My life has been the most incredible rollercoaster and I've learnt so much from my experiences and the people who've been involved in one way or another. I've been to beautiful places - Paris, Venice, Mauritius and Sorrento to name a few - I've seen incredible people in concert - Luther Vandross, Whitney Houston, George Michael and even Barbra Streisand! - and I've enjoyed raising three wonderful children, my youngest turned 18 last summer.
There has been drama though; divorce, single parenthood, suicide, the loss of my mother to lung cancer and other negative situations that have taken a lot of strength to come through. So with 2017 and my 50th birthday in my sights towards the end of February, I had real hope that this would be 'my year' - drama-free, positivity oozing from every opportunity, lights - camera - action! I took my time deciding on having a big party and in the end, I thought 'sod it, why not?!' So I got my 'fabulous at fifty' invites printed, dropped them in the post with lots of text invitations going out simultaneously and set my sights on the evening of 18th Feb, six days before my actual birthday on the 24th, but still in half term allowing for all my education-working colleagues to make it.
Just flipping back a few weeks to 20th January and I nipped upstairs to take my work clothes off to get comfy for cooking the tea when I brushed past what felt like a small swelling under my right arm, on my breast. A limpet sprang to mind - a hard, rough feeling lump that felt as if it was stuck to that area of my chest. Now, I'm not one of life's panickers - too much drama on my reel for me to panic any more - so I left it a couple of days. It literally stuck firm, so I toddled of to my GP practice on the morning of 31st January, on my way to work, and sure enough, a referral to the breast care centre was the result.
'Can you come in to us on Friday 17th February at 9am?' asked the woman on my mobile on 9th Feb. Mmmm...the day before my big celebration where a plethora of wonderful people would come together to drink, eat and dance with me, laughter and enjoyment at the top of the evenings agenda. 'Could I come on Monday 20th instead?' I asked 'it's just the one working day later, after all.'
The party was everything it promised and more - a blindingly fabulous time was had by all of the 150 or so guests who came and I did myself proud by being the best host I could, while having a really great time too. And then came Monday 20th...
