | |
| Written by Cait Spencer | |
| Events |
Join us on Wednesday where current Head of House Ben Scott will be interviewing Old Bristolian Luke Grenfell Shaw.
Luke will be joining us from Ankara, Turkey whilst he continues to undertake his cycling missiong from Bristol to Beijing.
Luke's story - Instagram - Twitter - Website - Donate
You may have heard Luke's trememndous story already - after attending BGS until 2012 alongside his brother John, Luke went on to study at University and travel the world before finding out in 2018 that he had a rare and agressive sarcoma that was already metastatic. The primrary tumour had already spread to his lungs and there were 13 nodules. Luke was 24 at the time.
Just after Luke started treatment, tragedy struck again and his brother John fell to his death in the Lake District. John was 25 at the time. "I didn't have a chance to grieve for John. The next year saw me undergo chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy."
Luke was deteremind to continue to live as richly and as fully as he could and halfway through his chemotherapy in September 2018 he finished the Bristol Half Marathon in 1 hour, 20 minutes and 8 seconds. "I started a Master’s in Water Science, Policy and Management at the University of Oxford in the autumn of 2018 whilst on chemotherapy. I graduated a year later."
Since then Luke has been commited to living his life as much as he can "It’s my firm belief that we all Can Live, richly and fully, even with cancer.And it is up to us all to proactively create our own opportunities to live our best lives today, tomorrow and every day after that."
I then set out to live my dream: cycling from Bristol to Beijing on a tandem, joined by other CanLivers*, rewriting the narrative of what is possible with a cancer diagnosis.
*CanLivers (noun, plural)
A wide community of people living with cancer: facing the challenges and uncertainties of cancer on a daily basis, yet acknowledging that we all can live with cancer - richly and fully.