Bognor or Bust!

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...