Clare Campbell-Cooper
Debut author of Choosing to Float
About Clare
Clare has worked within clinical research for over twenty-five years and is a recognised leader within the field of digital health.
Clare is an active member of a number of boards and associations and sits on the Kings College London Scientific Advisory Board, Centre for Pharmaceutical Medicine Research. Clare is fortunate enough to travel the world speaking about David and how understanding the patient and their support network can increase the ability for people to cope with life-limiting illness.
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Clare's current role is the Global Head of Digital Health and Innovation at a global Clinical Research Organisation where she is helping to change the face of how clinical research is developing. Clare's special interest lies in the relationship between the caregiver and physician team and how the use of digital technology can augment this.
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Clare lives in rural north Devon with her husband Ian, son George and their pack of eight dogs.
Choosing to Float
Learning to live with life-limiting illness and find happiness once more
A week after falling pregnant with her first child, Clare Campbell-Cooper found herself in a sterile room listening to a doctor tell her 26-year-old husband he had a brain tumour. In that moment, her life changed forever.
In Choosing to Float, Clare tells the incredibly moving story of a young family learning to cope with a brain tumour diagnosis. With raw honesty, she shares the journey that followed – from the challenge of adjusting to motherhood as her husband underwent brain surgery and the fear that her newborn son would never know his father, to transitioning from wife to carer and grieving the man she loved, as the tumour changed him before her eyes.
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David defied the odds. He died during COVID, just before his fortieth birthday. He had twelve years with his son. With compassion and humour, Clare shares the story of the end of David’s life – from the agonising worry of not being permitted to be with David in hospital during COVID to the beautiful small moments they shared together at home in Devon in his final months.
"David’s story is one of hope, of how light, no matter how hidden, will find a crack to pour through. How hope will bubble to the surface and how our souls found a way to heal"
Clare Campbell-Cooper