Bognor or Bust!

Happy Christmas everyone! It's been an absolute age since I posted, so I wanted to write to let everyone know that I'm still alive and kicking :-) Today was 2 years from my first chemo, so it felt like it was probably time to give you all an update. The summer was great. After Kos we had a long weekend in Copenhagen which was great fun. All paid for courtesy of my airmiles as I've been doing so much travel over the summer.We did Tivoli, design museum, a fantastic science museum, lots of walking around, the Little Mermaid (a lot smaller than you would think) and just generally had some fun as a family. Briony was fab and walked miles and miles without any complaints. We've also now got planning permission for the work we want to do on our house, which is exciting and somewhat scary all at the same time. We've no idea how much it is going to cost (other than obviously more than we have!), but we are starting to think about what needs to happen and the order th...

Once again I’m writing this on a plane. Listening to Paul Oakenfold and approaching William Lake in Canada according to the interactive flight map. Its Sunday and I’m en-route to Palo Alto, California where we have an office. The airport was full of holiday makers which isn’t unreasonable given it’s August! Very randomly one of my best friends was also in the airport at the same time but sadly I had just got the transit to my gate when I got the call to say she was there. Another time maybe Claire! I have to admit, I was a little deflated following the previous scan. I know I shouldn’t have been given the news could have been much, much worse, but my head was in a different place. This has happened to me before (when I had my first lumpectomy and was then told they didn’t have clear margins), so I should have learnt my lesson then and realised that life is never that simple. But you see, the thing is, I thought that was to be my last scan if things hadn’t changed. The lung no...

I’m writing this at 38,000 feet, Mid-atlantic. I’ve spent a lot of time here recently and have just earned my gold BA card. For me, this is not a badge of honour but a reflection of life taking a turn and spending too much time away from the family. Work has been busy and whilst I knew all these trips would need to be done I did not expect them to have been all within 6 weeks of each other! Only 2 more weeks and then I am on holiday, so there is, at least, light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I’ve even managed an upgrade which doesn’t happen to me very often. Life has continued on and for the most part I forget about cancer. I get a daily reminder every morning as I count out my 6 little reddy-orange neratinib tablets and my one anastrazole. There is also the cadence of my monthly rush of appointments as I have to have a blood test on one day, return the following day for the blood test reslts and to see the consultant, and then if both of these go OK I then need to retur...

A little sentence, no harm meant. I get asked it a lot these days by well-wishers. I get the sentiment, I really do. Any yes, externally, things are "back to normal". I'm back at work and really enjoying it. My life is now full once more of juggling school appointments, shopping, washing and all the other things that every mother and wife up and down the country does. My hair is growing back nicely and I'm finally able to get straighteners through it again (just). The endless hospital appointments have fallen away somewhat. Except only a fellow cancer warrior can understand that once the scourge that is cancer has touched your life, things will never go BACK to the way they were before. That life has gone for all of us and whether we mourn it or not (actually it's pretty pointless to as it doesn't change anything), life before cancer is a carefree, wonderfully naive place that once it is taken away can never be reclaimed. My body will never look the same aga...

No really! It's true. Read on dear follower..... Life has been ticking along perfectly normally. My hair has gone completely crazy and I look like a cross between a microphone and some kind of mad professor on a daily basis. It's gone quite curly and is at that weird stage where I don't want to have it cut because I will only need to go through the pain of growing it once more. Weirdly there doesn't seem to be as much grey there as there was before, so on some levels there has been a result! Hopefully with the advent of spring it will now start growing a little faster as it feels like it has been growing painfully slowly compared to some others in a similar situation that I have scoured on the internet. I had the scan on Friday and it wasn't a pleasant experience. I stayed overnight in London on Thursday evening with work (dinner at the OXO tower with my new team, very pleasant!) and then (as usual) didn't sleep a wink. It's become a bit of a routine ...

It’s been 2 months since my last post and life really does go on. At an alarming pace! So how was Christmas for you all? Now we are deep into the year all New Years resolutions must surely be confined to the bin. I didn’t make any this year because the reality is that staying alive and well is simply enough. Christmas for us was great after the cancer rollercoaster last year. Even milestone days which I’ve always found difficult are getting slightly easier. I’m not saying I’m planning my retirement again just yet, but I do now think out-surviving tinned produce may be possible. Unless its corned beef as I’m sure we have some that pre-dates Stephen and me. 2018 is over and done and we have moved on, literally and figuratively. We moved house on the 19th December and I’m pleased to report that we still love the place. We have appointed an architect to help us make some changes and I can’t wait. It’s a peaceful place with fab views. I’ve also returned to work after 15 months away....

This will be my last post of 2018. And what a year....... 365 days or 18 rounds of chemo/antibody treatments 3 operations 1 colonoscopy 1 endoscopy 15 sessions of radiotherapy Countless scans and appointments 2 talks for Breast Cancer UK 1 charity after dinner speech 1 marathon (walked) £6k raised for Cancer research UK. 1 redundancy 1 menopause Quite frankly I'm over 2018 and it can just F off! We finish the year tomorrow with a move. It's with mixed feelings that I'm leaving our current home. It was the home we bought Briony home to and have watched her grow into the lovely young lady she is. But it's also the home where a year ago my world collapsed. The past year has been spent rebuilding it and it is time to move on. I'm secretly glad that we are moving this side of the New Year. I just want to leave my very own "annus horribilis" behind and wave it a fond adieu. Like an unwelcome relative to be consigned to history (hopefully). ...

Life has been fairly busy in the last month with a mixture of things returning to "normal" interspersed with cancer. Life is definitely now taking the front seat, with cancer pushed to the back seat on the whole. The news from the most recent set of scans was pretty much as good as it could have been. The delivery less so. On the day of the appointment, I had a phone call from the consultant's secretary to say that he had moved us to the last appointment of the day so that our appointment wasn't rushed. Those of you in the know will know that this is not a good sign. Not good at all. Longer appointments mean bad news and more to discuss. So it was with trepidation that we turned up for the appointment. Another warning sign was that there was a nurse there that neither Stephen nor I had met before. We were duly ushered in. Briony had wanted to come with us and so was fully immersed in an Abba ipod experience. For some reason, she thinks Abba are the best thing sin...

...but not in the way that you think I mean it. No, not the American Reconstruction, nor the silicone variety. At least not yet. Reconstruction of my missing breast will happen eventually, but not until early next year for a variety of reasons. It's been well over a month since I last posted, so what has been going on? I'm talking about reconstruction in the context of my life and the changes since diagnosis. You spend your time in treatment just muddling through, trying to make it to the next chemo, then surgery, then radiotherapy, Only when you are out the other side, as I am now (with the exception of the HER2 antibodies that I have every 3 weeks) can you begin to put your life back together. "So, what's changed?" I hear you ask? Well, pretty much everything although it may not look like it. Firstly, there is trying to come to terms with who you now are. In my case, I'm missing a breast and have a 6-7 inch scar instead. I have limited movement on m...

I'm not going to lie today has been utterly shit in the most part. A little context................ When you're diagnosed with cancer you're scared, no, actually petrified. You have horrible thoughts swirling around in your head for days on end, especially as you wait to find out the true nature of your disease and how far it has/hasn't spread. You're left in a quandary as to whether to share these thoughts with your closest family and friends, torn between a need to share these thoughts and a level of guilt at what you are putting your nearest and dearest through without burdening them further. No matter the support from family and friends, there are some things and questions that can only be asked of a fellow cancer sufferer. So you turn to the online community and friends of friends in a similar situation. Only to someone in the same position can you share these deepest thoughts and ask the most personal questions. We are a sisterhood, even though we have n...

...and what a summer it has been! I've had an amazing time, notwithstanding the circumstances. There are many positive things to cancer and making sure that I've had a fab time with Briony and Stephen has been shifted to a new priority (#1) on the agenda. So thank you cancer for making me a better person and for helping me realise just what is important in life. We had a great Bank Holiday weekend and spent a lovely afternoon at Black Park on the Go Ape nets. This involved running around like an absolute loonie on cargo nets suspending around 4-5m above the ground. Briony, Stephen and I all went on them and had a great time. Poor Stephen did have to tell me at one point that my prosthesis had moved! These are not problems we are used to, but we both saw the funny side! The last couple of weeks have been spent in a frenzy of visiting relatives before the summer ends. We have done a tour of duty of Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Dorset. I've held up relatively wel...

 The holiday was everything we thought it would be and more! We had such an amazing time and it couldn't have come at a better time for us as a family. For the first time since I was diagnosed I was able to actually forget about it properly and enjoy myself with Stephen and Briony. Unexpectedly, I was also able to dive. We asked the consultant about it at my last appointment just before we went and he said that we saw no reason why not, as I am having regular heart scans in any case and that is far more than most people diving have. So, dive I did. although I have to say that I was somewhat nervous. Nervous because we haven't dived in 3 years, but also nervous on whether my body would hold up. One of the lesser side effects of the cancer I have found is that I have lost confidence in some things and diving is one of them. There is no logical reason to this, but there you go! We did 8 amazing dives. If ever there was an activity that embodies mindfulness and being presen...