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Honestly, I couldn't make this up.
Another night, another email, another "friend" who is now not. This one really does takes the biscuit.
Like many people when they first get diagnosed, I shared the news with friends because I thought I should tell them and if I'm being honest, because I hoped they'd be supportive. I was soon inundated with text messages and emails that I found increasingly difficult to answer. So having read a wonderful post by someone who was obviously in a similar...
Been to chemo today, my penultimate session.
Having had an extra week off I was feeling really chipper. Downside of that extra week off is that, my body seems to crash so much quicker when I do get the chemo, like today. As A pointed out a bit of a double edged sword.
I drove Bob there. Couldn't find a disabled spot so had no choice but to park in multi storey where you have to pay and display. £7.70 for over 5 hours. My chemo takes 7 at least. EEEEEE. I decided to put £5.50 on for up to...
Hands up, it was me.
After last weekend's misery, I've been left feeling angry. Partly because of inevitable frustration but mostly because of unthinking berks (if you weren't all so nice, I'd use a much ruder word). But thanks to the lovely posters on my last blog entry, I now feel no duty of care to "friends" who seek only to obtain information of my medical status to satisfy their own needs.
I made a new friend this week, would you like to meet him? You might have bumped...
My friend Piotr (name changed to hide identity and nationality) had cancer well before me. He is also extremely well read. So when he kindly offered to chat to me after my diagnosis, inevitably one of the topics that came up was which books he had read about cancer and which would he recommend. Without hesitation he named three:
Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn;
Illness as Metaphor by Susan Sonntag;
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
I guess there are two main reasons why one...
Good evening,
Following a brief hospital stay last night I am in my own bed watching a program called 'The making of you', it has made me reflective. It is talking about gene mutations that happened in the womb when we were created. I wonder, did something that happen in the womb make it more likely I would get cancer? What if it did? What could that mean for future medicine? Could it have been changed?
It also naturally makes me emotional as I think on our children. The pull of love you...
My friend called on Sunday, to ask if it was okay for him to stay on Friday. Of course I said it was fine but reminded him that I had my operation on Tuesday and I might not be my usual hostess self.
Friday came and although I was tired, cooking wasn't impossible. Thanks to the dishwasher I didn't have to clean up too. Friday became Saturday and I was starting to flag. He doesn't do sitting down, so he drove me for a brief trip to a garden centre and a DIY shop, by dinner time cooking was hard work...
When I joined a trial for an online course in the autumn of 2013 I had no idea that I would make lasting friendships, we have ups and downs but still stand together and in a week when one amongst us is struggling, my aunt has successfully had another lung tumour removed and the cat will be having a suspicious lumpectomy (even my cat may have cancer, don’t laugh!) I think of that special friendship with gratitude...
You're holding on,
and we are to...
Evening all...
We are back after our trip to Worcester for me to attend a couple of days at the University in preparation for my new course starting this coming Monday.
I thoroughly enjoyed it. A room full of like minded people all excited about the course and training to help new parents on their parenting journey. I am now also the proud owner of a demonstration doll and pelvis in readiness for running an ante natal course.
Worcester was a lovely place to be, A and the twins came with me and they...
The day of surgery wasn't quite what I had expected, it was almost pleasant. I'm no masochist but the people I met, made it an awful lot easier than the mental melee I was prepared for.
Putting guide wires in place on both sides was at times comical. The positions I found myself clamped to a mammogram, I'm sure would have challenged a yoga guru. The lovely ladies in Radiology were so patient when my escaping boobs ( or me ) wouldn't do as directed. You can't blame them (the boobs), I think...
Yet another uninspiring "update" style blog I'm afraid. But at least a positive one!
Just over ten days ago for my bank holiday entertainment I managed to throw up and throw out my nasal feeding tube. Unable to face going to hospital over a bank holiday weekend I decided rather to interpret this as an omen that I should now try to subsist without it.
Following consultation yesterday with my oncologist and ENT specialist, it looks like I might succeed in my goal of ditching the tube...
