Every day, 34 young adults in their 20s and 30s are diagnosed with cancer. AfterThoughts is a podcast of stories about what happens afterwards.

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Stories about young adults who are diagnosed with cancer usually seem to end when treatment does. Toby Peach and Alice-May Purkiss, the hosts of AfterThoughts, know from personal experience this isn’t the case. Beyond a diagnosis there’s a lot of processing, growing, exploration and living that needs to happen. They wanted to create a place for young adults living with and beyond cancer to tell their stories, and so AfterThoughts was born.

But AfterThoughts isn’t about Toby and Alice. For them, AfterThoughts is about the storytellers - the young adults who have had cancer who trusted them to share their stories with frankness and honesty. Each episode sees each storyteller explore seven themes - identity, beyond a diagnosis, invisible impacts, those around us, gift or grievance, the lost conversations and don’t laugh, covering a range of topics within each theme.

AfterThoughts shows what a diverse collection of adults and experiences the young cancer community is made up of.

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The first three episodes were released on Wednesday 1st April 2020. A new episode will be released every fortnight. You can listen to the episodes below. 

EPISODE 1: INTRO

EPISODE 2: SOPHIE TREW

EPISODE 3: BRAD GUDGER

EPISODE 4: KRIS HALLENGA

EPISODE 5: DAN

Episode 6: Ryan Collard

EPISODE 7: TORAL SHAH

EPISODE 8: LULU SOCRATOUS

The Wrap Up

This podcast is free for you, through the support of Trekstock. If you would like to make a donation so that Trekstock can continue to help young adults living through and beyond cancer, we would be very grateful. 

Yes, I'll Make A Donation

Trekstock is proud to be supporting AfterThoughts. Since 2009, Trekstock has been working hard to ensure that no young adult in their 20s and 30s goes through cancer alone. We know that the young adults in our community feel the impact of cancer on their lives from the point of diagnosis, through treatment, and beyond. We know how important these stories are, both for the people telling them, and those listening, and we're thrilled to be working with Toby and Alice to bring these stories to the world.  

“We knew that the issues being spoken about in the podcast were bound to bring up emotions and difficulties for both storytellers and listeners alike. We wanted to make sure that everyone who takes part or listens has the opportunity to deal with any of those things in a healthy way - so we are delighted to be supported by Trekstock. As young adults who have been through cancer, we know how valuable that support is.”

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About the Hosts

Toby Peach 

Toby was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma when he was 20 years old, which, like everyone who has cancer as a young person, came as quite a shock. He had the delights of ABVD Chemotherapy for 3 months and then found his way straight into remission. After a year, he relapsed after and returned to his old hospital haunt for ESHAP Chemo and a Autogenous Stem Cell Transplant. He has been in remission for 9 years. Toby is one of Trekstock's Young Adult Ambassadors. 

“AfterThoughts came about as a way to amplify new voices in the cancer community. Alice and I have had a host of opportunities to tell our stories, and that has been a huge privilege as it has allowed us to spark conversation on the narrative on cancer. I wanted to find new ways to tell and hear new cancer stories and share those with others, so that we can make visible the invisible cancer narratives.”

Alice-May Purkiss

Alice-May Purkiss was 26 when she heard the words “I’m afraid the lump we biopsied is cancerous. You have breast cancer.” It was the summer of 2015 and from that moment, her life changed in every way possible. She had a mastectomy, followed by a gruelling 9 surgeries to fix the damage cancer had left behind, six sessions of chemotherapy and 15 sessions of radiotherapy. 

 “For me, AfterThoughts is a way to continue the conversation after the cancer has “gone” or when a person has learned that they have to live with the disease. I was baffled by the fact that all of the stories in the mainstream seem to end when cancer treatment does, and I learned the hard way that’s very untrue. Toby and I wanted AfterThoughts to bring this reality to the forefront, both for young adults who have had cancer experiences to feel less alone, and for those who haven’t had cancer to see that there can be life after a diagnosis. But often it’s not as straightforward as people expect.”