Tag Archives: CR

A milestone I wish I could sidestep

2 Feb

Today is not a day I wanted to see again. 2nd February 2011 and I heard those words for the first time “Strongly suspected lung cancer”. A precise yet misleading jumble of words only superceded in its devastation by the final field on a form flashed up on screen at the doctor’s surgery a week later:

<header> Prognosis=

<body copy> 6-12 months.

Of course there was to be nothing as munificent as a whole year.

And so the rollercoaster began. The concrete cancer diagnosis, the tests that confirmed its spread to the liver. The terrifying fits and subsequent brain scans that showed further metastisis. Radiotherapy. Chemotherapy.

And then 10 weeks later, the end.

So it’s a year to the day my sister rang to tell me the routine scan bore shadows.

And with those words I remember she took my voice.  Leaning against the glass of my patio doors for support, silent, the breath sucked right out of me. Curious physiology.

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Smokers. F*ck ’em?

24 Jul

Smokers deserve everything that’s coming to them.  If they choose to smoke, why should I pay out through the NHS to save them?

Is this what YOU think?

I hate smoking. I hate everything about it. I can’t help but look at people with pity and distaste when I see them chuffing away on a cigarette, lips like a cat’s arse. I know, I’m one of those awful ex-smokers. The thing is, in order to give up you have to learn to hate it. Despise it with a passion greater than the desire to do it. To finally see it for what it is – a drug addiction like any other, but rather than huddled away in a backstreet somewhere getting their fix, smokers are just doing it out in the open, and with the consent of the government. No less desparate. No less pitiful. Watch a smoker in a restaurant waiting for the opportunity to excuse themselves for a fag. All jittery and cross.  Then tell me smoking heightens social enjoyment.

But do I think smokers deserve everything they get? Absolutely not. Do I think they’re as worthy as breast cancer or brain cancer sufferers of publically funded and expensive courses of treatment? Of course.

The fact is, people do not “choose” to smoke. Okay let me clarify that. Smokers may choose to have their first puff in the school toilets, and maybe the 2nd or 3rd puffed out their bedroom window while mum unknowingly cooks a healthy meal downstairs, but smokers don’t choose to carry on smoking any more freely than a heroin addict makes the decision to buy more gear that day. Smokers may say they like it, that it keeps them company, is their reward after a bad day, but the reality is it’s only ever the cigarettes that are in control – a power-crazy, insiduous addiction playing devilishly with their thoughts, guaranteeing its next fix. Of course smoking is enjoyable, why else would people do it against all the advice and harsh medical truths? I’m pretty sure an opiate high is pretty awesome. Reward perpetuates the thing – basic Pavlos Theory.

Yet most people MUST think lung cancer sufferers deserve all they get. Although lung cancer accounts for the greatest number of cancers diagnosed every year and 22% of cancer deaths, it receives a meagre 7% of total cancer funding. All this despite the fact that lung cancer is a silent killer that kills the majority of its victims within 12 months of diagnosis. In my mum’s case it was 2. By the time hers was caught it was everywhere – liver, brain, ovaries. She didn’t stand a chance.

But the basic truth is, lung cancer just isn’t sexy. It’s all tarred lungs, hacking coughs and wrinkled skin, washed through with a big helping of “we told you so”.

In the 1950s my mum’s doctor used to farm out cigarettes to her when she went for an appointment. Apparently it was good for your health, helped you relax. Of course now we know better, but it doesn’t change the fact that if you make a drug freely available on the high street people will get hooked, and many won’t have the strength, the resources, the drive to give up. After all, would you sell a hit of crack at a Sainsbury’s quick checkout counter and blame a crackhead for buying it?

If society consents to sell cigarettes legally, then society must deal with the consequences, including supporting all of its victims. Either that, or do what I’d prefer, and ban the bastards altogether.

To make a donation to specifically fund research and treatment into lung cancer, or for more information on lung cancer pls visit the Roy Castle Lung Foundation.

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More than a house

5 Jun

My mum’s house will soon be on the market.  My family home. The house we moved into in 1980, when I was 3. A house built on clay and memories.

This is the hardest part so far.

And my thoughts are becoming more and more consumed with these pictures from the past. Reruns played over and over;  stop – rewind – play,  stop – rewind – play.

My 3 yr old self, raw from the recent divorce, padding in to my mother’s room and standing by the side of the bed, head bowed, eyes on my feet.  “Can I come in?” whispered with an eager heart.  Climbing in sheepishly next to her and lying bum to bum,  warmth so familiar, so reassuring.

A young child returning early from a school trip with swollen eyes, weepy from fresh cut grass.  Childish excitement deflated like a limp balloon.  And my mother laying me gently on the bed in my childhood room,  and tending my eyes lovingly with damp flannels.

My rebellious, secretive teenage self lying prone in the early hours of the morning, wide-eyed from narcotic experimentation, lamenting the worms that still wriggle from the carpet. Watching guiltily as my mother pads around excitedly, preparing for her youngest’s birthday.

My young adult self, suffering from my first and worst bout of depression and lying in a bath that my mother has run. Her sitting patiently on the toilet as she reads to me from Alison in Wonderland, hoping that the words will comfort with the innocenct simplicity of childhood.

My recently married self – foolishly but deliriously drunk and lying on the grass with my new husband, sister and brother-in-law, like starfish watching a flight of swallows in glorious fomation soaring back and forth across the sky.

And my mum, in every room – laughing,  reassuring, scolding.  Kind, proud, determined. Her music, her cooking, her love.

And somehow I have to say goodbye to all this. Let someone else strip out the worn, dated kitchen – my mother’s kitchen – to replace it with stylish, cold granite.  Flush away all of my family memories and reinvent their own.  And I want to scream and barricade the doors and picket at the fence. No entry here.  But Mr Cameron is eager for his pound of gold, and the clock is ticking.

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Angry

29 Apr

I’m ANGRY.

Angry that the grandparents my children will know, grow up with, remember, won’t be MY parents. That the one they will call Grandma won’t be MY mum, the one they will know as Grandad will be someone else’s.

I’m angry that my Mum will be a hazy recollection, snapshots – splintered and one-dimensional – just as my Dad is now just a photo on the fridge. Their absence juxtaposed against a life filled with love and cuddles and memories from their other, “real” grandparents.

I’m angry that it won’t be my mum that picks them up from school, that wraps her arms around them and asks them what their day was like. That she’ll never see the expression on their faces as they unwrap her carefully chosen Christmas present, or heap praise on them when they read their first words.

I’m angry that I will have to live more of my life without her than I have done with. One of the most important people to me – my mother, my best friend – here for just a fraction of my life. Killed off after only the first few chapters.

I’m angry that the person that has been at the centre of my universe for 34 years has been snatched away from me, cruelly, suddenly, and that I have to relearn to live my life without her.

I’m angry that at just 34 I am an orphan.

I’m angry that my “go to person”, my reference point for all the decisions I make, the person at the end of the telephone when I’m feeling unsteady or unsure, has become unavailable. Permanently engaged.

I’m angry that I have to make sense of all of this by myself.

I’m really fucking angry, and my rage is selfish and personal. For now it’s all about me.

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Saying nothing is never an option

18 Mar

My darling friend, Vick, originally published this post on her blog at the beginning of February, but I now feel comfortable enough to post it here.

So you don’t know what to say?….say SOMETHING
Can’t find the right words?…..try the WRONG ones
Can’t solve it?… don’t TRY to
For saying nothing is never an option.

You worry that your words will sound trite, smug, empty
That nothing you could ever say could take the pain away
So best not to say anything at all.
But saying nothing is never an option.

The truth is, I am falling
And you can’t stop me
At a hundred miles an hour.
And I am scared
And you CAN’T change that.
But you can say SOMETHING

Because I am lonely, frightened
Wondering if I have the strength.
And behind those few words
You will tell me I am not alone,
That me and the ones I love matter.
And that I do, and will, and can
Get through this.

Saying nothing is never an option
Because saying something, anything, is what matters.

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