Last Christmas I didn’t give you my heart but shortly before the big day I did struggle to stand up while waiting for the doors of a circus show to open.

When I say “struggle” I mean I was close to explaining to one of the event managers that I have cancer and need to find a seat before I collapse.

Eventually the doors opened and, fuelled by overpriced lemonade, I was fine.

But it has left me wondering about the summer.

I’m in the part of life where I’m too old for Glastonbury Festival but in my pre-cancer days still loved sitting in a field or park with a paper cup full of lager watching bands.

Back in 2023 I’d just started chemotherapy and thought I was too ill to be at a festival.

Last summer I felt the same. I was still on a chemotherapy drug called oxaliplatin, so was wiped out for a lot of the time.

This year I’m thinking that if chemotherapy is going to continue until I die then maybe I need to start living. That’s one thing we risk forgetting when talking about a deadly disease.

If you’re reading this then you need to start living for today too. Book the holiday you’ve always wanted to go on. Meet up with the friend you haven’t seen for a decade. Get up close and personal with your favourite band by sorting the tickets and cling on to the barrier for dear life.

But – back to me. I need to start living by working out if I could stand up for five-and-a-half hours.

I’d really like to see Charlotte de Witte do her DJ thing and I’ve found out she’s playing at the Junction 2 festival in London at the end of July.

(It’s one of those city ones where instead of it being what I’d call a proper festival, it’s thousands of people in a park but it’s better than nothing.)

Last entry to the event is at 5ish so they can make their money on lager and supposedly gourmet burgers, which you’ve just seen them get out of the freezer and look no different to very budget ones, and I doubt she’d be on much before 10pm.

This means I’d have to entertain myself while being worried about chemo side-effects and, if it is rainy and muddy, not knowing where I would be able to sit down.

The other big issue at the moment is that I don’t have anyone to go with and I’m not good at doing things on my own.

I wonder if I’d just book myself a ticket and go for it if I didn’t have cancer.

I’d like to think I would but, for me, my perspective about everything has changed, even though I still like to think I’m the same person I was before I was diagnosed with my incurable disease.

This is why the Daily Express Cancer Care campaign is so important. There are millions of cancer patients out there just trying to do the best we can to be us instead of being defined by cancer.

Not everyone will want to come and see Charlotte de Witte with me (get in touch if you do) but everyone may experience wellbeing issues along their “cancer journey”. The best way to tackle this is to ensure medical teams help them with any mental health problems that arise both during and after treatment.

Even if it’s just a small worry about standing up for five hours because not everyone has the luxury of a weekly Daily Express comment piece to express how they are feeling.