The "Definitely not a Year" Year Blog.

One year ago yesterday, on 20th May 2007, my friend Sophie and her partner took myself and my partner out in the nearest countryside. We walked in the woods, and located the elusive Robin Hood's Well. Sophie took a photo of me and her partner play-fighting as Merry Men. We walked further and I started to feel tired and unwell...After we had eaten the picnic they had made, we lay on the grass in the sunshine. Passersby called jolly comments. I found a four-leaved clover, and thought, "Tomorrow I shall be lucky. They won't tell me I need to have any more chemo." One year ago today, my partner and I were standing in one of the little consulting rooms in the Oncology Department. A doctor I had never met before was asking, "Did you have a CT scan - only we can't find it?" In the ensuing wait, I said to my partner, "If they ask me to have another scan now I'm going to say I'll wait until September." I'd gone back to work three weeks earlier, and it felt like life was returning some approximation of normality. The doctor returned, asked us to sit down where he could see both of us - and I knew this was The End. He gave me 3-4 months, a little longer if I was very strong, but "definitely not a year". Yesterday my friend Sophie took the afternoon off work. She drove us out in the same direction as last year. At my request, we stopped to look at the lovely old churchyard set amongst the fields D H Lawrence mentions in "Love Amongst the Haystacks". We stepped through the grass, with its daisies and speedwell, and found the poignant 18th century grave of an 11 year old child. The engraved plate depicts an hour glass with the sands run out. We took photos of each other - I stepped carefully amongst the last of the bluebells, and the Queen Anne's Lace to get close to the trunk of a centuries old tree. "This is what churchyards should be like," I say. Just then, a rumble and whine announce two Local Authority ride-on motor mowers roaring through the gate. They start scything great swathes of flower heads. "He cometh up and is cut down like a flower!" What a waste of Council tax! However, I decline Sophie's suggestion of a little message via my Swiss Army knife on their truck ("Cancer Woman in Eco-Revenge Attack")... Proceed to garden centre. My partner just about tolerates these: he is soon laden wih my choices including some extremely optimistic ones such as tomatoes and late-summer perennials! Also bought local honey, which I put in my homemade bread. Giggle at Sophie, who is wearing some of the crimson feathers from a pot in the Household Gift Dept as Borrowed Plumes a la Moulin Rouge. She also announces, "I've got an idea for a new Facebook album: Hideous Garden Centre Statues!" "Ooh can I do that too?" "Course you can!". (vide eg "Fair Maids of Moor Green") Also looaded up on Bill Oddie bird seed for our garden full of hangers-on.... Went up lane and sat in garden of pub. Swallows. Iced fruit juice. Melon and raspberries. Oh - sorry, I mean the swallows were overhead, not a la Carte! Sophie and I played on the kids' swings (in pleasurable defiance of "Act your age not your shoe size", as they say round here).... Came home. Found envelope marked "Open Weds". Planted up tomatoes, watched our birds and frogs. Partner cut some slices of my bread and we had salad. Later, I came on here, and answered some messages. At one minute past midnight my partner and I held hands and hugged each other. I was very tired by then, but sent two more messages as I discovered two new people with fresh Terminal verdicts... Today, one year on, I walked all the way to get the free bus running between the two hospitals. I went the scenic route (but won't tell my partner later as it's a bit dodgy). Saw a policeman on beat. Also noticed shaven-headed rather scary-looking driver has also spotted him, and was now reversing out of sight! Enjoy as I always do the sound of the river, and the trees and greenery... Got off bus and walked across to the Hospice. Very calm there, a softer Weltanschauung from the rest of the Hospital site. Sat writing card for my Oncology Team, and then writing my paper diary. My lovely June wafts in, and escorts me to her pine-clad sanctuary. I tell her about my week, including the Squif/"Rob" problems - she asking me if this site really worth it, and me saying YES - and also that someone had messaged me this morning and included reminder of "the inevitable", which had pierced my mind like a splinter. Then we mulled over the essential oils like Oenophosists at a wine-tasting, and I lay down. June has magical healing hands, very delicate to look at, but soon I feel as though I am sprouting little wings - not the heaveny sort, but little fairy ones that enable me to rise above my problems. As usual I have vivid thoughts of the lovely gardens I have visited in my life. She hugs me as I leave... I walk over the daisy grass and along to the grim "H Block". Horribly familiar - the same stained carpet I had had to sit down on, so ill with the chemo I couldn't stand to wait for the taxi. Went up the stairs (lift, pah!) and into the Oncology Outpatients'. Recognise the miasma of gloom tinged with bravado. The young lady who assists my oncologist is at the desk. "Yes," she says, "I do remember you." She reaches over to take my hand, and of course that gets me tearful. Anyway, I hope they take the teasing card in a generous spirit and are pleased for me confounding their statistics... Walk out into sunshine. Waiting for the free bus, I pick a single blossom, pink-tinged and sculptural, off one the fat candles on the chestnut trees. Examine it closely then press it in my diary... Getting off the bus, walk the scenic way (again won't tell him), loving all the "weeds" - the buttercups, the hawkbit, the plantain, some escaped snapdragons, Queen Anne's Lace, floweing grasses. I detoured to look at the old mill pond. Yes, the swans are nesting again. Get home, feed blackbirds, make pot of herb tea, ring partner. Then I sit down and write this, concluding with quote from my friend Anne, "Make Every Day count". Then - I press the wrong bliddy button, or the right button at the wrong time and the whole bliddy lot disappears, doesn't it, so I know it's a normal day, after all! Anyway, what I really wanted to say is a thank you to all of you who have responded to and befriended me, and also to the What Now Team. I am convinced that the support and sense of still being some use has been a vital ingredient in the mysterious potion keeping me here to reach my Definitely Not a Year Year! Thank you. xxxx to you all. Copyright Penny 21st May 2008