Catherine Louise Woollams. Founder, CANCERactive (1978 - 2004)
Sadly, on October 22nd 2004 at 2.00 am Catherine passed away. The oncologist told her parents that when he first saw her he gave her 6 months maximum to live, as it was a grade 4 cancer then. The most anyone had lived with a glioma was 18 months at that hospital, and Catherine survived three and a half years.
Survived is certainly the wrong word. Enjoyed might be more appropriate. For example, in January 2004 she was diving with her dad in Barbados, in February snow-boarding with her boyfriend. By August she was happily on the family holiday in the South of France. Even in September she flew to Prague for her Uncles wedding despite her oncologist telling her the flight would kill her.
She never complained; she always took the attitude that all people get sick and, for some reason, she had been dealt a card that was an unavoidable death sentence. Just bad luck. She always knew that orthodox medicine had no cure, but she was determined to be positive and never wished to be regarded, nor regard herself, as a victim.
Survived is certainly the wrong word - enjoyed might
be more appropriate 
Catherine herself epitomised the three Bs - she was bright, beautiful and brave. She had just left Bristol University with her degree in Chemistry and Law, had already impressed her employers at Conde Naste (Tatler, Vogue etc) and the world was truly her oyster. When she cried it was simply about the unfairness of it all - catching a disease that seemed by lottery, but with a death sentence, no matter how long she tried to defeat it. In the end she turned down my final ideas saying that if I could get rid of it now, it would just come back again and she was truly worn out by it all.
But dont feel sorry for her. She would have hated that. This website is not a shrine to Catherine, but our attempt to help others in the same boat.
Catherine and her father started out as open-minded people looking for alternatives - if the drugs dont work then we need to find other potential cancer cures. We found out so much. But when we asked the oncologists views on natural compounds, ozone therapy, private clinics and so on, we were simply dismissed. If that therapy worked, dont you think wed be using it? Or the bizarre, Dont you know people go to Mexico and never come back!
Giving such replies to patients, well its not good medical practice, it is ignorance. Fear coupled with a total lack of knowledge. And it made Catherine angry. She wanted a magazine that told people there was research on Coenzyme Q10, echinacea, soya lecithin, fish oils, curcumin and more as helpful in the fight against a brain tumour. So what if there are not phase III double-blind clinical trials? Is that good reason not to tell a dying patient that quality research exists. We set out to do it. It has snowballed.
Why me? Why did I get it?
We couldnt answer that. But we did have clues. Not just the usual suspects like poor diet but we found out most gliomas were driven by oestrogen, and then there are issues with mobile phones. We built a programme, cutting out possible drivers and strengthening her immune defences and her will to win.
October 2014 saw the ten year anniversary of her death. My daughters have to remind me. I celebrate her birthday and her life. I have no time to recall the horrors of her death.
Twelve years after the start, we are clearly the UK leader in Holistic or Integrative Medicine for cancer. One Doctor recently said that Single-handedly we had put Integrative Medicine on the map in Britain".
We are also the UKs number 1 cancer prevention charity. Thats not hard though when the large charities refuse to publically acknowledge the dangers of environmental toxins, stress and mobile phones, to name but three genetic risk factors.
We have a magazine (Integrative Cancer and Oncology News, or icon) in over 640 hospitals and cancer centres, and we have this website, you are on now. We also have four Catherine Corners up and down the country. We are simply passing on all our information to empower others. Our aim? To provide everything you need to know to help you beat cancer in an easy-to-read, easy-to-understand way.
Catherines family also raised about 1.5 million pounds for a real-time brain scanner so operations could be performed more accurately at The National Hospital for Neurology and Neuroscience Hospital, Queen Square, in London.
Empowering the world
Now people who want to beat cancer can be empowered. Patients, families, doctors, nurses, and would-be preventers. Now you can have the information that astragalus, or Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy helps improve the success of radiotherapy, or acupuncture does relieve pain, meditation reduces inflammation. Or that HRT increases your breast cancer risk, Tamoxifen your womb cancer risk, EMFs you risk of brain tumours, aspartame your risk of leukaemia, lymphoma or multiple myeloma.
Or that the rapidly developing science of Epigenetics is quite clear that environmental toxins, and stress - not just poor diet and hormones like oestrogen - can lead to changes around your core genetic code, losing crucial messages and giving rise to chronic illnesses like cancer. Or that this is reversible - you are not doomed.
Yet major UK cancer charities tell you little of this.
With CANCERactive now you dont need to die of ignorance. Or, worse, medical mythology and the politics of the business of cancer.
Without her we would never have started
this mission to help others
Over the last twelve years I have built a new part-time career. Although I was successful in advertising I have polished and honed my writing skills, and the fuller use of words in the English language. Only now, can I tell you that I have truly discovered the meaning of the word heartbroken. And I wish I hadnt.
Our thanks go to Catherine - for without her we would never have started this mission to help others. She lives on in our hearts every day.
