Jenny, Author at Jenny May

Onwards and sideways

Strap in, for the beast has returned – and this time, it’s complicated. That’s right, we’re back on the Big C train.

For the third time in six years, I find myself writing a blog to tell people that I have cancer. It may seem an odd way of doing it, I know. I have, of course, already told the people closest to me, which is strangely one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. Then, I have to admit, I get overwhelmed with the amount of retelling, that in the end, it’s actually easier to do this – a big ‘ole announcement to all.

But, as anyone who has read my blogs on all this nonsense before will know, I also write about cancer to try and normalise the topic so people don’t feel afraid to talk to me, or others. Going through cancer is hard enough as it is. When people pull away or start acting differently because they don’t know how to be or what to say, that just makes it all so much harder.

So, repeat after me: cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer, cancer. Feel free to insert swear words too, wholly appropriate.

So, where are we? I have known for about two and a half months now and I’ve been savouring a last bit of ‘normal’ for a while by not telling a whole lot of people. But, the machine gears up and I am more frequently than not at one hospital appointment or another. I am also becoming increasingly exhausted and I think showing signs of slowing down, so time to talk it is.

Yep, it’s the breast cancer again/still. A second recurrence, this time in the lymph nodes in my neck. There is also a suspicious shadow on my chest which as yet, remains unidentified. After several different chemotherapies over a total of 15 months, two major surgeries and radiotherapy, it still has not got the hint to leave. Quite frankly – rude!

I have not started any treatment yet because I have turned into a bit of a special case and the normal routes aren’t seen to be perhaps the best choice this time. My amazing oncologist, is looking into multiple different options and I (being so special) have caught the eye of Addenbrookes and am taking part in some research trials with them, alongside. To be honest, it’s all a bit complicated to explain at the moment.

This post may feel a little flippant, but trust me, I have done a lot of grieving over the last two months or so. There is so much loss that comes with cancer; mentally physically and emotionally – but you can’t be in the depths of these things one hundred percent of the time.

Last time I had a recurrence, I first asked on twitter – yes, with a poll – whether people wanted me to write about it again or not. Out of many responses, I had one person say no, they’d rather not hear about such things. I still think of this response and this person. The thing is, when you have cancer, whether you like it or not, it rather takes over your life. And the aftershocks live on forever with you afterwards. It is simply impossible to deny such a huge part of your life, because it would be like trying to hide a huge part of you.

So, I will write about it, but not only it. I will probably be rather irreverent at times, because you can still laugh and joke when you have cancer, as much as you cry and fear and grieve.

Facing the potential of death in such quick succession at what I still feel is a young age, I find myself casting thoughts further to the nature of being human and our place in the world – so you’ll probably get some hippy, wellbeing, self-help, life and universe rambling also.

But sometimes, I will still just talk about cats, worms, trees and my ever increasing melding into a weird nature person.

Because I am still me.

We go on. Onwards and sideways*

*Onwards and sideways is something my bestie and I have been saying for forever for those moments when you just keep going, even if you don’t necessarily feel you are going forwards. For my birthday (and yes, I am insisting that forty one is still quite young) she surprised me with an amazing hoodie, with her design of our old phrase. Brilliant! You can see more of her designs on Instagram @ilonajaneillustration

Death of a Garden

I feel the pain of sap drying in stems as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass.

I am sure that I am not the only one who is currently feeling a sort of grief every time they look out at their garden. I have felt immeasurably lucky over the last few years to be blessed with a large garden. It has been my sanctuary, my nemesis, my workout, my joy and my healing, many times over. But at this time of heat and drought, I feel the pain of sap drying in stems, petals curling and falling before full colour has blushed, and the tightening and constricting of green just as assuredly as I feel the sharp prick and spike of dead grass under my bare feet.

Things I have planted, pruned, tamed and nurtured, I now mutter apologies to as I pass them: “I just can’t water you all,” I say. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

We prioritise the food; peas, courgettes, onions, potatoes – anything we are going to eat gets watered – but still, it is not enough. Beans that normally flourish all through August stopped producing before the month began. The flower borders near the house and the pots on the patio get an irregular dousing from grey water we collect from the sink. Again, it is just not enough.

It is not about aesthetics. Of course, it is far more pleasant to look out on colour and vibrancy, but it is as ever, the breaking of the chain. No plants producing pollen and nectar – no insects. No insects – less food for birds. Fruit dropping off early and unripe – again leading to famine for wildlife. We move up the chain; no insects – no pollination – no food – for us.

I feel that since an early age I have been scared and worried for the world. At the age of about nine and without fully understanding what it was all about really, but with a sense that it was important, I did a sponsored walk for wildlife. I bought ‘save the whales’ notepads and when peers were wearing band t-shirts, I had ones about global warming. But this is the first time I have ever felt that perhaps we have gone too far to turn back. I always had a slight militant feeling that the world could be saved; but now I’m not so sure and my heart breaks for my niece and nephews because I don’t know what world they will have to grow into.

But, it is a funny thing that despite this fear and grief I find myself collecting seeds. To collect seeds is still to hold hope. It is a way to try and preserve what can be saved from this year to try again. It may be that we have irrevocably lost some of our plants and that we might have to rethink what is going to be possible to grow in the years to come. For now, I can do nothing about that. But I can hope and so I will keep collecting seeds and as an invocation to carry on and to encourage you to do so too; I will leave you with the beautiful spell of their names:

Clary, aquilegia, salvia, snapdragon, nigella, sweet peas, silver moon

Deploying tactics 1 and 2

I am under the heavy warmth of a beautiful quilt I bought for myself as a gesture of love to me…it feels an empowering hug of a quilt for that.

I find myself, once again, lying in bed exhausted and in pain and feeling like I am missing out on the world. I have been at work, but am now in the spare bedroom downstairs, the back door is open and I can feel a breeze and see a slice of the garden.

A chaffinch is calling its funny eighties keyring sound-effect call and a greenfinch screeches a nasally whine on occasion. Mr and Mrs blackbird are as busy as ever collecting insects and stopping now and then to drink from one of the bowls on the lawn. They flick through old leaves and cut grass not caught up after mowing. Cowslips stand tall and bright with spring-time yellow under the weeping crab apple tree; the long thin stems of which are laden with pink blossom and sway in an easterly wind.

I long to be outside; walking, biking or working in the garden, but I have absolutely nothing physically left to give, today. I started slipping towards more than frustration and feeling quite down, so deployed tactic number one – message MOTH to say I needed a, ‘buck the f*ck up’ and to at the very least slowly walk down the garden and back, once. We went out together; he brought in the washing and we both checked on the seedlings in the greenhouse. I returned to bed, utterly exhausted.

So, tactic number two – “What would Josie do?” Josie George is the author of, ‘A Still Life,’ and a fantastic woman I follow on twitter. (I don’t know about you, but I still feel misgivings towards, ‘follow’ as it feels either cult-ish or stalker-y.) Josie has, throughout her life, had enormous physical difficulties to deal with, compounded further by at first these being of the ‘invisible illness’ variety. As someone who was diagnosed with ME at age thirteen and has since had cancer twice and all the fallout from the treatment of, I feel I completely understand the pain, grief, frustration and anger of living with an ‘invisible’ illness.

But, although Josie does address these things in both her memoir and social media, she is somehow the most positive and inspirational person. Since reading her book, I have often deployed the, “what would Josie do?” tactic, when I find I am starting to feel a bit sorry for myself. She has shown me that there is always something, no matter what you are going through. Sometimes for her it is fully paying attention to her pain as when it is all-encompassing, she may as well explore it with curiosity.

So here I am, doing something. I am telling you about a brilliant book and an excellent person. I will also give you a little slice more of my imperfect, perfect world…

I am under the heavy warmth of a beautiful quilt I bought for myself as a gesture of love to me when I was living on my own for the first time. It feels an empowering hug of a quilt for that! There is spring warmth in the air but an enticing whip of wind that blows coolness on my face. A regular black bird has found a song he loves and sings it many times each day; it is a waltz and he is clearly smitten with it. I can see cones of lilac, not fully open yet, but can recall the strong, sweet honey scent clearly and it will fill the garden again soon as, all things cycle round; the seasons, the days, the good and the bad – a comforting thought as I know the pain will pass as my own seasons cycle. Until then, I will try to not feel I am missing out, but will instead focus harder on what I have, right here, right now. And it is good.

Furiously forty and more settled than ever

I don’t want to work my way up the ladder. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I don’t want to be famous or stay looking twenty forever.

When I wrote this, I was sitting in bed at ten to five in the evening. The light was fading to dirty rust colours outside and I had a cat snoring next to me. It was a Friday, I was considering a glass of wine and whether it would embolden me to hit go on the payment for a large amount of pounds worth of books that were in my online basket. MOTH was playing guitar in the room next door. I had a hot water bottle. Apart from the intense pain in my legs (a by-product of cancer treatment) it was quite a lovely moment. I had been given some money as a Christmas present, I could by the books…

After having lost it for some time (it happens occasionally), I have recently regained my reading mojo. I have found that deleting any social media apps on the phone adds greatly to the recovery. It helps that I have also hit upon a seam of fantastic authors and titles and am feeling like a kid in a sweet shop. All these new discoveries seem to have come into my life at a time I feel I am finally settling into ‘me’ and they speak to me about things I find myself attuning to. I turned forty recently and I wonder if that has something to do with it.

With average life-spans in general getting longer, forty really shouldn’t be quite the epic milestone it was once viewed to be. Having reached it, I certainly don’t see it as anything but, quite young still, really. But whether it’s psychological, societal or actually physiological, I do feel a change – and it’s a good one.

I give both less and also more of a damn about things. These sentiments may have been propelled by going through cancer twice by this age. Priorities become much more obvious when you have to have a chat with Mr Death especially when he turns up uninvited more than once! I have at one and the same time become someone who can throw off the trivial more easily and yet break harder and further at the things that really matter. I have a much more focused view of what is important: my loved ones, health, the natural world; and a rather refreshing laissez fair attitude towards a lot of other things: been walking around with mascara smudged under my eyes – oh well, I am but human.

I have much more peace about who I am. Instead of agonising over my flaws, physical, mental or emotional, I am kinder and try to understand and comfort myself. But I also have much more anger – righteous anger at that. When I see what we are doing to the planet and the way we are fracturing as a species and the cruelty we impose on each other and the world, I can barely contain the pain of it.

I have always envied people who have known ‘what they want to do with their lives.’ It is a horrible imperative we have thrust on us at an early age to pin down and work towards. I have never known and I’m pretty sure I still couldn’t articulate exactly. But, I am closer to feeling what I am about and it is my intention to follow such inklings and enjoy the things that feel like me and see where they lead.

I don’t want to work my way up the ladder. I don’t want to be a millionaire. I don’t want to be famous or stay looking twenty forever. I want the joys of what’s really important; small life, family, love, nature, laughter, quiet. If you see me with mud on my face and bits of garden in my hair, scribbling in a notebook with a pocket full of wonders like conkers, interesting stones and a sundried stag-beetle, then know that I am happy. And if there’s a glass of wine in it too, there may well be a fair few new books as well.

If you’re interested in books on life and nature, this is my basket of temptations. (There are more, but even I had to stop somewhere.) You may enjoy them too:

‘Earthed’ Rebecca Schiller

‘Light Rains Sometimes Fall’ Lev Parikian

‘Wintering’ Katherine May

‘The Woodcock’ Richard Smyth

‘The Eternal Season’ Stephen Rutt

‘Rhapsody in Green; A Writer, an Obsession, a Laughably Small Excuse for a Vegetable Garden’ Charlotte Mendelson

‘On Gallows Down’ Nicola Chester

P.S. I had a glass of wine.

P.P.S. There may be books on the way…

Facing winter

No-one is an infinite vessel. We cannot keep with us, everything we ever experience.

I have, for years, tried to understand the depths of some people’s difficulty with winter and also to attempt to explain how I feel it is such a necessary part of life. Trust me, I hate being cold – and I am nearly always cold. But I feel there is much more to it than temperature or grey skies.

A few months ago I stumbled on a book called, ‘Wintering,’ by Katherine May and I found that the essence of it was what I had clumsily been trying to say for years. That, wintering is a part of life that is difficult, often upsetting and pushed away – but necessary. As much as nature needs the winter season to reset and rest, so do we need to acknowledge and allow our emotional winters. And I think, that the two may be connected.

We live in a world where we have a culture of carefully constructed oversharing of problems where some people play the minutiae of their lives out on social media, but also, curated over-simplifying optimism. You can barely move for positive quotes slapped on everything from bedsheets to bumper stickers. I feel, sadly, that both are somehow disingenuous because both face outwards, when it is within that needs to be looked after.

Humans are emotionally messy creatures and like the dreaded kitchen drawer, full to the brim of stuff and nonsense that we just can’t face going through, we hide away the difficult things.

Sometimes it is necessary for a while. Sometimes we don’t realise we are doing it. But it doesn’t matter why, what is true is that, eventually, these things will have to be dealt with.

I am facing what I know to be a period of winter. It has happened before and I knew it would arrive again. Let me bring you up to speed with my cancer situation because I haven’t written about it since being told it had spread further than thought. At that point in time, I had just finished five months of weekly chemotherapy. I had had more surgery to remove all the lymph nodes on my upper right hand side and was in the middle of three weeks of daily radiotherapy. There followed six more months of chemotherapy and if I’m honest, I’m still not sure how I did it. At the end of this, routine scans and blood tests followed, bringing with them a punch. The CT scan showed a lump that they couldn’t identify and the oncologists weren’t happy with my bloods. An ultra sound was done and again – there was a lump that they weren’t sure of. Two biopsies and more blood tests were taken. The next ten days were an agony I can’t explain. I was genuinely not sure, that if they said I had to do more chemotherapy, that I would agree to it. Three days before Christmas I received the best gift – the biopsies showed that the unidentified lump was scar tissue.

Scars come in many forms, the physical, which my upper right hand body is now almost entirely cross hatched with, and the mental and emotional.

I am of course, beyond happy to have been given the all clear, but I am not cartwheeling for two reasons. Firstly, the cancer having already recurred once, I can no longer ever fully believe that, that will be that. Secondly, the hard work is far from over. Aside from physical recovery (which takes years and some things will never be the same again) I now face everything I had to put on hold before. When you go through cancer treatment, you do not have the luxury of being able to deal with the mental and emotional trauma. You can’t. Your job, at that point is to get through treatment. One step in front of the other getting through the day-to-day practicalities. But when all the appointments stop, everything comes crashing down and you are suddenly faced with every bit of loss, grief, fear, worry, pain, guilt and anger that you had to put to one side while you just got on with staying alive as best as possible.

It is tempting to try keep these things at bay. But it won’t work. Unbidden they arrive without warning. And so, this is my winter now, to feel the sting and cold of them, to be vulnerable in the harshness of what is to come. But I am not scared because to winter, is to live every part of life fully.

I wrote the following thoughts standing in my bathroom, post shower, which in my opinion, is where all the best thinking happens, bar walking in the rain.

People find it hard to winter when they find it hard to spend time with themselves. Winter creates introspection and reflection by necessity as there are more hours alone, in darkened light and silence. It creates spaces that, normally filled with people and busyness, now lie open, leaving room for thoughts – all those thoughts we try to avoid. Wintering is hard work. But necessary. If trees didn’t cut off supply to their leaves, pull back their sap and draw their resources inward to their main core, they would be beaten and destroyed and unable to endure the harshness of harder times. This new year, instead of accumulating new habits, new resolutions and demands on ourselves, perhaps we need to let go. Reduce our thoughts, curtail unwanted patterns of behaviour, stock take on our beliefs and stored experiences and gently and kindly look them in the eye. Lay them out, inspect what you have accumulated through the year and choose what to keep. And let the rest go. Strip your leaves. You may feel exposed for a while, vulnerable even, but in reality you are looking after yourself and all the potential for the months to come. Let go of things willingly, but not blindly. Acknowledge them fully, say their name, speak it out loud, there is power in doing so. It becomes a purposeful act and one to which you can hold yourself accountable: “I choose to willingly let go of…” By doing this you acknowledge your ownership of what is not sitting correctly within you: bad feelings, behaviours or thoughts you have been holding on to and also you realise your active choice to let these things go. This is hard because by doing this you have to hold yourself to account . It is no longer possible to be the victim and say, “but X made you feel like this,” or, “Y is the reason you can’t move on.” If the resulting negative thoughts and feelings live within you – they are yours. You own them. No-one is an infinite vessel. We cannot keep with us, everything we ever experience. Examine also whether the things you are holding are really yours or are you being something else for someone else. When wintering you have to acknowledge the truth of who you are and whether you are living in true resonance with what you believe at your core. A dormouse who gets through winter by hibernating, will not survive long if they try to live like a fox. The Spring clean is a notion out of season. In spring we do not want to be in looking at an accumulation of stuff, dirt, mess; we want to be out, coming alive and moving. So winter. Use the long dark days, the quieter times to prepare yourself. Draw your sap back into your core: the things you truly believe, the ones you wholly love. Look at all the rest. Spend time in winter to really see and feel the things you have pushed away to deal with later. What leaves can you shed? Will you willingly let them go?

I thoroughly recommend reading ‘Wintering’, by Katherine May.

Swallows on the Wire

I invite you to join me in slowing down and taking some time to immerse yourself in the small wild of the nature that is all around us.

I have been quiet lately and that quiet has allowed me to make some changes.

Firstly, the reason why I’ve not really been communicative: well, to start with I got a bit down when I was told by oncology that they wanted to extend this latest lot of chemo from three to six months. Having originally thought that all treatment would be done by late spring for it then to be extended to late summer; to then have to go, ok, now it will be early December, felt a bit much.

The second reason was that the world seemed to have become very loud and very angry. It is as if we can no longer entertain nuance and everything became polarised and you were either one way or the other, for or against, a good or a bad person.

Being in a pandemic is hard and straight off the back of years of infighting regarding our status in the EU made the already prickled even pricklier. Add into that being diagnosed with cancer and having to do all the treatments by yourself and not even being allowed to hug your own mum – well, quite frankly, I wasn’t coping well and knew I had to make some changes. And I did.

I have been off social media now for six weeks and you know what – it’s been wonderful. There are elements I miss but if I’m honest, those elements were getting lost in the angry noise. I shall use it again, but to a much lesser extent.

An unexpected by-product of being off all social media is that my long-form reading has returned and I am back to devouring books, but more excitingly for me, my creativity has been creeping back in.

As part of my self-care (to use a perhaps vastly overused phrase these days) I had to make my world small for a while, to cope. I am sorry to have not been in contact with many of you who are wonderful in checking in with me. It is not that I don’t care, just that for a while, there was only so much I could manage. I have also slowed my way of life. Yes, partly because after more than nine months of cancer treatment I don’t have an awful lot of energy, but I have been focusing down on the things that I feel are essential to me at my core.

And that brings us to nature. I have noticed that at any crisis point in my life the only thing I can contemplate doing is to be outside; walking, gardening, just sitting; I need to be in the natural world. Normally I busy myself working in the garden but in my state of slowing and bringing the world in close, I have spent more time just observing. Really looking, feeling, seeing, hearing and tasting. From out of this I began a diary of my observations, and from that something new came: my podcast – Swallows on the Wire. In this podcast I invite you to join me in slowing down and taking some time to immerse yourself in the small wild of the nature that is all around us. I believe the smallest of interactions with the natural world can be beneficial – even just taking full notice of the dandelions that grow in the cracks of an industrial estate. We don’t have to jet off around the world to experience true wonders, we can find them everywhere – if we look and listen.

The title of the podcast came from a morning walk I took in early August where I stood under telephone wires on which perched swallows, dotted like notes on a stave. I scribbled the image on a bit of paper and added two more stave lines; the swallows I changed to dots. Out of this was born the title music, written by the swallows, interpreted and performed by my best friend Ilona, for which I give huge thanks.

Episodes one, two and three are available to listen to now on anchor fm and spotify. These are short nature diary entries and bring us up to the present date. They will then be weekly, with perhaps the odd bonus episode in between. To listen, click here

If you need a moment of calm or some time to reconnect with the natural world, just listen to the Swallows on the Wire…

Swallows and snow globes

It is okay to recognise that some things are hard and sad and difficult.

The other day, I both stood on my own in a field giggling and also had a bit of a cry. The cry wasn’t in the field but back at home and was because, quite frankly, cancer treatment is flipping hard work, and I think we all know what I really mean by, flipping. Most days I am pretty okay and just get on with it all, but overwhelm can sometimes creep through the cracks.

I am now half way through radiotherapy and the worst so far is feeling very, very tired and generally a bit sick. The latter is probably that my poor little liver might be getting a bit of a poke from the laser beam. (I know, I know, it’s not a laser beam, but it’s more fun to think of it that way. I can pretend I am in a James Bond film and will at any moment cunningly escape with excellent martial arts moves and then nip off to the bar for a swift martini.)

My ability to concentrate, think or focus on anything appears to be dreadful on more days than not. This will be a heady mix of chemo fog, tiredness from radiotherapy and the underlying continuous emotional and physical weight of six months of treatment in one form or another and with more to come – all in a pandemic. Well, if you’re going to do something, you may as well go the whole hog.

This is why I took myself out for a walk. Physically sluggish, emotionally a little messy and mentally unable to concentrate on anything, I had to get outside. My legs may have moved like lead and as if I were walking through treacle, but my heart instantly felt lighter especially when only a few minutes later I saw a swallow perched on a telephone wire in the bright sunshine after a rain shower.

I stood in a snow globe for a while. No, I haven’t completely lost it. A tree* was shedding soft motes of pollen which were being swirled in the breeze, barely perceptible in the sun but a blizzard against the backdrop of stormy clouds; I stopped to watch. The other snow storm at this time of year is the absolute froth of the umbelliferous cow parsley (also known as Queen Anne’s Lace and related to the carrot, don’t you know). Much to the horror of many gardeners I’m sure, I am letting this wildflower grow quite prolifically in our borders.

*I am leaning towards it possibly being a goat/pussy willow but I stand ready to be corrected because my tree identification game is bad!

Almost home and with the clouds gathering overhead, I stood for a while as swallows swooped above me. It was a magical moment of watching and listening to these birds as well as others singing further afield. All around me was the buzz of insects enjoying wild honeysuckle wrapped around the limbs of trees and the air was generating that exciting electric feeling that comes before a storm – and then a horse gave an almighty neigh, and this is what set me off giggling.

I went home and had my little cry. My walk broke the spell of me just pushing everything to the back of my brain where it sat growing and growling for attention. Sometimes you can work so hard at getting on and through things, you can forget to stop and feel what you need to feel. It is okay to recognise that some things are hard and sad and difficult and I am advocating allowing yourself a little cry sometimes if you need it.

Lovely little things

And, let’s also not forget the most important part of the plan, to look for the pockets of joy each day.

Six months after her release, Veronica is being put back in the loft. I am talking about my wig. I actually bought her (and I feel weird saying her, but they all come from the shop complete with names) the last time I had cancer. The only reason I didn’t get rid of her was because, well, how do you get rid of a wig? In the end it turned out to be a good thing that she lay in waiting for three and half years, because I needed her services again. But now that I have tiny hair, she is being packed off once more and if this weather ever improves, I can abandoned the hats on occasion too, which will be nice.

There have been some lovely things over the last week; on a short walk with my mum along a small portion of the Gipping, we saw our first swallows of the year. They took us by surprise zooming overhead and off into the distance near the end of our amble which had been otherwise bereft of noticeable wildlife apart from a pair of ducks. We then proceeded to have herbal teas and cake outside at a garden centre café. After all the lockdown and my own shielding, I still have the strange feeling that I am doing something naughty when I go out now.

On the way to my radiotherapy planning appointment, MOTH and I took a cross country cut through and passed a herd of sheep with happily gambolling lambs. A trio of tiny sheep bouncing about together is exactly what you need to see on the way to hospital and I am distinctly aware of just how lucky I am to live somewhere where these sights are never far away. One day I will find the donkey who, from our house, we can hear braying on clear days when the sound travels so well. I have an idea of where it resides but am not at all sure how one elicits a donkey introduction.

The annoying thing of late though, is just how cold and miserable the weather has been and how because of it, very few of the vegetables sown have germinated. Looking back at, ‘this time last year’, photos it seems that everything is so very far behind. We were particularly surprised at the lack of courgettes coming up as usually these are the easiest things to grow. We did a second sowing and out of curiosity I had a poke about in the first pots. Well, it turns out there was a very good reason they had not germinated, I had forgotten to put the seeds in! I blame this entirely on the fact that I had been doing some of the sowing in my very distracted time of pre surgery worry.

On that subject I would like to give you some nicer news. I have had my full body scan and it has not shown that the cancer has spread anywhere else in my body. I am of course extremely pleased about this but have to admit to being a little restrained in celebration. The reason I am not doing cartwheels (apart from the reluctance to increase the potential of head injuries and broken bones) is that I have been told this before, and it wasn’t accurate. As this cancer has been a recurrence of the first, I’m not sure I will ever be able to completely believe that there isn’t anything lurking, too small to be picked up on the scans. But I will try. In the meantime we carry on with the plan: radiotherapy which starts in two days and then another, different chemotherapy. And, let’s also not forget the most important part of the plan, to look for the pockets of joy each day.

One last amazing thing: my mum and two of my sisters are being brilliant and taking on a marathon walk to raise funds for Macmillan. I am unabashedly saying click here to donate. I can tell you from first-hand experience that this is a very good cause. I am so very lucky to have the support that I do from so many wonderful people. Not everyone is as lucky as I am but, Macmillan are there to provide care and help for anyone who needs it when dealing with cancer and this is a way you can be part of that support.

To help raise funds, click here

Pockets of gems

I have found, that with the new depths of grief, sadness and fear which sometimes can feel too much to take, I have also experienced higher highs of love and joy.

One of the most horrible things about having cancer, is having to give people bad news. Having to tell those you love something you know will cause them pain is dreadful. Then there is having to tell everyone else; repeating the facts over and over is like hammering your own pain and grief wide open at a time when you would rather hide from it. But, it is not something you can’t speak about forever.

To this end, here is my update. My treatment has not gone fully to plan. Three weeks ago I had my surgery to have affected lymph nodes removed. All went well albeit taking a little longer to heal than would be hoped. However, a week ago I got my results and well, they weren’t quite the good news we had been hoping for. The cancer had spread further than had been thought and had reached the third layer of lymph nodes under my arm, which are in essence, the last bastion before things go heading off elsewhere around the body. I am waiting for scans to try and see if it has spread anywhere else.

In the meantime we have to deal with what is known and so as soon as my surgery has healed I will have three weeks of daily radiotherapy and then be put on another chemotherapy for three to four months.

This has been an absolute blow and I have to admit, very hard to take. Instead of my treatment being nearly at an end, I find I am pretty much back at the beginning. The unknowns are too much for me to think about.

I am sorry to deliver this news to you but it wouldn’t feel right to say nothing and carry on interacting with people pretending all was going okay.

A strange thing has happened. I have completely lost my creativity. For the whole thirty-nine years of my life I have always had more creative things on the go than I could possibly actually do; songs, poems, stories, crafts knitting, crochet (this last quite badly done). It disappeared about a week before my surgery, I just assumed it was nerves and would return, but as yet, it hasn’t. Instead I have done a lot of thinking, over-thinking and deliberately trying not to think and it seems there is a very thin line that divides these things and too much time spent in any is not a good idea.

I think, when you have truly felt the truth of your mortality, it is something that can’t be un-felt. So many difficult things happen to all of us in our lives but we often fall back on, ‘But, at least it won’t kill me.’ When something happens and you can no longer say that, it tends to stop you in your tracks a bit.

I have found, that with the new depths of grief, sadness and fear which sometimes can feel too much to take, I have also experienced higher highs of love and joy. The silly pettiness of every-day worries has gone, they seem too small to give precious time to. The places I found happiness before, can bring almost unbearable joy now; you are as likely to find me crying from joy as you are of sadness, these days.

I honestly don’t know what lies ahead. I am trying to live by perhaps the most used maxim; one day at a time. I, as most of us, have said this phrase so many times, but it is only now I can see how important it is. Without wishing to sound like an intolerable hippy, there is so much beauty, love and joy out there, that even on your worst days, if you look for it, it can be found in the pockets between harder times. I intend to fill my pockets with these gems and I hope you do too.

I am sitting writing this not looking at all how I want to, with just the tiniest fuzz of hair. I have a medical drain going into my side, which is doing its best to ruin all my clothes by leaking all the time and I have a barrage of hospital appointments ahead. But I have just been out for a walk in the most glorious sunshine. The birds are singing their hearts out and spring flowers are polka-dotted everywhere in purples, yellows and whites – and all I can see is beauty.

Winter, Act 2: The Jewelled Dual

A courteous bow

Strut, abreast they walk

With puffed, pumped chest, they talk

All with manners at this early part

While waiting for a sign to start

Full starch, back and forth they pace

Feigning manners and grace, until

With a gentle sloping arch of golden tail on icy ground

The rapier black and brown soft trails to demarcate and bound

Grand stand and boast

In jewelled and shiny coats

Puff and ruffle, intent and show

And it begins – crouch low

Jump high

Feet and legs to opponent’s chest extend

Push and serve a blow, then land to defend

Another turn around the ring

Cock heads bobbed, out-stretched wing

Beady eyes, take size the foe

Scrape low and here we go

A feathered flap, lift hard and haul

A clash of claw

A civilised brawl

A pant and puff of breath from beak

Hangs clouds in frozen air, it speaks

Of old ways, rites and honour

Of settling scores with brutal glamour

But, gentlemen of landed gentry know rules that we do not

For just as soon as battle starts, then it is stopped

The ritual has been played

A settlement now made

Who victorious stands, I do not know

But I watch as side-by-side, they go.