Cancer, Only Weeks To Live And No Fallopian Tube, I Did Something That Changed My Life

I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember. I have also dreamed of a successful career as a singer as my most passionate life’s mission. Being diagnosed with cancer at 26 years old was NOT a part of this plan. However, it would later happen to be the greatest catalyst for both of these seemingly opposing dreams to unfold. It would be my miracle story.

In the society we live in, we are sold the idea that a thriving, creative career and motherhood do not go so well together. We are also sold the notion that illness is a weakness and something to deeply fear. My journey has taken me on the wildest ride, to death and back. And with every chapter, I have learned that when I follow my own heart and listen to the calling of my body, daring to believe another way, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible.

At 26 years years old, I was far from cultivating this level of self-empowerment and faith in fulfilling my dreams. Although I was successful on paper performing up to 8 gigs a week and touring the UK as a successful singer, something in me didn’t feel quite right. I had a deep sense of emptiness within me that I could only fill when performing. The bigger the crowd and louder the sound of the applause, the more I could cover the void within me.

I was seeking validation completely outside of myself. I had no relationship with my own inner world whatsoever. I did not love myself. My self-esteem was at zero. And, unbeknownst to me, this desperately outward-seeking way of life was killing me.

I reached a point in which I began to feel totally uncomfortable in my own skin. So much so that I felt I only knew how to ‘be’ when I was on stage, singing. Off stage, I felt this deep discomfort, and lack of belonging.

One day, in my despair, I connected to my body by closing my eyes and asking ‘what do I need to know?’ – I had never done anything like this before – it was totally foreign, the idea that I could have a relationship with my own body or inner self, but intuitively, I asked.

It was that moment that I felt a huge pain surge inside my chest.

As if it had been there forever but only my willingness to actually FEEL ignited my awareness of its presence.

That was the beginning of a very long road to healing what I would later learn was an 11cm tumor in my chest cavity, caused by a type of blood cancer, Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It was this same path of healing that would take me on a journey through my inner wounds and deeply disempowered outlook on life, which would in turn give rise to things I never dreamed I could create.

In the months leading up to being diagnosed – after my initial connection to my own body- I began to practice meditation and cultivating a relationship with my ‘self’. This would set the tone for my path to overcoming cancer. However, I first had to undergo intensive medical treatment which I was told would surely render me infertile.

At the beginning of my cancer journey, I even tragically experienced an ectopic pregnancy, leading to the removal of a fallopian tube. This broke my heart as I knew that it may be the only time my body could get pregnant, according to medical odds. Despite this, something within me still believed I would be a mother one day.

As I embarked on an initial path of intensive chemotherapy, I set my focus onto my music career, knowing it would be my most powerful medicine. Fulfilling this part of my dream, despite what was happening.

Facing death had served as a catalyst for me to really address my terrible self-esteem issues, and amazingly, during the time I was having harrowing cancer treatment, I fulfilled many of my life-long career ambitions. I put together a band and recorded an album of music, not knowing if I would live long enough to see it released into the world.

It was a strange paradox, feeling so alive and inspired for the first time whilst facing such deep adversity, and although it kept my spirits high, inside my health was deteriorating. I had not applied the incredible newly found faith I had to my dreams, to my own body or inner healing, and was very much still living outside of myself.

Through round after round of different chemotherapies, my body itself was becoming weaker and attempts to freeze eggs in hope of having a child one day had failed, as I was told my body had stopped creating eggs.

In January 2018 after 2 years of chemotherapy, my prognosis deeply worsened as I was told all chemo had failed and I was left with a 21cm tumor in my chest. Radiotherapy paired with a stem cell transplant was the only remaining medical hope for staying alive, but it was not certain I had enough time left to undergo these treatments as they took many weeks to prepare for. The size and speed of the tumor expanding meant that I may not even have weeks left.

This shocking news was a turning point for me to really bring my attention within.

To this day I believe it was this decision that not only saved my life but also lead to my deemed infertile body to be able to miraculously heal enough to bear a child.

I managed to crowdfund a cutting edge immunotherapy drug that could halt the growth of the rapidly expanding tumor and buy me time to figure out my own way to address my body and heal.

I then began to surround myself with people who truly believed I could heal. I started to build up amazing communities of people and friends who celebrated my truth and supported me in following my heart.

At this point in my journey, I began to learn about the emotional body and the effects it has on the physical body. I learned the importance of self-love. I learned that cells literally respond to the thoughts and feelings we have about our self and life. I learned that what was underneath my painful way of feeling about myself, was a lot of repressed emotion, and I began a journey of unpacking this, restoring it back to love.

As weeks went by, I found myself unlocking new senses within my body. I began having conversations with parts of me that needed my attention. And as I did so, I found that I began to feel much, much better within myself.

So much so that I was able to receive radiotherapy that was intended to shrink (but not expected to TREAT) the enormous tumor in my chest.

Mine being a blood cancer, the only CURE was deemed to be a stem cell transplant, cleansing the blood itself of cancer, else it would only create new tumors and kill me. However, it was an extremely dangerous procedure itself which could likely end up in relapse. My newfound sense of working WITH my body and intuition told me to carry on with the internal work I was doing before taking further action.

I had to wait 4 months following radiotherapy to navigate the tumor shrinkage, and so in this time I journeyed ever more deeply into my body, my womb, my heart, and brought love to the deep pain there. As I did so, strange and miraculous things began to happen.

As I uprooted childhood wounds and life-long patterns of self-hatred and literally learned to bring those parts of me back to the truth that I was deserving of love, I found myself feeling powerful for the first time in my life. I was learning to truly love myself. I began to realize, I am so, so worthy of this life.

I even trained as a self-love coach in this time and against all odds, I took myself and my fragile body on a solo trip to Croatia where I soaked up sunshine and music and completely nurtured myself.

By the time I got home, I felt so good, so solid, sure, and strong in myself, I made drastic life changes and moved house. With the help of the amazing new communities of people I had found, I kept focusing on restoring my body and repairing my deeply damaged immune system and nervous system.

I started to truly live IN my body, not outside. And my body responded!

Despite all odds, My period returned. This was the first of many little miracles that helped me to know I was on track to true healing.

And sure enough, after 4 months, the scan results came back and not only had the tumor totally shrunk, it had almost ‘impossibly’ ceased to be cancerous at all. All that was left was a harmless dead mass which was no longer cancerous.

At this point, despite the miracle, it was hugely recommended that I have a stem cell transplant in order to avoid what the medical world suspected to be an immediate relapse due to blood cancer. But something had changed within me. I no longer felt afraid or that cancer was a threat. I loved myself and my body so much now, and something told me that would make a difference.

Of course, I realized that this was completely my own choice, and I knew it was a huge gamble to choose to end medical treatment here. But I had just found vitality again, and the transplant would have been so life-risking going against all of the intuition I was having that I couldn’t bring myself to take the risk. So I chose my heart on this.

Months later, I met the love of my life. And then, despite every odd, within 8 weeks of our coming together, I fell pregnant. Not only this but the music I had written and recorded during the early stages of my healing journey finally began to come back into view.

Motherhood allowed me to fully embody my music as medicine and true self-expression. I shot the music video for my first song ‘courage’ at 8 months pregnant. The union of my two greatest life dreams was sealed.

I gave birth to my baby boy, Leo, in November 2019, just before I turned 30. He is now 9 months old and I have just released my debut single and video ‘courage’ into the world.

It has been 2 years since my first clear scan and I have never felt healthier. I’m learning, all the time to love myself evermore. It is a continuous journey of finding new depths within it and I have found that motherhood has been an enormous teacher for this. I chose not to have a transplant, and to this day on paper, I still have blood cancer.

But my relationship to ‘disease’ has changed so much. I no longer see it as something that can come and get me that I feel powerless to. I now have a relationship with my body in which whenever I feel anything out of sorts, I can go within and give full attention and listen to what it is saying.

I’m pleased to report I have had no symptoms of cancer whatsoever and it is very unlikely I will now, but should anything ever come up again, I know that I have the power and the capacity for self-love enough to journey through it.

Motherhood is now my most inspired form of self-healing and fulfillment.

My little boy inspires me to follow my dreams and be a shining light for him to know that he can do anything in this life. I know that as I bring my music to the world and I tell my own story, I am being the best mother to him I can be. Both things seem to belong beautifully together when I trust. I now believe that I can create anything I want in my life when I cultivate that deep trust and listen to my own heart.

The world going into lockdown has given me a chance to really recover and be a full-time mama and artist from home and My EP album of music I wrote on my journey is coming out later this year. It feels more fitting now than ever to bring this music to the world amidst such deeply challenging times. Although we are amidst great uncertainty and tragedy, I feel like we on a mass scale are going through deep healing.

Now when I sing, I feel totally in my body and the music radiates from within me. It is like I blossom from the inside out, and not the other way around, which feels much more grounded and healthy. I feel positive and excited for the future and all that life has in store as I now come full circle and bring my creations into the world. For me, singing and music is the conduit for my most empowered expression and self-medicine, which I also believe is medicine for the world.

I hope to share a message within my music and voice that each of us is capable of so much more than We know. It takes a lot to dare to love ourselves enough to create our lives in the way we feel deep down that it can be.

But it is so possible. I also want people to know that the seemingly darkest adversities can be the raw material for accessing the greatest gifts in your life. I call this alchemy, and I believe every one of us is an alchemist in truth. It just takes courage.

Follow Abi and her beautiful journey in music and family on IG @abithesinger. watch her music Courage and follow her YouTube account here.