Sophie’s life after cancer.

Light the way for young cancer survivors

Sailing helped change Sophie’s life after cancer this summer. Supporting the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust can do the same for more young people like Sophie. This is her story.

Sophie never imagined she would be here, on the Solent, at the helm of one of the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust’s yachts. It never crossed the 20-year-old’s mind while living in Warwickshire she would one day be sailing around the Isle of Wight.

Not when she was having chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (a type of blood cancer that affects white blood cells), not when she lost her hair, and not when she was lying in a hospital bed in her family’s living room.

“Treatment is so hard,” she says, “and hospitals are so lonely. Then I got sepsis from COVID. I couldn’t walk or talk or do anything for myself. I had a wheelchair and took a long time to recover. That was really difficult.”

Since finishing her treatment two years ago, she has required ongoing reconstructive surgeries for her face, and regularly gets stares or comments when she’s out and about.

Freedom at sea

A Teenage Cancer Trust Youth Support Coordinator at her hospital recommended signing up for a four-day Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust sailing trip and showed Sophie how to apply.

The national charity takes young cancer survivors aged 8-24(ish) on sailing and outdoor adventures to inspire them to believe in a brighter future after their treatment ends.

Sophie was sceptical at first: “I was like, ‘I don’t really know how I’m going to feel more confident on a boat’. Do you know what I mean?” The thought of sharing a confined space with other young people she had never met before was scary too. What if she struggled to bond with them, or they were judgemental like others are?

But they clicked. Everyone on the boat quickly grew close, playing boardgames on deck, sharing stories and just laughing again. Nothing could have been better than sailing for Sophie to put the memory of hospitals behind her.

“You’re not in a pressurised room, there aren’t windows separating you from the outdoors. You are in the fresh air among nature, no four walls, completely immersed.

“I volunteered for everything, and I wanted to learn more because of how nicely everyone teaches you. Even just doing the ropes, and the rush of heeling side-to-side, it really builds your confidence.

“Being on a boat when you don’t know anything about sailing is a big thing to take on. But you learn. I was like, ‘oh my God, I am on a boat, and I am doing it!’”

Grateful to be alive

She describes the environment on board as nurturing: everyone looked out for one another, pitched in to help with the day-to-day jobs, and encouraged each other to get involved. No one made comments about her appearance, and when she spoke about it, her other young crewmates empathised with how she felt.

She said: “We’ve all got cancer in common, but more than that, we all just found each other on the boat. It was instant friendship. We all had a really big interest in sailing too. That really helped because we could do everything together and learn together as well.”

Sophie could not believe how far she had come. From not being able to walk to sitting on the bow of a yacht sailing it around the Solent.

“It’s lovely to know positives can come out of such a horrible thing. It has filled me with so much joy that I have come so far from my treatment to my recovery. It has made me feel really grateful to be alive and to be here.”