Telling folk

Sometimes we all look ropey. We get ill, our noses are Rudolf-esque and we are generally not feeling on top of our game. When that happens, when you have a cold, feel sick, trip and bruise your hip or face, you can if you wish, hide at home until you look like yourself again. Equally, if you want, in this oversharing world of the twenty first century, to make a social media post, to announce your misfortune to the world, then you can. If you are diagnosed with cancer, it’s not as straightforward a choice as that. It won’t come as a surprise to hear that I hadn’t planned what I would do if this befell me, I expect you won’t have either. Here are some of the key points from my experience.

Family

This is a real bittersweet topic for me. As you know, it was almost four years ago now that I was ill. There are stacks of great blogs out there from people who are, or have documented their journey through cancer, in real time. A pal of mine is doing that right now at When life gives you melons. Those stories are real and wonderful. I’m choosing what I now reflect as being the big, key moments in my journey for my attitude and my outlook, both at the time and now.

My Guide to Packing for Appointments

Nobody packs for appointments as well as I do. I really believe that. If I’d been allowed to join the guides when I was eleven (which is a whole other, tragic story of injustice in a Northern town) then I’d have been ace. I’m so prepared. I know just what to take with me, for how long the ordeal is going to last. I really do win at appointments. 

My Consultant

This is more timely than I expected with the news features at the minute concerning the staff at Alder Hey hospital. This is the first of my “I love the NHS” fan posts I suppose. I hope you never get to be as grateful as I am, for although I’ve paid into the system since I was 16 years old, I’ve received more than I’ve paid. What a beautiful and amazing organisation it is, staffed by such superstars. 

Picture a medical consultant surgeon. I presume you’re thinking of a man, I expect that he’s Asian (it’s a stereotype I know, but they are usually built up, pearl-like around a grain of truth). He wears glasses doesn’t he? Tall? No? Is he calm and comforting? 

Finding (or what the heck’s this?)

Apologies for the day late post, it’s been busy with exciting news, more on that at some later point, and Manchester’s enjoying it’s first sunny day it feels like - so I’m a day late. 

Today I wanted to talk a little about finding my lump. 

My family have a strong family history of female cancers, and five years before my diagnosis, I’d been referred to the genetic clinic by my doctor when I’d updated my family history with him. He was a smashing GP; kindly, pragmatic, and about to retire as he referred me. I was sad about the last point, and also reassured by his assertion that this wasn’t the sort of thing a GP does all the time, 

“In fact you’re only my second across my career” he said. 

Why was I reassured?

All Woman

This week’s post is a little different, as I’ve started writing more poetry again. I’m not about to turn this blog into a poetry recital, panic not, but once a month, I thought I’d make one of my poems, and posts suitable for here with a shorter post to introduce it.

After a mastectomy, (or two) people sometimes ask how I feel about my body now. 

“Can you ever be whole again?”

“Do you feel less feminine? Less womanly?” they wonder. They’re good questions, and ones I’m always happy to think about and talk about.

I never liked them anyway*

So why are you here? I'm hoping that you're interested in my story, or in hearing what my experience was so that you can make better sense of your own. Possibly you know somebody who's been diagnosed with breast cancer, or have ended here by some happy algorithmic chance. It's good to see you, whatever the reason. Please do let me know in the comments how you've found me, and your thoughts on the blog in its infancy.

A brief and relatively employment friendly scroll through a social media of your choice, will likely bring up comics or graphics relating in some way to the deep joy which can be achieved when a woman returns into the privacy of her own home and can take off her bra. There's truth in that, as any form of constraint is bound to be less comfortable than being free. I recall the experience well. However, that's not to say that there aren't positives to bra wearing. If you have to move around a lot, or at all with speed, they're a lot more comfortable than not wearing one.

Before my diagnosis, I admit I wasn't really much of a fan of my breasts.