Ruth’s Cancer Journey Supporting Macmillan
For food editor Ruth a cookbook was her road to recovery and her inspiration for the future
After being diagnosed with ovarian cancer earlier this year, Food Editor and award-winning cookery teacher at Ruth’s Little Kitchen, Ruth
Macintyre is keen to make the best of her situation by raising thousands of pounds for Macmillan Cancer Support.
Ruth’s journey began in January when she started to feel under the weather.
“I’m 55 and I had thought that I was feeling a bit tired and just generally a little bit run down. I had a bit of bloating and was putting a little weight on round my waist and I put all those down to menopause.
“I was just chatting with a friend and she said I don’t think that’s normal I think you should go to the doctor. So I went to the doctor – it was a telephone appointment – and the doctor said to me it was a urine infection.”
However, Ruth knew something more serious was wrong, and so she made another appointment with her GP, this time face to face. “She sent me for an ultrasound and that scan showed I had two cysts in my ovaries. Then they sent me for a CT scan, and that then showed I had some other things they wanted to investigate. Then I had an MRI scan and that showed I had some lymph nodes that were looking suspect as well.” Ruth was then under the care of The Royal Marsden Hospital in Chelsea, where she had an operation to remove the cysts. “A really nice surgeon,
Dr Barton said, ‘We’ll open you up and see what’s what’. At that stage I thought it was either grade 2/3 but when they opened up they found the lymph nodes had metastasised and I had some near my aorta, near my venae cava. It turned from a 6 hour operation to an 8 hour operation. I lost quite a bit of blood but they did manage to get everything out.
“I was in intensive care for I think 3 days, none of which fazed me. Because you’re under their care I think it affects people who are outside of hospital, your loved ones, as they’re kind of more fretting about you. You’re just in the zone. But of course it was all through the Covid pandemic, so I couldn’t have anyone to come and visit me.”
After a week in hospital Ruth was back on her feet and about to start chemotherapy, determined to get back to full health.
“Chemotherapy got worse as I went along because it builds up in your body. I did lose my hair quickly.”
Although this was difficult, Ruth found some light in the form of a Macmillan cookbook.
“I decided to get involved with Macmillan because on chemo I went in and I saw they’d done this resource – recipes for people with cancer. I thought, wow all those people out there that can’t cook, this is great!
“All different cancers have all different problems. Like if you have bowel cancer you can’t be having things with seeds because it can go into your intestines and cause you problems. Sometimes an after effect with chemotherapy is that you get a really bad taste in your mouth so you don’t want to eat. So some of the recipes would be high in calories like smoothies, very easy to take in and they might
“WHENEVER YOU HELP OTHERS YOU HELP YOURSELF – IT REALLY GAVE ME FOCUS”
have full fat cream in them or full fat ice cream to give people calories.”
Inspired by Macmillan’s recipe book and with her extensive cookery teaching background, Ruth decided to run “Cook Togethers” via Zoom where people would donate money to Macmillan to join and cook along with Ruth. Through this and other fundraising activities Ruth has raised over £2,000 for Macmillan so far which has made a huge difference, not only to the charity but to her.
“Whenever you help others, you help yourself. When I would go on a Zoom chat I would put my make up on and my hat – it gave me purpose. It really did help me a lot, it gave me focus.”
But no matter how much or little you raise, every penny counts. The Macmillan website ( WWW.MACMILLAN.ORG.UK) shows you exactly where the money goes and how it supports people living with cancer.
Ruth’s journey with Macmillan is far from over with her now planning for her next fundraising activity, the Macmillan Coffee Morning.
So, does Ruth have a message for new fundraisers out there?
“Do it! Macmillan do a fantastic job all through the United Kingdom. They will be under a lot of stress right now because there’s not much money around and the more money we can raise for such a worthwhile cause is only going to the greater good.”
You can find Ruth cooking on Instagram and Facebook @RuthsLittleKitchen and on her website RUTHSLITTLEKITCHEN. CO.UK