Why I Started Chemo & Co

In June 2024, I was diagnosed with stage 3C1 cervical cancer.

I was 31, and my youngest was just six months old. I’d barely found my rhythm as a new mum again before everything changed. What followed was a blur of appointments, scans, blood tests, and words that didn’t seem to belong in my life — words like chemotherapy, radiotherapy, brachytherapy.

There’s no way to prepare for hearing you have cancer. No script. No handbook.

So I did what I knew how to do: I started talking.

I opened up on Instagram.. partly for me, partly for my friends, partly just to not feel so alone. I shared the fear, the dark moments, the treatment days. I shared the mundane things too — the school runs, the dinners, the crying late at night.

And people listened. They shared. They reached out.

Some messaged to say they’d booked the smear they’d been putting off for years. Others told me they finally felt seen.. that someone was saying the things they hadn’t had the words for.

Then I started hearing from people who were walking the same path I was. People newly diagnosed. People in the middle of treatment. People still waiting for the all-clear.

We all had different stories, but one thing kept coming up:
No one was talking about our mental health.

There were leaflets. There were timelines. But there was nothing that said: “How are you, really?”

No space to fall apart. No gentle support that wasn’t wrapped in clinical language or toxic positivity.

That’s when I realised: cancer isn’t just about what happens to your body — it’s about what it does to your mind, your relationships, your identity, your hope.

And that’s when the idea for Chemo & Co started to form.

Not as a business, at first but as a way of creating what I couldn’t find. A safe, quiet space to write. To cry. To remember. To ask questions. To process.

I never set out to start a company. I just wanted to help people feel less alone.
I still do.

So if you’ve found your way here, I just want to say:

Thank you.
For reading.
For supporting.
For being part of something that started in the middle of the mess and turned into something meaningful.

— Hollie x