45 minutes before these photos...

45 minutes before these photos were taken last Wednesday, I was in a video call with one of our legal team and my FD.?My mobile rang and it was an unknown number so I answered it mid call. It was St Mary’s hospital asking me for an urgent call back as they had seen a 6mm mass in my right breast. They booked me in for the following Thursday for a 3d scan and ultrasound.

To give some context, my experience of breast cancer so far in life is that when I was 11 my Dad told me that ’Mummy wasn’t coming home’ one morning before school.?She had breast cancer at 33 and was given 7 days to live – fortunately she survived!?After celebrating her survival, my parents’ marriage then split and in the months following and my mum left home - my world turned upside down and changed for good.?Whilst not the best in some ways, I am still grateful for the independence and many other things that my childhood gave me and I still have, what I think to be, the most amazing, kind, coolest and best parents on the planet.?I am also very lucky that the amazing checks people like me, whose Mum and Nan both had breast cancer, are early and far more regularly via a special familial unit.

From the legal call I was in, my superstar EA, Lucie Cozens , then walked me to Soho Square and I jumped on that chair in the picture in front of the lights and was interviewed for an hour plus by the fabulous London & Partners team for content on the Mayor’s International Business Programme (yet to be released).?On the walk there I asked to Lucie to read me out the interview questions as I hadn’t had a chance to get to them – I didn’t really take it in.?I also called my FD to make sure all our life insurance on me was in place for me for the company.?It was a full hour of questions and every time there was a noise at the location they asked me to repeat from certain points.?I couldn’t actually remember what I had said seconds before as my head was spinning with thoughts.

The week following I was organised and calm, carried on with my job without my team or most the people I know being aware but I definitely had a busy mind where I would think about it often.

I wasn’t sure whether to write this post but yesterday I had my scans and I was very lucky to have very kind messages across that week of wait from my very close family and friends.?I was even more lucky to have the incredible Clare Munn sit and talk to me and divert my brain in the waiting room – thank you so, so much Clare, a true and very special friend.

I told the radiologist I loved him when he said that there was no problem, the mass was normal and he said something else but, to be honest, I don’t know what it was, I just heard it wasn’t the worst and I don’t need to go back.?

Clare Munn took me from the hospital to Hyde Park and I celebrated with a slush puppie and a can of red coke.?It was a beautiful day in London yesterday; brilliant blue sky and hot sunshine. The world felt, obviously, like just the most wondrous place full of opportunity and promise.?In fact today, I still feel like I can conquer anything, rule the world and more, haha!

The reason for my post is I know how lucky I am to have had that support this last week and how fortunate I am that it was not cancer.?I also made a deal with the universe that if I was okay I would write this post, as I am very private and not the biggest fan of social media.?So often when we operate our lives, there are other things going on – worries, health issues and when we talk to others we don’t always know where they are truly at, what else their mind has on.?And there will be many people that didn’t get my good news yesterday.

My journey with pirkx has been incredible, it is nothing short of a fairy tale that I am blessed to have experienced so far, in fact my whole life feels pretty much like that.?The last week has pushed even further in my heart our pirkx mission.?Ultimately we use technology to get important services like doctors, counsellors and virtual physio to people for ￡4.50 in the UK.?It is incredibly affordable and people can cancel at any time so hopefully the majority of people can therefore use it.

This gift of a business has the opportunity to have a huge impact as the same problem we solve here in the UK, we can solve worldwide using our existing technology.?We can get important services to people who wouldn’t be able to get them elsewhere through inaccessibility or just not being able to afford it.?I believe it is mine, my amazing team, and our extended pirkx family’s job to get pirkx to as many people as possible.?If anyone had a week like mine last week, then having a counsellor to reach out to is valuable and pirkx might just help someone feel more happy, be more healthy or a little more comfortable – the dictionary definition of wellbeing.?And even if it doesn’t, it is just ￡4.50, almost the price you would pay for a posh coffee in London.

I am about to take my first holiday since the start of pirkx, and I am going with a renewed sense of responsibility.?Whether it is pirkx – which I am wholly biased but it definitely is the best (other people say it too) or any other service, I would encourage everyone to put the most basic services in place for their teams and their loved ones if they can.?It might not solve everything, it might have little things that are not quite perfect but fundamentally it gives the support of base level services that every human can use.

If you have read this to the end – it’s a bit long and waffly - please do look after your team. It literally takes five minutes to sign up and if you don’t have the time, my team will do it for you. Tell your friends if they have a small business without anything in place and share with anyone where it might make even a little positive difference.?It’s important stuff and I believe we need to take action – whether it is sending an email, making a call, clicking on a link; things happen.?Thinking about change, doesn’t make change.??

As JoJo, the massage therapist, who inspired me to build pirkx said – If you are not well, you are not at all. I felt her words last week and hope that pirkx and I can do something to support and make that a little better for people.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, hopefully in the sunshine and sending much love, Sx