Carley Williams

Cancer doesn't pause for life's demands. While treatment schedules dominate the calendar, homework still needs checking, school runs still happen, and dinner still needs to be on the table. The washing piles up as energy reserves disappear.

It's pulling over on the roadside between appointments when nausea hits. It's circling hospital car parks desperately searching for a spot, then paying premium fees for the privilege of receiving treatment. It's becoming an expert on which chemist stocks what medication and which offers the best price – because every dollar counts when you're fighting for your life.

It's walking into treatment rooms and being the youngest face by decades, feeling isolated in a sea of experience you never wanted to gain. It's facing the hardest moments alone when support people aren't allowed, when the brutality of treatment becomes a solitary battle.

The exhaustion isn't just physical, it's the emotional weight of clinging to each day with fierce determination. It's the gut-wrenching reality of fighting simply to witness your children's milestones, to be present for the ordinary moments that suddenly feel extraordinary.

Every day, the fight is real, raw, and relentless.