Taylor Swift fan Samantha Bulloch has revealed her dying wish is to meet the singer and has made a last-minute plea to make her dreams come true.
Samantha, 29, from Sydney, was devastatingly given just three years to live when she was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer a year ago.
Now Samantha has taken to social media to make a heartfelt plea to anyone who can arrange for her to meet Taylor during the Australian leg of her Eras tour.
The Swiftie already has a ticket to Taylor’s final show in Sydney on February 26, but is desperate for the chance to meet the global megastar backstage.
She said it would “make her year” and said she wants to tell Taylor how much she means to her as she has been a die-hard fan since she was just 15 years old.
Taylor Swift fan Samantha Bulloch has revealed her dying wish is to meet the singer and has made a last-minute plea to make her dreams come true
Samantha told me 7Life: ‘Taylor means so much to me, and I would like to tell her how much of an impact she has made on my life.
“I’ve loved her since I was fifteen, and her music has helped me through so many chapters of my life, including this one.”
Samantha said she recently got Taylor’s lyrics “For the hope of it all” from her song August tattooed on her arm, encouraging her to live life to the fullest amid her battle with cancer.
‘I adopted that text during my experience with cancer. I choose to live for the hope of it all,” she explained.
She made a heartfelt plea to anyone who could arrange a meeting with Taylor, saying: “I’m dying peacefully and honestly this would just make my year.”
Taylor’s Eras tour kicks off at Melbourne’s Cricket Ground on February 16, with the star taking the stage three nights in a row, before performing four nights at Sydney’s Accor Stadium from February 23 to 26.
Samantha’s life was turned upside down last year when she was told she had only three years to live after doctors discovered life-threatening tumors spreading across her colon, liver and right lung following a routine blood test.
Samantha has taken to social media to make a heartfelt plea to anyone who can arrange for her to meet Taylor during the Australian leg of her Eras tour.
On February 28, the library assistant – who was 28 years old at the time – was devastatingly diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer that had spread to her organs.
“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I’m not overweight, I don’t eat processed meat, I hardly eat red meat and there is no family history of colon cancer – it just didn’t add up,” Samantha told FEMAIL of her diagnosis in December.
She was diagnosed with cancer after visiting her GP for a blood test to check her iron levels.
Her symptoms included ‘random’ fatigue, a strange bout of bloating and some blood spotting in 2020, which she attributed to stress.
The blood test results were confirmed that she is anemic, but also emphasized that her liver enzymes were “three times outside the normal rate.”
The GP made an appointment for an ultrasound of Samantha’s liver, which revealed ‘non-specific lesions’ and a tumor. The report also listed a number of diseases it could be, including cancer.
“When I saw that, I thought it was a death sentence,” she said.
The Swiftie already has a ticket to Taylor’s final show in Sydney on February 26, but is desperate for the chance to meet the global megastar backstage
A week later, the results of a CT scan confirmed Samantha’s worst fears: a tumor was growing in her sigmoid colon and had spread to her liver and right lung.
‘I thought, how could I live with tumors growing in my body and knowing nothing about it? “I thought it was wild,” she said.
‘I remember sitting at that appointment with my GP and my father thinking, ‘It’s over, they’re going to tell me there’s nothing they can do’. I knew how bad it was and that scared me to death.”
The tumor in her colon was 6 cm, the two in her liver were 8 cm and the one in her right lung was 1.5 cm, while she also had a ‘bunch of small tumors’ scattered in her liver that could not be measured.
The life-changing news shook Samantha to her core and she initially thought: ‘I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this, I’m not strong enough to do this’.
“I didn’t even want to try, but somehow I put on my big girl pants and went to the next appointment. The first few months were so up and down emotionally, I couldn’t stop crying on the first day of treatment.’
Two days after the diagnosis, she had a conversation with an oncologist and “barely remembers the conversation” after the intense life-changing news.
Rather than undergo surgery first, doctors opted to undergo chemotherapy in an attempt to shrink the tumors.
Samantha started treatment on March 31 and has had biweekly visits since then. By her sixth chemotherapy session, the tumors had shrunk significantly.
She said it would “make her year” and said she wants to tell Taylor how much she means to her as she has been a die-hard fan since she was just 15 years old.
In early October, a scan showed that the intestinal tumor had ‘collapsed’, meaning it was lying flat against the wall of the colon.
The tumor in the lung could also no longer be measured because it is now too small, and one in the liver is less than 2 cm, while the other is 3 cm.
“So far I have had a very positive response to the treatment – better than my doctor thought,” she said. ‘It has truly been a miracle and I am so happy it is working so well.’
Samantha said she thought she was already nine months into her remaining two or three years before being reassured by the doctor that it’s ‘not quite working like that’.
She explained that after each check of the scans the clock restarts because time does not start from the diagnosis, but from the last scan.
‘My doctor said to me: if the treatment doesn’t work, you’re looking at less than twelve months. “If it works, I hope to give you two to three years, which is obviously not what anyone wants to hear,” she said.
Samantha, 29, from Sydney, was devastatingly given just three years to live when she was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer a year ago
‘My mother died of breast cancer when I was ten. It started at stage one or two and then went up to stage four. It was very aggressive and moved into her liver and then things went downhill really quickly.
“So I associate cancer in the liver with very bad news because I’ve seen it firsthand.”
“I surprised myself with the fact that I had (the ability to do this) and persevered. “I have come to terms and accepted that I have cancer,” she continued.
“If you had told me last year that I would be diagnosed with cancer and that I would be doing well emotionally, I wouldn’t have believed you. You’ll be surprised what you can do.’