Cancer!

Little did I know ... !

I thought I’d keep it simple. It’s a while since I wrote anything here, or anywhere else online, as I was unsure of what I should say.

On 29 January, just four days after I posted my piece on Australia, the shock of diagnosis was huge. Following a colonoscopy and CT scan, with no serious inkling that anything was seriously wrong, my husband and I were suddenly being told that I had bowel cancer requiring surgery fast. In addition, there is a secondary tumour in the liver so it had already spread. More scans confirmed this but no others that could be detected. It all seemed quite surreal.

Recovery from the bowel surgery was good. I have just had the second session of my first 3 months chemo which is given in a fortnightly cycle. Liver surgery will follow after a brief break from chemo; then following recovery from that there will be a further 3 months chemo. So that’s 2014 taken care of!

Those are the bare facts and the prognosis is good, but when I first got the diagnosis it threw our world upside down; we could not help thinking the worst. Now I feel extremely hopeful that in a year from now I will be as fit as a flea and in the pink, and it is all the positives that I want to convey, perhaps to help others.

The love and support I’ve had from friends and family means so much. Thank you!

 

Early on I was thoroughly spoiled with over a dozen bunches of flowers or floral arrangements, plants, books, magazines, chocolates and more besides; dozens of cards, emails and phone calls; friends visiting almost daily, sometimes two in a day when I was home from hospital.  To feel all these connections from friends, both old and new, was so uplifting and will continue to help me with the emotional and psychological side of this whole process. We all know that happiness helps healing.

Seeing people for a chat will mean a great deal for the months ahead, as I realise now that to mix with the general public, or large groups, with potential coughs and sneezes, is risky. Your immune system becomes weak so to get a nasty cold or other infection could break the continuity of the chemo programme.  As with any life-saving treatment, it becomes a top priority and other tempting activities like shopping or the cinema are going on the back burner. My husband had the soul-destroying task of unpicking all our holidays he had organised for the year!

A bookish event I was really looking forward to will have to go by the wayside – as far as I am concerned.  Surrey Heath Book Festival 2014 invited me to run a creative writing workshop, Writing from Life, on 11 May and I had thought that this would be doable. Now I realise that because of the high susceptibility to picking up bugs mid-way through what is called the fortnightly ‘cycle’, I cannot risk it. There I was in the line-up with Prunella Scales and Lady Antonia Fraser et al. Such a disappointment, as I was fully prepared for this and anticipated a fun morning.

Sorry this is getting negative … but you see these things are not the end of the world. Your priorities shift.

One thing for which I shall break the rules is the birth of a grandchild in May. No way shall I miss seeing her or him as soon as possible after the birth, even if I cannot do much to be helpful – another frustration. Never mind, knitting needles have been clicking!

The medical teams at nearby Frimley Park Hospital, and now at St Luke’s Cancer Centre, part of the Surrey Royal County Hospital in Guildford, have been wonderful, efficient and caring. When things are serious and urgent you see the NHS at its best and initially I was fast-tracked at every turn.

It was wise to wait before writing this, I think, or the shock and horror would have given a false and gloomy picture. Like lovely George Alagiah who has recently come out about his bowel cancer, it is now just a question of getting through the treatment, keeping well and looking forward to recovery and a bright future.

I have learned to appreciate simple pleasures, realizing that in Buddhist fashion every moment of life should be treasured. Birdsong and sunshine; the smell and feel of fresh air when you come out of hospital; simply feeling well; hearing from friends; Facetime with my grandchild, the love and support I have from my husband and children – all these things and many more take on a new dimension.

The thought of taking a holiday, or eating out somewhere special, trips to the theatre and activities with friends – these are things to dream about and work towards.

Plus - there is the fourth novel I must finish. I am about three-quarters of the way through, then many revisions to do but I am very excited about this one and hope to publish it one way or the other before the end of this very unusual and interesting year. I will keep in touch.

After the radio interview …

BBC Surrey Breakfast Show, Saturday 12 October 

Thanks to local councillor @PaulDeach who listened to my interview live and reacted immediately, this interview is put into context as a more permanent podcast on the Surrey Heath Residents' Blog.
And on iTunes  

( http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/player/p01hg328 
no longer available on BBC website)
 

Speaking live on an early morning radio programme can be deceptively challenging. Firstly, you have to be awake! Then, for example, before sun-up and in the rain, negotiating the Pirbright bends, where the road is strewn with branches and massive surprise puddles, you strive to get to the Guildford BBC studios in time for your precise slot.

Also there is the sensitive nature of the topic. Travellers. Gypsies. Planning applications and prejudice. Yes, enough to wake anyone up when presented with a list of alleged crimes and anti-social behaviour that are, apparently, solely attributable to Gypsies and Travellers.

Thankfully such sweeping allegations against the travelling community are becoming fewer in the wider population. I think so, anyway, but there are always a few who refuse to see them as human beings, in most ways just the same as anyone else. The key difference is that some GandTs wish to retain aspects of their culture, with regard to moving around for work and social gatherings, and pursuing traditional ways of earning a living: tree surgery, garden maintenance, fencing etc; laying tarmac (less so now); scrap metal. This type of work would not fit easily on your average residential estate or road, and it is entirely right that they should be accorded somewhere for them to fulfil their role and pitch a trailer. This is really all they ask for; somewhere within reasonable reach of schools, shops, doctors and so on.

These people are descendants of those Romany Gypsies who years ago co-existed quite comfortably within the context of rural England, making things like pegs and baskets, virtually out of fresh-air and the hedgerow, or offering a useful service such as knife-grinding. Travelling and stopping has become nearly impossible, with so many laws that make this and doorstep selling difficult; now, even remaining static in their family groups is almost as impossible!

Local authorities are trying to do their bit, I feel, but as ever, once they do their assessments, find a suitable plot of land, which is not easy to say the least, the big hitch in the process is the general public’s resentment. Whilst acknowledging the need for site provision, there is still a strong element of NIMBYISM.

How about we all try and turn things around? Instead of dwelling on possible negatives, perhaps, for the sake of their children and grandchildren especially, we should do our bit to accentuate the positive.

‘Hey!  I hear some Romany Gypsy or Irish Traveller families are settling in near us! I would so like to know more about them and their fascinating culture first-hand. What you see on TV and read in the papers is probably not a fair representation. I shall make a real effort to make them welcome and help them fit in with our community. I’m dying to find out about what the older members can remember of times gone by!’

You can compose your own version of course.

Do some follow-up comments come along from the listening public? (I am still listening to the programme, so watch this space...!)
POST SCRIPT: No, apparently there was little negative response this time, for whatever reason.

 

Small package of big news from Appley Green land

Tomorrow I am on BBC Surrey Radio talking to Joe Talbot as his Tea 4 Two guest. You can catch this around 2.10 pm. Maybe I shall talk about how I came to write novels and when it all began. I don’t know yet! I have been to  the Guildford studios three times now, I think, as well as doing telephone interviews, but before it was on the Breakfast Show, usually talking about nitty-gritty Gypsy issues. This time I have a full 20 minute slot to talk about Shades of Appley Green. Wow!


Since the launch of Shades of Appley Green back in March, I have had a wonderful holiday in Japan and managed to squeeze in book signings in Woking, Godalming, back to Camberley and Farnham. This Saturday, 10 May, I am in Festival Place, Basingstoke., Hampshire On Thursday, 31 May I shall be in Sutton for the first time, a bit further away, but still in Surrey. There is a 'dear old chap' with Parkinson's in Shades of Appley Green, indeed he is a key character, and I used to work for what was the Parkinson’s Disease Society (now Parkinson's UK) in Basingstoke and Farnborough areas – I actually retired the day before the launch of  Gypsies Stop tHere in 2008. Off to Dorking on 29 June and will be at the Tilford Rural Life Museum for Romany Day on 30 June.


Tilford? That reminds me, did you know the book cover photo was taken in Tilford, Surrey? And the missing arm of the park bench was allegedly pulled off by a Gypsy horse tethered there!! You heard it first here - or maybe at The Barley Mow in Tilford! 


Also on 16 June I will be at the Love a Happy Ending event Summer Audience in my old school, Sir William Romney’s, Tetbury – you know? Down the road from Highgrove. See the programme, if you are a reader of books, a writer or an aspiring writer and fancy a trip to the delightful Cotswolds. Tetbury is a truly beautiful place and I was blessed to be brought up there.

Shades of Appley Green on Kindle

Amazon.co.uk  


Amazon.com