Member stories featured in the Cancer Revolution: Science Innovation and Hope exhibition
The Science Museum Group, with support from Cancer Research UK, have created a world first exhibition ‘Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope’.
The exhibition, which begins at The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester on 22nd October, shows how far we have come in the prevention, detection, and treatment of cancer, and highlights the important challenges that still exist.
As well as looking at how cancer has been treated over the centuries, the causes of cancer and how the disease isn’t unique to humans, the exhibition also includes the stories of people living with, treating and affected by cancer today.
Two of the stories on display are from members of the Bowel Cancer Intelligence UK Patient-Public Group.
Lynne Wright’s inclusion is a photograph.
Lynne Wright’s bedroom view
“CRUK asked their volunteers to let them know if they had a special something that had helped them get through their cancer treatment. Some of these items would then be included in a planned Exhibition at the Science Museum. For me it was the view from my window. In 2010 I was diagnosed with colon cancer, I had surgery but needed chemo and, at first, I found going through chemo difficult. I am lucky to live on the coast in East Devon and the view from my bedroom, over my garden to the sea, got me out of bed most days and made me realise that I was lucky to be alive and be able to look at this wonderful vista.”
Patrick McGuire also provided an artefact which features in the exhibition.
“It is a “diary” that relates to my wife’s end of life experience. Our Macmillan nurse suggested I compile it in the last few weeks of my wife’s life before she died from bowel cancer, aged just 52. It is a factual record of her symptoms, medication, eating and sleeping patterns, any medical visits to our home where she was and any medical interventions she received. It was to help me inform any health visitors, of which there were many, of her mental and physical condition which was complex and deteriorating. On reflection it is a fairly bleak account of her last few weeks alive without any reflection or insights just a factual record of her condition. Although bleak in itself there continues to be great hope for the future for others like Pam who continue to benefit from advances in research. It is this research that motivates me to keep volunteering and fundraising to try to ensure as few families as possible go through the devastating experience we went through. Research gives us hope for the future and a world where more people will have more tomorrows to share with their loved ones.”
The exhibition is free to attend and is on from the 22nd of October to March 2022 at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. It will then move to the Science Museum in London in the Spring of 2022. More information can be found here – https://www.scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk/whats-on/cancer-revolution