2 years.

Have you ever peered over the side of a cliff and wondered what it would be like to fall over the side and down onto the rocks below? That’s how getting a cancer diagnosis felt for me, like falling off a cliff. You don’t necessarily expect to survive such a thing but after the crash I picked up the fractured parts and attempted to reassemble them.

In the beginning I didn’t recognise this ruined version of myself. I didn’t feel fixed. In my timeline there are only things that happened before cancer and things that happened after. It created a chasm between what was and what wasn’t, what could be and what would never be again.

In the first few months after treatment I was still recovering from the physical side effects of chemo.  I was however, ridiculously happy to be alive which proved to be an ameliorating force. I was tuned into the beautiful things in the world and unwilling to put up with anything that was not contributing to my wellbeing. I resigned from my job. I was too physically tired and too mentally exhausted to handle all the baggage that comes with teaching.

That was a really difficult time but it was also the beginning of some major changes for me. Out of the pain, suffering and fear that I experienced I have learned certain truths about my situation. The desire to survive forced me to adapt.

Some of the changes have been positive but much of it continues to be difficult. I have had to accept that I can’t make difficult things disappear. After completing treatment the very last thing that I wanted to hear was that things might continue to be difficult. I refused to accept this possibility. My life was going to be bloody brilliant thanks very much and cancer could just f*&k right off.

But both these things are true. My life is brilliant but it’s also quite difficult at times. That’s true for everyone but the cancer experience may diverge in that what is difficult becomes invisible sometimes even to the person who is experiencing it.

To explain; after I had cancer I didn’t generally talk much about how it felt because I had done that while ill and I wanted to move forward. Being told to stay strong and be positive had been irksome during that time but who wants to be weak and negative? So you crack on.

Tables or desks need to be moved and you don’t want to say I shouldn’t be doing that but you have to speak because lifting is a no-no for risk of lymphedema after the removal of your lymph nodes due to cancer surgery. The risk is real but you look healthy.

Short term plans are often overturned by feeling that you can’t cope. Making long term plans is a hurdle. I have forced myself to do certain things which had been curtailed by thinking ‘what if I die?’ the risk is real but you look healthy.

The fatigue I feel continues to be beyond anything I’ve experienced before but you look normal, perhaps even healthy. But you are never really quite sure that you are healthy.

Finally, ‘Time’ that curer of all ills. The 3 year point post cancer, where you have hair and you can move your arms again and walk and swim coincides with the peak time for recurrence of the cancer to present as a secondary diagnosis. It’s scary and it sucks.  Sometimes you feel like you are back on the edge of that cliff, teetering.

I am writing this because it’s difficult to say it and it’s a bit of a buzz kill. Most of the time I just want to have a laugh and get on with my life but it would be the biggest lie to say that it is always easy to do that.

I am approaching the 2 year anniversary of my diagnosis of cancer- the ultimate kill-joy and yet here am- often joyful, sometimes sad but always grateful that I am still here to figure out my way through this bit.

Jigsaw

Yesterday I chose to see the psychologist for one last session. In the months after completing my treatment I had begun to find my own behaviour confusing. It was as if my life had become a puzzle.

I had repressed feelings about my cancer in various ways from diagnosis onwards. I realise that while grieving I experienced many different feelings but the over-riding emotion that permeated all the others was the feeling of guilt.

Guilt for having to tell my children I had cancer, guilt for what I might have passed on to them genetically or environmentally. Guilt while going through treatment for not being able to look after my children or be the mother that I wanted to be. Guilt that I might ultimately, despite everything die.

Now obviously I did not set out to get cancer and it’s only with a bit of distance from that experience that I can see how significant that feeling was. Once I’d completed treatment I channelled all that guilt into losing weight, here was the one thing I could do to improve my chances of preventing recurrence. Instead of that being a positive agent for change it became a rod for my own back. Something to berate myself with and something which if I slipped up or couldn’t control would lead to further feelings of guilt. These feelings were more intense too because I knew it was my responsibility and that made it worse.

I don’t know, and I will never know if my diet was a significant factor in developing cancer in my body.  But I do know that I feel better physically and emotionally when I’m managing my diet better. That’s what I want to do and while it’s always a challenge for me it is not insurmountable.

I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be healthy and guilt really does not play a useful part in any of this.

So I will persist, I will make plans and I will do the work that is required to get my life back. This will require patience and self compassion. But this has to be my goal now and it is very important to me to achieve it. Nothing worth having comes easy and I know this won’t be easy but the way I am living right now is actually really hard anyway. It’s not a difficult choice to make even though sticking with it may well be.

I feel as if the pieces of the jigsaw have fallen into place and now the rest is up to me and that’s ok. It’s been hard and this time since completing treatment especially so because my expectations for myself were so unreasonably high.

I always joke that the real secret to happiness is low expectations but in all honestly I think that managing my expectations may well be instrumental to navigating my way through this next bit. So endurance rather than optimism the trait that got me through cancer may well be the trait that I’m going to rely on for the next phase.

I will try and I will do my best, knowing that sometimes my best will be not the best…because I’m human and susceptible to human temptations and human mistakes.

Any other interpretation is not helpful and counter-productive.

So what happens next is that I need to learn to treat myself with encouragement, kindness and compassion. Everyone deserves that and this is something that I can and should take responsibility for. Let’s begin.

The Light Within

When I was going through treatment for Breast Cancer the very last thing I wanted to hear was that things might continue to be difficult ….albeit in a different way, once treatment concluded.

I so did not want to think this that I refused to accept it as a possibility. This route was not for me. Wasting my precious time with worry? No. I was with sheer determination going to make my life nothing short of fucking fantastic.

In the first 6 months after treatment I made a pretty good stab at fucking fantastic. I lost a stone in weight, returned to swimming, took up yoga, returned to work, went to New York with my family….Carpe Diem and all that.

But around about this time the wheels starting coming off the wagon. It’s complicated but I suppose the first stumbling block was work.

I have worked part-time as a teacher since having my children and it’s always been a balancing act between, work, parenting, managing activities for the kids, preparing healthy food, keeping up with household tasks and fitting in exercise for myself. When you write all that down it’s easy to see why. It’s always been hard and I manage it myself during the week as my husband works away.

It’s always been hard but after cancer treatment it was just so tough. My body ached, my legs would swell up at the end of my working day which was usually just the continuation of my parenting day. Six months after chemo I was sitting at 9pm on my sofa after a long, long, non-stop day and I was crying my eyes out and as miserable as hell. I felt like I got through treatment for this? To feel like this? And I knew I could not continue like that.

I resigned from my job. It was suggested to me that perhaps I should go off sick but I wouldn’t hear of it….after all I didn’t have cancer anymore…I’d been off work , for 9 months, I wasn’t sick and I didn’t want to be signed off as sick.

The problem was (and with hindsight I can see it) …..I was sick. I was still feeling the physical after effects of chemo but I was also sick in a different way and not one that I was able to recognise largely because I was in total denial of it.

I’ve always been healthy in a kind of ruddy strong way. Rarely ill and hardly ever off work. I do know that’s luck not good management. Getting a cancer diagnosis took any feelings of control over my health I might have had and obliterated them.

All the swimming and walking… the eating your 5 a day, eating a proper breakfast …things I did because I tried to be a healthy person. Not only was I not a healthy person but I might actually be a person who was dying of cancer. My eating habits quickly deteriorated and I fell easily into my old groove of self-destructive behaviours.

Getting through treatment was such a massive challenge physically and emotionally that it didn’t leave room for any other feelings. Finishing chemo was the mountain that I had to climb. I hauled my weakened, exhausted, damaged body up to the top and the view was great up there for a while but the descent presented a different set of problems.

Grief. Shock, denial, pain, guilt, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, this is the grieving process and it’s not a linear thing. I felt shock, pain, grief in the early days of my diagnosis. But the other elements did not really emerge until after the shine had faded from concluding my treatment.

Recently I have started to feel that perhaps there is light at the end if the tunnel but perhaps that is not quite correct. Perhaps the light has to appear from within me not without. The light is a consequence of acceptance of what has been and what may be.

I can’t go back and I don’t want to. What I want to do is reconstruct. To rebuild and reclaim myself. I feel hopeful that I can. I have replaced feelings of guilt with self-compassion. But I need to fuel the drive to improve my life. It is after all…my life.

I can’t control timescales. I don’t know if my life will be long or short but the responsibility for making it fucking fantastic is still mine.

 

 

 

The Tunnel

The Light at the End

It’s been almost 18 months since I found the lump in my breast that statistically was unlikely to be cancer but unfortunately was.

I wrote about each step in the process that followed, initially to keep my mind trained on what was happening now and what would happen next. One step, then the next, doing that got me through treatment and beyond for a while, until things got difficult.

I promised myself that after treatment I would not allow cancer to have more of my life than it had already claimed. I promised myself that I would do what needed to be done to reduce my risk of recurrence.

This involved doing 3 things. Firstly, losing weight and maintaining that. Secondly, practicing yoga and finally participating in a survivor group.

For the first 6 months after treatment I was doing all these things. I had returned to work but 6 months after chemo my body was still suffering and work became really tough. I was exhausted and in physical distress. I resigned from the job that I had been doing for the last 4 years. A job I was good at and had enjoyed but I wasn’t coping and I felt the only option for me was to resign. I started a new job shortly after and as the months passed I felt much better physically but the new job did not turn out as I had hoped and I found myself working longer hours than I had previously.

This in turn resulted in a struggle to lose weight and the yoga ceased also. I felt like a total disaster. Not only had I failed in all the promises I had made to myself but I had introduced a stressful job into my life leading to more pressure.

I started to see a psychologist at my local cancer centre and I am so glad that I did.

She could see that I was stuck in my recovery and miserable. She could see that my thinking took me round and round in circles like a water eddy caught in a river bank. She could see that I would occasionally get emotional while talking about my experience then shut down that emotion and try to dismiss it or rationalise it.

It took about 3 months but finally I realised that the job I was doing was the cause of unnecessary stress and once more… I resigned. I felt nothing but relief. I have been making myself do things, difficult things in order to get back to ‘normal’ life. I think I have finally realised that my life is different now and that no good will come from denying that fact.

Accepting that fact does not mean I am living a life defined by cancer, it means that I decide how my life is going to be and I make that decision based on the realities. Therefore it makes no sense to working longer hours when fatigue is still a problem for me.

I have been in a dark place, a long tunnel but I think finally I can see light at the end of it. That light has allowed me to make sense of feelings that were confusing to me as I fumbled in the dark. And finally I think I understand that I need to listen to what my body is telling me and treat it with compassion and care. I feel stronger as a result of acknowledging my weakness. I feel hopeful once more and accepting of what is and what will be. I can finally embrace my unseen future and be at peace with the acceptance of that.

Castaway

From the moment I discovered the lump in my breast 18 months ago my focus became what was happening next. Writing brought clarity to what was happening to me in the present and helped to prepare me for each next step.

I handled things and I was determined that cancer was not going to take from me the things that mattered the most. By which I mean the joy I experience in life. I was clear that I would not allow the fear of cancer taking my life to stop me from living. That is true but I have come to realise over the last few weeks that my determination to do that that has become an obstacle to grieving properly for what happened to me.

I went for a walk on Friday to the beach with my dog. I was supposed to be meeting a friend for lunch but that had fallen through and it was a crisp clear day and a good one for the beach. As I was driving there I had an overwhelming feeling of sadness about dying that was wave like in intensity.

There had been a few incidents over the preceding week where I had been tearful and angry about events not connected with my illness but they became about my illness in the way I processed them. For example a woman was needlessly rude to me in a shop and I felt so angry and kept replaying the incident in my head for days. Why was she so rude? Why was I so angry? The first question I cannot answer but the second comes down to this. I felt angry at the woman because she doesn’t know how lucky she is. To not start the day by breathing deeply and wonder if the feeling in her lungs is in fact a tumour after all. Of course I know nothing about that woman’s life but I am living mine with this fear which pervades and permeates my day to day existence now. It is at the root of my decisions and I think about dying on a daily basis countless times.

At the beach on the shore and listening to the vast whisper of the ocean I felt marooned by my own sadness and grief, castaway by cancer to a place of isolation. My sorrow had found words but I had not experienced emotional pain like this since I was first diagnosed.

Alone at the beach it felt ok to cry. I don’t like the feeling of pain that comes with it although I know this is inside me still and that I need to process it, to feel it. I don’t feel like a survivor but I do feel battered by the intensity of what I have been through.

But castaways rely on their own ingenuity to survive. Perhaps in the process of doing that, of not just living, but living well I will discover new skills and find new ways of being that allow me to connect to this life.

This life with this woman in it who looks nothing like me! I need to make friends with her because I am in there somewhere and not lost at sea after all.

This is a poem I wrote about how I feel about the experience of having had cancer.

Castaway

I never expected to find myself

Castaway

At the beach.

But there I was, marooned by sorrow.

Isolated by grief.

I watched the crashing waves retreat

And the roar of the ocean

Became a whisper.

Alone on the island

I found a way to be.

It was small steps

First one then the other

Leaving footprints in the sand.

Marking my SOS.

I became my own shelter

I hunted; made a fire.

I survived.

Darkness came

And the night sky filled with stars

But I felt their light upon me; And I knew.

Morning broke

And the sun became a ball of fire.

High in the sky

Where there are no shadows.

And the ocean continued to whisper

And the gulls circled the air.

I had never been alone on the island.

When I found myself there.

 

A Good Life

It’s been over 6 months since I last wrote. I have been navigating the re-entry into ‘normal’ by returning to work. This has been harder than I thought. I had underestimated how physically tired I would be. My joints hurt and my legs were swollen by the end of each day. It has been a challenge but I have coped and I feel my enthusiasm returning.

I promised myself that I would not live in fear but I do live with it. I am watchful but not waiting and that is ok. What that means for me is that I check my breasts and pay close attention to changes in my body. Symptoms include fatigue, headaches, difficulty catching breath, unexplained pains, weight changes and nausea. It’s ok to ask the question and I know that the answer doesn’t have to be cancer.

I recently had a colonoscopy which failed due to my twisty colon. The camera they inserted into my back passage could not steer through my colon due to its tortuous nature (yes I know…lucky me!) This was followed by a ‘virtual’ colonoscopy which was not quite as virtual as I had hoped for. I had these procedures because my brother had a bowel cancer diagnosis aged 38. In fact he completed his treatment the day I got my breast cancer diagnosis. It is very unusual to be diagnosed with bowel cancer so young and the doctors were looking to see if our separate cancers were linked in some way, perhaps genetically. But my bowels appear normal and so I don’t need to worry about that.

I am lucky in lots of ways. I was lucky not be carrying the breast cancer gene as that would have resulted in much more extreme life saving surgery. I am lucky to have two breasts and two nipples. I am lucky that the cancer hasn’t spread…if it hasn’t. I am lucky to have survived breast cancer…if I have. I don’t feel like a survivor yet although I suppose that is what I am. All that means to me is that I endured my treatment and consequently have a shot at being among the 70% who live rather than the 30% who die.

I am clear in my desire to be the former rather than the later and accept my total lack of control of the outcome. No amount of yoga and antioxidants is going to change the course of the cancer that I had or have. But I live well, I eat well, I exercise. I have been losing weight. The chemo & steroid weight gain was very unwelcome! I accept the responsibility for resolving the problem though.

I have a haircut now and even got a bit of colour applied. I am told how much it suits me. I can be churlish about this at times because I did not choose it but that feeling has passed over now.

My dog continues to be a source of uncomplicated joy. I practice gratitude. I love my husband, my children, my family and my friends. I see beauty and humour in all sorts of places and I am truly grateful for that.

Life is not easy, but it is good. I am as happy as I ever expected to be and importantly- alive!

Heartsease

It is almost 6 weeks on from my final chemo and these weeks have had a kind of limbo feel to them.

The first 3 weeks were fine and spent recovering from chemo and getting ready to go to London with my family for the weekend. We had a great time but I came back with a cough that just wouldn’t go away. My throat was sore and my voice was croaky. It interfered with my sleep and consequently contributed to my feelings of exhaustion. My bones were aching.

Since coming off the steroids my scalp has become very red and itchy as has the skin under my breasts. I weighed myself and actually couldn’t believe how much weight I had put on. My feet are still sore and the skin on my right foot is red and cracked. My nails are discoloured and look like they will fall off. My hair is growing back but it sparse and patchy on top and looks worse than just being bald did. My face is very round. I feel ugly.

My periods have not come back yet but I still get hot flushes and sweating at various points during the day. I have been to the Dr to get my bloods checked for anaemia as I feel so tired and need to sleep in the afternoon. I am also waiting for my radiotherapy dates to come through, they are late and that is contributing to my anxiety.

As I write this all down I realise why I might be feeling rather miserable. In addition, I occasionally find myself going down the ‘What if I die?’ line of thinking. It’s sometimes unavoidable and actually I probably do need to think about that in order to process my feelings. I am aware that I have some pent up feelings inside. I find myself crying sometimes when looking at my children. I don’t let them see but sometimes I feel overwhelmed with emotion.  I’m not even sure what kind of emotion it is. It’s not happy and yet not completely sad. It’s some kind of appreciation of the moment I am in which will pass. An understanding that this is my life, these moments filled with the love I have for my boys.

I have been able to walk every day, only about 30 mins as I get so tired and as April has turned to May I have watched the trees budding and becoming green again. I see the flowers beginning to bloom and colour coming back to the fields. The first flower I saw in April was a wild pansy but I prefer the more romantic name of ‘Heartsease’. I know that in a few weeks that whole field will turn purple, a cloak of colour. It will be beautiful.

There is a time for everything. I realise that this time is about recovery and accepting that I might not bounce back to health quickly or be instantly ok emotionally. It all takes time and perhaps this is what I need to go through first in order to feel comfortable with myself again. Or maybe find a new equilibrium.

I have always been looking forward, moving forward and I suppose that’s why I have found this period difficult. Staying in the same place has not had the same appeal. But I this is what recovery is, resting, healing and recharging. It has been necessary. This has been really hard but it will ease. I feel an echo of spring inside myself, the budding of hope.

Things will get better.

Adjusting the Sails

It has been 7 days since my final chemo and the side effects have been manageable. Sleep is sporadic and the night sweats unpleasant. My legs and feet are achy but I am managing to take short walks. I feel ok.

I remind myself on a daily basis that this part of the cancer experience is over and that once I am clear of the 10 day low immunity that I will be moving forward and leaving this bit behind, hopefully forever.

I met with my oncologist yesterday and we discussed how things had been for me and I had questions about what I might expect in terms of follow-up care, mammograms, check-ups etc. It’s taken me 6 months to get to this point in the treatment, and I can expect to get seen again in 6 months time for various procedures.

I am content with these arrangements but perhaps in part for the less than optimistic view that I have that living after cancer could feel like waiting for a bus that you won’t see coming until it hits you. I am not pessimistic, on the basis of my statistics I should be fine, but I am also not a optimist, I don’t think that believing I will be fine will make any difference. It won’t make a difference to the cancer but even in terms of how I live my life I prefer realism.

The reality of my situation is that I have to cope with the uncertainty of my life. I have to accept that my diagnosis may be life limiting but that doesn’t mean I am living my life in a negative, pessimistic way.  My positivity does not spring from believing I will be ok. It comes from accepting things as they are, right now in this moment. That is my brand of positivity.

I don’t have confidence that my body will be ok but neither do I think it won’t be. I don’t know what will happen but I know I have to learn to handle that uncertainty and live my life without fear. As with so many things, it is beyond my control.

Therefore a period of adjustment is required to navigate away from this point. I need to improve my lifestyle. I need to manage stress better and look after my body better. I need to continue to get sufficient exercise and focus on giving my body the nutrition it needs. There must be yoga. That is non-negotiable.

I need to educate myself and my family about improving these factors. I will never know what caused my cancer but making these changes makes sense. It will do no harm and improve my sense of wellbeing.

I have done so many things out side of my comfort zone as a result of having cancer. There have been the physical aspects, the surgery and the treatment which has turned my breasts into public property with their own before and after shots. The treatment has had me talking about my bowel movements online and publically.

I chose to be very open in the local newspapers and on social media. I made a song up about the side effects of chemotherapy to the tune of the 12 days of Christmas! I have done a TV interview about the importance of checking your breasts for lumps. I have spoken on radio about the experience of

 

getting a diagnosis of cancer. I shared a letter to myself on MacMillan to highlight what I wish I had known in those early difficult days after diagnosis.

My approach has been to ‘Give sorrow words’, and that has worked for me. The next bit of this experience could be summed up by thinking about how I am going to live if I don’t die.

I haven’t always found life easy. I struggle at times but I have always felt that it was all worth the struggle. I am proud of how I have handled myself over the last 6 months and I have made a promise to myself to live my life and enjoy it as much as possible.

So moving forward and not getting stuck is the theme here. I imagine it is more difficult in reality than in theory but writing about each step in the process has helped me so much to turn that into practice.

I shared my refection about my final chemo on MacMillan today as I do feel I need closure on this episode which has defined my life over the last few months. It won’t define me forever but I can’t deny how overwhelming this experience has been and I don’t want too.

The next few weeks are about recovering before starting radiotherapy, and the thought of that is putting wind in my sails.

 

 

Final Chemo

I had my 6^th and final chemo on Good Friday. It was a beautiful sunny morning and I walked my dog on the fields around my house. I had a poem in my head by Norman McCaig which has the following lines;

‘The precious minutes go by; and you

Sit in the ring of the four seasons’.

I had created 4 art panels based on the seasons as I experienced them during the year. I had tried to put my experience of getting a cancer diagnosis during that time into the art work. I was not really able to do that but the act of observing what I was seeing on my walks kept me in the moment and provided a context for my thinking,

There is a field that I walk to which has a pond with swans…sometimes. And I sat there in the sun, with my sunglasses on and looked up at the sky and all around me. I felt a moment of being  fully connected to everything around me, the tress, the earth, the grass, the sky, the birds. I cuddled my dog Cinder who has been such a comfort to me throughout and was the reason I was sitting in that field. I felt that I was sitting in the ring of the four seasons with a real feeling of the how precious the minutes are.

Those minutes that turn into hours and days. I have been watching nature and the seasons during their natural cycles while completing these unnatural chemical cycles of my own. This feeling of being connected to something bigger than myself, tuning into the universe, has been of such significance. Experiencing the wonder and beauty of these moments has kept me going though all the ugliness of chemo.

In the afternoon I had my chemo. It went well with no pain and no difficulty in finding a vein. I had been worried about that as getting blood samples while in hospital had become difficult. I brought in a cake which I had iced with ‘F**k Off Cancer! There was laughter from all the other clients and nurses at the ‘Spey Suite’. The cake was good but the laughter was better.

I had a lovely chat with a couple who had just got married. He was on his second cycle and coping well with side effects.

I had a lovely day. I did not cry although it would have ok to do that. I have learned a lot about myself as a result of chemo and it is an experience that I will not forget.

I am writing this on the 4^th day and so far I have only mild side effects. I have sore feet and loss of taste, sweats, minor things. It might get worse over the next few days but I wanted to write this reflection before that happens, to remember that my farewell to chemo was good, that I felt happy and hopeful and that Chemo did not take from me permanently the things I value.

It was always a temporary thing, horrible and difficult at times but ultimately I do have an enhanced sense of how beautiful life is after having experienced the ugliness of chemo. It is important to point out that this has been my experience and personal to me. I have been honest. There may be damage to my body that is not temporary and of course the cancer may recur but I would like my recurring theme to be that life is wonderful and cancer did not get to take that from me.

I made this video about 8 months later.

Beyond my Control

A recurring theme throughout my reflections on the experience of getting a cancer diagnosis and moving forward through treatment was an acceptance of many things being beyond my control.

Ten days after my 5^th cycle of chemo I had my personal worst case scenario play out in my home. When I first became familiar with the long list of chemo side effects I was worried that I might collapse at home while my husband was away and the children were asleep, and that’s what happened.

I had a restless night and woke up just before 7am with a sore head and upon getting up had a nose bleed. I went through o the kitchen dressed only in my bra and pants to get some water with the intention of coming back to bed but by the time I got there I realised that I was going to collapse.

I had a moment of blind panic as I realised I needed to get help. The next thing I remember is being licked back to consciousness by my dog and feeling intense pain and swelling on my left temple where I had struck the side of my face and my skull against the slate tiles on my kitchen floor.

I was in shock and couldn’t get up off the floor and wasn’t sure if I would be able to get my children’s attention in order to get help. Fortunately my eldest son heard me calling for him. He came down and was able to phone my friend who is a nurse. She was luckily on her way to work and was with me in 10 minutes and called the ambulance.

I was at my local hospital within 20mins and was well looked after. I was monitored for a head injury and also treated for an infection as I had presented with a high white cell blood count. This turned out to be a red herring as that was a direct consequence of the white blood count injection I had got after chemo.

However, I did get my blood transfusion the next day and felt an immediate improvement as a result.

It was a really scary experience and left me feeling very vulnerable. I was happy to stay in hospital because I realised how exhausted I was. I just wanted to curl up and sleep. Even doing very basic things had become a trial but at 10 days after chemo usually I would have been starting to feel better.

The experience taught me not to be complacent about how chemo can affect your body and also to listen to what you body is telling you. I had a busy day planned for the day I collapsed which had included registering my son at the local football club for the community football season, transporting him to a party and picking him up before driving 50 miles to attend my brother’s 40^th Birthday. Under normal circumstances not difficult things to do but these are not normal circumstances.

I was so worried that my final chemo would be delayed as a result of these events. I thought I’d fractured my skull. Fortunately, I was not more badly hurt. There are no prizes for pushing yourself to do all the things you ‘normally’ do. This situation is nothing like ‘normal’ and you need to acknowledge that to yourself and your family. I wasn’t always doing that and consider this episode as a lesson learned.