I was recently inspired by consultant Marcus Child to “choose hope” (and CW Metcalfe’s ideas of grace under pressure), I think about how we do this when facing bad news,
Head booms,
News looms,
Wait rooms,
Bleach fumes,
Choose hope…
Heart thumps,
Tit lumps,
Tired grumps,
Wish jumps,
Choose hope…
Scalp bare,
Not fair,
Faint prayer
Still there,
Choose hope…
Recently I had to fancy dress a book character and apart from the obvious fairy tales I thought of the wig days and then chose to be Bridget Jones...
You look at me like I have changed,
It wasn’t my intention,
They said I’d die,
But that’s a lie,
And something you can’t mention…
You look, but then you look away,
Is this a real bad hair day?
The style's not swell,
I don't feel well…
My ode this week is partly in respect for the book, The C Word, which I have been reading in anticipation of Sheridan Smith’s drama adaptation of the part. I feel very close, like this was my story too, yet I feel a little guilty that I survived it. But aside from the use of humour as a coping mechanism (and now that I am officially an old bag!), it is the refusal to believe in the fatal possibilities that I recognise…
This week I was honoured to have one of my poems printed on the new Macmillan carriers and I wanted to do that because I think the online community does such a wonderful job!
Sing a song of cell change,
They multiplied array,
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Through my lymph-nodes fly,
When my chest was opened,
The birds began to sing,
Isn't that a dainty dish,
To try to do me in….
I wish we could have simplified the jargon
-my diagnosis was less of a rhyme,
ER diffuse positive
PR negative
Ki-67 15% positive
HER +++
Highly differentiated
Ductal carcinoma
pT2 pN2a (5/23) MO
Stage I…
