Category: Cancer

‘Let me know if you need anything.’

One of the shitty things about being human is that some of us sometimes get really sick. A will-I-live-or-will-I-die sort of sick. As a collective we spend our lifetime trying to outrun our own mortality so being forced to face it makes people feel a bit ick inside. We feel inadequate because we don’t know what to do or the right thing to say. The thing is when someone gets sick (the live-or-die kind of sick) there is no right thing to say. But if there was, ‘let me know if you need anything’ (LMKIYNA) isn’t it. Continue reading “‘Let me know if you need anything.’” →

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The menopause.

Menopause is supposed to be something your mother has. When my mother first started ‘whinging’ about the effects of menopause, I’d roll my eyes and sigh. “Yes, we know, you’re hot. We get it.” Only I didn’t get it. I was a self-centred, mean spirited young thing who had absolutely no idea that my mum wasn’t just hot. She felt like she could combust at any moment. I wasn’t supposed to understand that until at least middle age, but there I was, 34 years old, wondering why the hell I was sweating only on one shin… Continue reading “The menopause.” →

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I am a little bit obsessed with Facebook’s ‘On this day’ feature. I get excited when the clock ticks past midnight and I can see what memories I’ll be reminded of! Most of the time I am disappointed at just how uninteresting some of my posts were, but there are always the ones that make you laugh or that are accompanied by photo’s you forgot had been taken. Then there are the ones that knock the wind out of your sails – memories with friends you no longer see, pictures of people whose lives have been lost, and for me, memories BC/DC – before and during cancer. Continue reading “Facebook and the persistence of memory.” →

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In the last 3 months I’ve written plenty of things that should have made it on to my blog. Funny things, cancer-related things, non-cancer-related things. But they never seem to quite get there because I get distracted, or I get tired, or I worry it’s too negative, or I binge-watch something on Netflix. You’d think that not having to work would mean I had all the time in the world to be doing the things I want but it hasn’t really worked out that way. Continue reading “What comes next?” →

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2017 was a hell of a year. A year of starting again in so many ways. And a year of adventure. At this time last year my scar from my surgery was still open in 3 places (still with 5 months of healing ahead) and the crushing heat in a stifling summer was killing me, as were the incessant hot flushes of menopause. I was learning how to manoeuvre in my old world in the new and strangely empty body I had brought back from hospital. Continue reading “Hello 2018.” →

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Part and parcel of dealing with cancer is tests – blood tests, CT scans, MRIs. In the space of about a month last year I’d had two CT scans, a PET scan, two blood tests, an appointment with a gynaecological oncologist, a colonoscopy, gastroscopy and a laparoscopy. I felt like a radioactive pincushion. Continue reading “Scanxiety” →

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