I was at a memorial service last week in a seaside town. At the gathering afterwards (what is one supposed to call it? It’s not a wake, and just a lunch or tea sounds disrespectful and wrong) someone pointed out a couple our sort of age. ‘Their son is the internet sensation X,’ they whispered. …
OK, can you read on, please, and tell me if this ever happens to you: 1. I decided I HAD to have a new waterproof mascara to take to hospital. As you do. I think I was envisaging brave tears of pain, without panda smears. Little did I know there is no pain in hospital …
1. Nurses are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Well, of course we all know that – but it probably takes seeing them working 12 hour shifts with a bunch of difficult customers to appreciate fully just how lovely they are. 2. More goes on in one day on an NHS ward than in a year’s worth of …
In the spirit of Being Positive, I bring you my top five advantages of having cancer: 1. I didn’t have to send any Christmas cards. Just in case you’re on my list, and are under the impression that I love writing cards, look away now – I HATE writing Christmas cards. But of course I …
Thanks so much to everyone who’s been reading and ringing and wishing and commenting. It’s lovely to feel the support. In a way I shall feel I have let you all down if I get the all clear! All that worry and concern for nothing! I’ll feel terrible for stirring up such a fuss. Yes, …
Up to St Thomas Hospital today to have my pre-op assessment – where they basically check that you are healthy enough to survive surgery. Of course I am. I’m hardly ever ill, and I’m sure that, without this blip, I would have easily reached my eighties. At this point I know I’m supposed to say …
The scans were clear! Which is a huge relief. And, judging from the expressions of the doctors, a bit of a surprise. So we go on to the next stage … another operation. A bigger one, involving taking 3cm of flesh all around the original melanoma site. And taking out a lymph node and testing …
One minute I was slumped, bored, in the waiting room. The next I was bolt upright, shocked, with the doctor and nurse, being told I was now on a cancer pathway. There would be a multi-disciplinary team handling my care, at this hospital, and at the other hospital I was being referred to. It sounded …
As soon as the doctor called me in from the waiting room, I knew there was something wrong. She’d been quite smiley when she first examined me three weeks before. Now she was grim-faced. I’d been seeing this appointment as a routine chat, leading to my discharge with a clean bill of health. A bit …
Slightly more than a week ago I had a minor operation to remove a mole which had gone a bit odd. Well, it had been odd for a while, and then it seemed odder still, and I’d shown it to my GP in Dulwich, a nice, no-nonsense woman whom I liked and trusted. ‘The good …