This jolly picture was taken on the day Andrew and I married - July 18th, 1981. It was a lovely day and really was the start of a life together. We chose it. We had some idea, or thought we did. On the whole things have worked out really well for us. It was our fortieth wedding anniversary yesterday and we spent a grateful and relaxed weekend celebrating the good things. We both know how frail a life can be. How much it can swing from one direction to another. In truth, you just never know what's going to happen. Good or bad. Hopes and plans, strengths and weaknesses. You may feel more or less in control of what you're doing... But you never know.
Back in January ('21) I realised something was not right with my digestion. I will not bore you here with all the details of the events and non-events which followed. (Remember this has all been during the Covid stresses on the NHS). It has taken 6 long and anxious months to get a face-to-face meeting with the oncologists, and now - at last! - I have a diagnosis and a plan of action. Chemo therapy starts on Friday. Along the way I had blood tests ('You're diabetic'), a colonoscopy, an ultrasound, a CT scan, a gastroscopy + biopsy, an MRI scan, dental X-rays and examination, a diabetic eye test, more blood tests, a liver biopsy, and mostly a lot - really a lot - of waiting. My GP turned out to be useless, negative, unhelpful, totally disinterested. In fact, speaking to a cancer nurse last week on the phone, I mentioned he had been almost no help at all, and she immediately said 'Is it Dr T--?' That was a shocker in itself.
The Cancer Care Teams - nurses who tell you their names - have been uniformly wonderful, sympathetic, knowledgable, helpful, direct. Every single one of the people I have met or spoken to have been professional, kind, efficient, human, and all exhausted, working under the extreme pressures of the Covid pandemic and lockdowns, and the perennial underfunding. But the communication between departments has been really patchy. This does, in some part, explain my GP's lack of interest... It seems he did not actually know I was having these tests, rang me once sounding very surprised to say he had the histology report from the gastroscopy. He says he never got the scan reports, and was 'too busy' to ask. My anger and disappointment at his failure to support me in what has been a very frightening walk through a very dark forest, where I understand very little and really know nothing, and have no map, has been a major factor in my life all these months.
Along the way have been conversations with so many people - I wish I had recorded them all, but it's never too late to start... I learned so much, have been on a helterskelter of learning, sliding down into unknown territory with each interaction, holding on to this, having to let go of that.... My thoughts have been wide-ranging: sometimes deep, sometimes practical, sometimes dark. Usually 'rational'... I think.
One of my preoccupations already is how to tell everyone what is happening. My friend Ashley in Wales is well into brutal treatment for his own cancer in and out of hospital, and he and his wife Pat advise putting their news bulletins out in one place only (Facebook in their case) to avoid having to repeat the good or bad news all the time. They just don't answer random enquiries even from friends... it's all up there. I think I will do the same and this blog may be part of how I manage it. Many of my friends are not 'on Facebook' and in any case that is a very public forum with overlaps to many groups who are not remotely interested in my chemo or whatever. So maybe a blog, and then links to it from FB, Twitter and WhatsApp.
As of today I feel really well. I am mostly very positive in mood, no pain, flexible, able to walk a fair distance, garden, think, paint, write, shop, etc. It seems almost surreal to be thinking about flooding my body with toxins - forever, it seems. But everything has to change. We have had the house on the market for the last three months, a depressing experience in that the agents were pretty well useless. But we are taking it off the market. Just four viewings in 12 weeks! One offer, subsequently (we found out) withdrawn as the people couldn't raise enough on the sale of their own house though they loved this. The agent didn't tell us the offer was withdrawn till we pestered. Eventually I put a little poster in our front window giving v brief details and price - and someone wants to come and see the place - on Wednesday. Our last viewer. If she likes, makes a sensible offer and agrees not to deviate, and has an achievable date in mind, we might go for it, even though chemo starts this week. We have done a lot of decluttering... not enough, but (as I see from earlier blogs) there has been a lot of pleasure in getting rid of precious, garnered, things. Half a van-load went to auction and we'll get £600 or so. Not enough really for what we sold - but - we'll never need that stuff again, and it's great to have the space.
We have a cleaner - Lore - starting on the same day as our viewer. We have a WhatsApp group set up for people willing to help with whatever burdens weigh on us for the chemo... driving, cooking, shopping. Friends have been almost unbelievably kind. Leads to a little cry now and then. Thank you all! You know who you are. The doctors say this treatment is for the duration, it is not a cure, but 'just a treatment'. If it goes well, they may be able to consider other options - surgery? radio? who knows?
Despite the horrible diagnosis (I didn't say - a new breast cancer which has spread to spine, liver and adrenals) I feel very robust and in a good place. The oncologists both said they were surprised to see me so well... having seen the scans, they expected a very poorly person to come into the clinic. I ascribed this wellness to taking my JuicePlus+ capsules for 15 years which we know boosts the immune system... and that interested the Registrar, Joao Galante, very much. He said immunotherapy is really the only new cancer treatment which has been developed in the last few years. He said, keep doing it! So I start from a strong position. When the consultant came in, Jennifer Glendinning, she too said she hadn't expected me to be as well as I obviously am. So, I feel I have this extra support from the fruits and vegetables. And, as my lovely school friend Sandy Birchnell (retired psychiatrist) said in a text this morning, the treatment is brutal but it works. I have two wig appointments lined up. We had two really lovely lunches out this weekend to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary which was yesterday.... On Saturday, lunch at Posilippo with Kate and Andy Osmond (and she urged me to restart the blog), and yesterday in the courtyard garden at Henry's Bar and Chocolate Cafe in Hythe with Nicky Tolson (who lent me a wig), and John McConnell ... like the old days. In weeks to come, they say I have to avoid sunlight and beware of picking up infections, so these two sunny outings were especially precious.
The optimism and hope of a wedding - especially when the partnership has already had to overcome some difficulties, as ours did - is a wonderful thing. You can see in the photos the lightness of heart, the huge numbers of friends and family who came along, the spirit of the whole venture. It led on to our two brilliant and beautiful children, and all their adventures, and the adventures we ourselves have had - travelling, cooking, arguing, making things, working, sharing ... all the ordinary things of life. We have been so lucky.. and all that was waiting inside us on the day we married. Now facing chemo and frightening scenarios - so much unknown - there is another whole set of futures waiting for us. Each phone call, each meeting, each decision unrolls new possibilities, new ideas. I have to be honest and say this illness - coming now - feels like a cutting-off of some of the things I had in mind to do - to move to Ireland maybe, to plant a new forest garden somewhere, to do more travelling. I have books to write, and paintings to make. And campaigns to run in the community. But, of course, I don't know if any of those will be taken away from me or not! It may all unroll as I hoped. Let's hope.
