Breast Cancer Awareness Month

You may have noticed a slight change to your usual service.....
I know the pink is alarming and slightly sick-making but, rest assured, it's only temporary.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I've gone pink slightly in advance. It will only be pink for the duration - I promise!

You know the drill: know your breasts, check your breasts, throw embarrasment to the winds and show 'em off to your GP if you're worried, don't smoke, birth control pills are not your friend, eat healthily and bear in mind that the earlier you start your family and the longer you breastfeed, the better (less exposure to oestrogen during your lifetime). Not doing these things doesn't mean you'll get cancer - these are just a few known factors that *can* (not will) help to reduce your chances of getting breast cancer. But remember that 1 in 9 women will get breast cancer at some time. The brilliant news is that there is loads of money going into research and treatment of breast cancer and if it's spotted early enough then the survival rate is very good. Be proactive!
And above all: noone is too young for breast cancer. Cancer does not respect your lack of age; in fact, it doesn't respect a damn thing. If a doctor tries to fob you off with the 'you're too young to have BC' line then you tell them you know someone who had breast cancer when they were 27.

Here are some of the sources out there who I've had help from over the last 18 months:
Breast Cancer Care




London Haven
Cancer Bacup
Lavender Trust

Lots of them have lovely things on sale or links to items being sold to raise money for research and care of people with breast cancer. So, if you fancy lavender wellies or pink gardening gloves or any number of other things, you can help them to support people like me.

What I did last night, or torture extraordinaire

So, (I start all my posts with 'so' - it's so you all feel like we're just picking up a conversation where we last left off...) So, Sarah dragged me off to 'Body Conditioning' at Kentish Town Sports Centre last night. I rang her after seeing Elaine, hoping for a cup of tea and a chat only to be told that she was on the Heath walking Wooster but did I want to come to the gym with her later. I said 'yes' - god knows why - I don't do 'classes' - I hate being hot and sweaty and I have no stamina. But I went - and I survived. I got really hot, my hand swelled up (lymph fluid: drain! Drain, I say!) and I re-aggravated the ankle that I turned last week - it's strapped up now and I can walk on it - it's just a bit uncomfortable. 'Body Conditioning' is aerobics to start with and then exercises with weights afterwards - I didn't use weights: I can't remember what the weight I'm not supposed to go over is. (If you see what I mean) It was hilarious but no one laughed out loud at me - I'm not terribly coordinated and trying 'grapevine' and the turn and then 'kickback' or whatever those terms are; well, I was lost and was waving my arms up and down in the opposite direction to everyone else and going the wrong way and it was all quite sad. I'm not convinced that I want to go again. Sarah keeps telling me that it'll get easier. I don't mind the aerobics bit (much) but I am very wary of putting my weight on my hands - like in press-up stance and I was scared when my hand started feeling so swollen. It went back down again - apart from the baby finger knuckle that's always puffy now. I'll keep thinking about it.

In the meantime, in order to try and solve the utter disorganisation and being unable to remember things anymore I have bought a filofax. No laughing and no poncy-jokes, please. I just can't cope - I need to-do lists and a diary section with the hours marked in it and somewhere to scribble shopping lists and guide programmes and Peru details. And I was doing that with bits of paper and it was a disaster - I just had scraps of paper all over the place. So, in my eyes, a filofax is just a grand collection of scraps of paper. So there.
It looks like this:

Except, it actually looks more like this:
Yay!! Bright red! For easy finding in bag, for easy noticing when I'm about to accidentally leave it at work/home and for just being generally sexy. If a filofax can ever be such a thing. And it has lovely different colored sets of paper for writing notes, so I can have different colors for notes on different topics!! And it has Day Planner and To Do pages! I'm entirely too excited about a filofax, aren't I? Yes, it's true - but I have high hopes for actually being able to stay on top of things now.....

(Argh! Font has gone all ballooey (I've never written that word before - it looks wrong) and won't let me fix it. ::hate::)

October is a very important month....

Sad, tired, not a total screwball

OK - I may have been sounding a *tad* dramatic over the past few weeks. Well, alright, yes I have been.

Please be assured that it all comes and goes and that I'm not spending my life curled up in a ball weeping. I am jolly confused and muddled and astounded by where my sense of self is taking me at the moment. However, in my calmer moments I do believe that it is all taking me somewhere new; that it will resolve - that I'll come out the other side.

I just haven't yet.

I am like a child learning how to communicate; except here I'm relearning how to communicate emotionally. I think I've been 'shut down' for a very long time. I froze myself rather than expressing things - because some part of me thinks that having feelings is a failing and because they were just too overwhelming. There were too many things, one after the other or all on top of each other and they would have drowned me on my own. So I stamped them down, shut them up, told myself to be strong and get on with things because feeling something about all these things was not going to make them go away or resolve themselves. I have learnt/am learning that feelings cannot be right or wrong: they just are; that you are allowed to feel and wish for things that cannot be. I am astounded by some of the things I'm learning about myself because I find myself thinking things that are simply not true. To put it metaphorically (and why not!) I've been trying to steer my ship according to a false map and false landmarks to the wrong destination. It's time to get myself back on a course - a better course - because, of course, there are many. (and possibly too many uses of the word 'course' in the previous sentence...)
I'm starting to have hopes for the future. I won't say I see or know what it will be; but things are starting to float into the offing - I see ghosts of the future.

Gentle ghosts presenting opportunities.

Move on

OK – I’m close to cracking-up. I haven’t slept without waking every 2 hours for 3 nights now. Yes, the vicious ‘hots’ are back. If this carries on then I’m not to be held accountable for snapping, biting your head and arms off and then bursting into tears.

It took every ounce of my strength and will to get through last week. To get up in the morning, to get through the routine, to get through those hours at my desk and then to go home and feed myself properly and start it all over again. I’m miserable. I go through periods of time where I think I’ve moved on; that the memories have receded a little and then they come back and hit me again. How many years will it take? I thought: one year – then perhaps it’ll seem better but now I’m thinking that perhaps *next* year it will be better and underneath, a part of me if thinking that perhaps it’ll never be better. Perhaps I will always be sad. Perhaps I will always be grasping at life trying to hang on. Trying to keep up. Trying to be on top of things instead of running around after them.

And then I’m scared and hate myself for finding this so hard – this cannot be as terrible as everything I went through last year! That took real tooth-gritting will-power. I feel like it’s taken me away – the cancer may be gone but it’s still eaten me up in the process of banishing it. It’s taken so much to get through it that, actually, what’s left of me isn’t worth having.

Stop me if you've heard it all before.....

Scarsville

Happy Birthday to my mastectomy scar!!

A year ago today my cancer was removed and with it, my cleavage. Hey, who wants one of those anyway? Other than the entire damn western world, that is. Today I find myself mesmerised by other women's cleavages - and they're everywhere! The fashions, they are low cut; the bras, they are on display and me - I find myself staring at other women's boobs, and that's pretty weird.

I never used to think much about them before: they were there and if I had the right top on and stood at the right place at the bar in the pub then I might get served before the blokes. And I liked to wear my fitted tops and I loved my lacy, beautifully colored, low-cut bras. No matter what I was wearing on top it made me feel good to be wearing something sexy underneath - even if only I knew it.

I have had some very nice, very kind comments recently so I wanted to say a more 'public' thank you. 'Thank you, ladies'. I have to admit, I'm not feeling very beautiful or even very happy with myself anymore. I never thought this would happen to me. No-one ever does, I expect. I just feel sad now - just sad; in a dull, heavy, weighted-down kind of way and nothing much seems good - it doesn't seem *bad* either - just...flat. Like nothing much, like I've gone numb along with my scar. It's my "little souvenir of a terrible year".

I have occasionally stamped my foot and said 'it's not fair' - but I guess I don't feel I'm allowed to complain. It doesn't change anything - it doesn't make it go away but maybe I should; maybe those 'dragons' need to be named and released. Maybe I'm allowed to whine a little bit and say 'it's not fair'. Well, you know what: IT'S NOT FAIR! WHAT DID I EVER DO WRONG? I'VE ALWAYS BEEN THE 'GOOD ONE' - too afraid to be anything else and look where it's got me....I'm boxed up by my fear and constrained but it didn't save me from breast cancer. It didn't save me.

Allowing mutilation

A year ago today I signed a piece of paper giving my consent for my right breast to be removed. I had tears pouring down my face and as I went to sign I shouted/screamed/vocalised; I couldn't sign it without that. Somewhere I have a copy of that piece of paper and one day I will look at the signature: I bet it doesn't look anything like my signature because I don't think that was me.

I think the signing of that paper was the worst part - almost worse than waking up after the mastectomy. Apparently as I woke up from the anaesthetic, I was crying. Utterly unconsciously. But still tears were coming. I don't really remember. But having to say 'yes, I allow this' - it was awful, because I didn't want them to mutilate me. But I did and they did.

After I signed the consent form they let me go home as long as I promised to come back by 7.30 the following morning. I made David take some pictures of me - you know - with both breasts. I haven't looked at them since. Maybe I will one day.

Radio trauma-rama

Class night.

I woke up at 4.30 with 'the hots'. Whilst fumbling for my chillow and waving pillows around I managed to knock over a half-full pint glass of water (Water! People! Water! I don't do the booze!). And I knocked it all over a) my pillows and my side of the bed, b) thd radio alarm clock and c) the bedside table and 'the gap' - you know, that space *between* the bed and the bedside table that is a useful cache for those things that won't fit *on* the bedside table. Mine was the repository for those big clear plastic bags full of anti-sickness medications, steroids and painkillers that I used to come away from the chemosuite, post-chemo, with.

["Hi! I'm Emily, I have cancer and I rattle when I walk!" Last year was *great* - NOT]

So currently, 'the gap' has my useful A4 notebook for planning and writing, an Asterix book (of course!), a box of 100 soluble paracetamol (they didn't have any smaller boxes in Morrisons pharmacy and it's a stupid size!)

So, I spent a happy, groggy 20 minutes with a towel drying off those things plus the stuff on the *top* of the bedside table (too. much. stuff.) including the clock which was rather damp too. Went back to sleep eventually.

Woke up - later than the alarm time - radio is making strange hissing sound. Whoops.
I play with the volume control - louder hissing. I tip it up - AHHA - if I stand it on its side then it plays!! (Of course!) So I leave it on and have a bath and get ready - now I'm ready to leave - it won't turn off!! Classy! No matter which way I tip it. So I've had to leave it singing and talking away to itself - BBC Radio 2 all day.

Class night.

The tales, they do get better....

World's worst

World's worst Zoladex injection this morning. The nurse's hand slipped as she was sticking it in my abdomen and it came out and she had to reinsert it and OW! That flippin' hurt! I think that one's going to be an almighty bruise. I knew it wasn't going to be good when she had to fetch Ivy (Queen of the Chemosuite) to show her how this particular Zoladex injectable worked. Doesn't fill you with confidence, does it?
Plus it took her a really good feel-around to be confident enough to insert the needle to flush my portocath and that's always 'uncomfortable' i.e. it hurts. So a less than good day in the chemosuite - and considering I had to wait over an hour, even when I was there first thing, annoying. I guess I have a hard time accepting that I'm not the priority any more. Which is a good thing. Because being a priority means being really sick and I'm not anymore. So I was cheerful and accommodating and patient but there's a little bit of me that still wants to be looked after - to be the patient not just patient. But not really.
(Please don't send my cancer back just because I admitted that!!!)

T'was surgeon check-up on Tuesday too. All was well there. Well, all except some damn swelling in my hand which he didn't say was lymphoedema but I assume it actually is. It's tiny - you can barely see it but unfortunately I can feel it - my hand is stiff and I have pain down my arm. The surgeons response to this was 'yes, it can happen' - ARGH!!! TYPICAL SURGEON RESPONSE!!!! Pain and discomfort just doesn't register. I'm sitting there thinking 'please tell me what I can do to help make it better', surgeon's head is thinking 'it's only pain, it doesn't matter'. Well, it matters to me! I want my damn arm and hand back! I do not want lymphoedema as a daily reminder of all I've been through.

I'd also really like my knees and ankles not to seize up - sometimes I stand up and I can barely walk because I've stiffened up so much. I'm like a granny and I'm only 29 - this must cease!!

ALSO - the insane sweating has come back. I thought the gabapentin was working but the flushes are getting eviler again - my arms, they sweat!! Whose *arms* sweat?!? I mean, absolutely *dripping* and *running* with sweat. So much so that when I put my arm down on a piece of paper the other day, when I lifted it off again (I was writing) the paper was sodden - wet through and sticking to the desk. I am disgusting and I loathe it. I woke up 3 times last night and at 3 in the morning I had to go downstairs and outside where I lay on the concrete paving slabs outside the back door because they were cool and I just couldn't cool down....
Horridness

'Nuff complaining?? Perhaps so.

::Whaaa::
::Whinge::

Get over it girl - in fact, go and wash off the day's layer of sweat and go to bed to aquire some more.
Deep joy.

Life or death - for plants

Having let rather a collection of plants die of dehydration and green-fly munching on me over the last year or so I was desperate to manage to keep a few alive.

I think it was as a sort of celebration or affirmation of the fact I'm alive (yeah, alright, dramatic - shut up) But still, I wanted to prove a point - to enter the world of people who kept things alive.

However I recognised that my past track-record didn't paint a good picture so I didn't aim too high; I tried to be clever by picking drought-loving herbs: sage, lavender, thyme and then I cunningly put those crystal things that absorb water in the pots when I planted them.


Here are the results:


So, we have (from top to bottom) : one not-happy-but-not-dead-yet thyme, one dead sage and one mostly-dead lemon thyme, one flopping and sad-looking lavender and one caterpiller-munched sage.

I suppose I could say that more of them are alive than are dead but they don't look like the lush, green, happy plants they were when I bought them. Plants, why don't you like me?? (Because I don't water you enough - OK, shut up now plants)

Radiotherapy

Sometimes as I lay on the radiotherapy 'bed' I used to cry. I was laying there, naked to the waist, with my arms above my head, carefully positioned using laser lights lined up with the tatoos they gave me, and I wasn't allowed to move. Everyone else had to leave the room - they had amazing mental arithmetic skills - and they'd all rush out. It's odd to be experiencing something that everyone else can't because it would harm their health. Strange, yes?

And so I would lie there - listening to the music. Because they always had CDs playing - which was so nice. But I fear I will never be able to listen to the Coldplay X&Y album without being transported back to that place; the same goes for some REM songs. And so, I would lie there, tears rolling down my face and into my ears because I couldn't move to wipe them. And I couldn't make a sound and I couldn't *cry* cry, because I couldn't move my body - not to shudder, not to shiver, not to weep.

And sometimes I would be shuddering because it was so cold in there. The machines like it cold and so I would be absolutely shaking with the cold and wishing desperately for a hot flush. I don't know how the radiographers stood it - their hands would be freezing cold as they touched me - moving me around, manipulating me into the right position. They were all, without exception, lovely to me. Another collection of lovely New Zealanders - male and female - plus some others. The names have faded but the faces stay in my memory.

So, sometimes I listen to the music that takes me back there - I don't know why. I like to torture myself and live in the past I suppose.

Cancer and money

I am so incredibly lucky.

I am lucky that I live in the UK and that my National Insurance contributions mean that I don't have to pay anything for medical treatment, bar £6.50/$12 per prescription.

When I was diagnosed with cancer last year - no one was asking me how I was going to pay for:

• 8 chemotherapy treatments and medication,
  
• for a portocath insertion,
  
• for emergency care when I got neutropaenia,
  
• for a daily District Nurse to visit to do my injections,
  
• for surgery,
  
• for 25 radiotherapy treatments + planning and
  
• more consultations that I can remember.

While I flailed around in confusion and fear - no one was asking me for my insurance details, demanding my credit card.

They simply treated me.

I never had to make decisions about whether I could afford the treatment I needed. I didn't have to put a price on my health - on my survival. I didn't have to delay treatment because I didn't have the cash. My doctors simply decided on the best treatment plan for me and

we did it.

And it's not that I have had all of this for free: I haven't - I've paid my National Insurance contributions for 6 years and I will continue to do so for the rest of my working life. And how much better than insurance is the UK system?? Fantastically better. Because the NI that I pay goes to the Health Service whether I am sick or not. The money I pay today doesn't treat me - it treats others and when I am sick then the money of others pays for me. It's a giant care package.

I am also incredibly lucky that when I was diagnosed with cancer I had a job - a good job with a good contract that gave me 5 months sick leave on full pay plus 5 months on half-pay. I worked while I was being treated so I never got into the half-pay scenario. But I am so grateful that I had a contract that protected me from discrimination, from being made redundant or losing pay - even my pension payments continued to be made.

Today I have read tiny excerpts from 2 blogs belonging to women in the United States - one is 20, the other 25.

• One has been diagnosed with breast cancer and is bankrupting herself trying to pay for her treatment.
  
• The other may have have breast cancer but her insurance company will not pay for her to see a surgeon to have it diagnosed because she is 'too young to have breast cancer'. She is going to have to pay herself to have the lump removed and hope that the diagnosis is good.

I am so lucky.

I wish I could give the treatment experience I had to these women who are even younger than I.

It is awful to have breast cancer.
It is awful to have breast cancer when you are only 20-odd.
It is truly awful to have it and not be able to be treated in the best possible way.

I had cancer and it was awful but at least I (and my family) could say that I was being treated by a fantastic consultant who was world-known in her field; that I was having all the treaments that were recommended, when they were recommended; that I was in an excellent teaching hospital. I didn't have to play a balancing act between staying alive and not being destitute.

I've never thought the US system was a good one: it didn't serve my grammy and grampy well but now I cannot believe that it's humanely right. To put people in these sorts of dilemmas. To have to die as a result of cancer because you couldn't afford the treatment at the right time.

I am appalled.
My thoughts are with people all over the world who cannot have what I have had.

And by-the-by: 'Thank you' National Health Service for the fantastic treatment, the fantastic people and for the timely manner in which I was seen. This is why I would never leave the UK.

Hair, Boston Pops, Limos!

Final photo - this is me at the Boston Pops - also last Christmas. Shitty photo, taken by camera phone. But look! Look at the hair!! Not curling! Too short to curl. I look tres attractive, yes? Or not - one or the other.

We were sitting right by the stage - see podium behind us. This was a present from my *fantastic* brother (who always does brilliant presents) and included getting there and back in a Limo. My first time in a Limo. He's so cool. I wish I were him.

Wells Beach, Maine

This is a much nice photo of me taken at Christmas on the beach at Wells, Maine. David and I had a gorgeous night away at the Captain Lord Mansion in Kennebunkport. Bliss: go there! Immediately! Enormous beds, underfloor heating in the bathrooms, fireplace in your room, snacks (yummy), fantastic breakfast - go, I tell you! Go!

Plus in this photo you can see my Mobius Shawl, as knitted by me. It's lurvly - especially on cold December days by the ocean.

Photo fest

This is a bit of an experiment to see what the quality of this photo is...... It's taken with the smallest damn digital camera I've ever seen. Please ignore how shiny I look and the spot on my chin - I have too much chin anyway.......ignore it completely....

HOT

So hot, this heat is melting me away. I'm so sick of it and so tired by it. I'm fed up of feeling totally overwhelmed by it: like my head were about to explode; like my skin is going to burn off my body.

7/7

Where were you?

I was blithely unaware of what was happening until I got to the hospital where I was seeing Keith the massage therapist.
I knew something wasn't right: I'd had to walk nearly the whole way there because no bus came. And there were lots of people waiting and there was that buzz in the air.

Something's not right.

So, I walked. A big deal for me at that time: I was impressed I made it.

It's funny because before I left, David's mum called to say that there was a problem with the tube and I didn't check. I just thought, I'm not getting the tube: it doesn't matter. I didn't even check to see what was happening. I didn't think it was anything big. I was wrong.

And so, I didn't really realise what was going on until I got to the hospital. While I was there the hospital implemented its 'disaster management' (my term, not theirs) and were expecting a possible influx of wounded people. The lifts were closed to the public in order to be used for patient transfer. And there I was, on the eighth floor. It's a long way down when your legs are wobbly. In the end, Keith walked me down: me clutching his arm. But however wobbly I was; I had nothing to complain about - people were treated in that hospital who had lost limbs and had other serious injuries. I was lucky.

Today, my thoughts are with all those for whom this is a very difficult day. And working close to Russell Square I have already seen many of those people. Walking into work this morning the streets round here were cordoned off - just like they were after the incident last year. It brought back floods of memories. Some about the bombs and some about where I was at that time last year. So, after the little freak-out I had yesterday I'm feeling a little fragile - but mostly, so sad for other people. I don't think I had the capacity to really spread my feelings last year and so it's now that my empathy is springing in.

May all those who need it be sheltered and comforted and held.

Freak out

Today I freaked out and didn't even realise it. New-style freak-out. Cool.

Or not.

Normal, monthly Thursday. Keith followed by chemo-suite for port flush and Zoladex implant. *MUCH* better than last time because I was there just before nine. I went to do this new check-in thing and only the haematology assistant was there and he had me write my name and hospital number and the time I arrived on a piece of paper for the chemo assistant. Then, in the chemosuite Ivy told me that she doesn't start until 10am so I should just carry on doing what I've always done and Ivy will pass on the info. After all that hoo-ha last month! Farcical. The nurse who had upset me so much last month actually did the flush and the injection: I thought I was going to cry when I realised but then she was perfectly nice! So, it obviously was just the stressy state the chemo-suite was in last time. So that's, sort of, OK.

So - all OK so far.

When I'd been upset on Wednesday about the GP-thing, I rang Elaine - who said I could come and see her on Thursday - she was having a paperwork day after a meeting at 9.30. Go and have a coffee and find me later. So I did the Starbucks thing (herbal tea, thank you) plus a sticky-bun. Why do I always do to Starbucks when I could go to the non-chain, probably better cakes and buns, place next door? I am a brand-junkie about my coffeeshops apparently.
And so I hung about until after 10 to give her a goodish amount of time before I went up there again. The whole time fighting my 'I should go to work, I'm not really *needing* to talk to Elaine: I'm not totally spare, I just *want* to talk to her' thoughts. I have discovered that I have some thing in my head that says 'if I want something, that is wrong. Wanting is wrong and should be denied'. I only want to talk to Elaine - so that's self-indulgent and shoud be denied.
I get to her office - she's not there. Dilemma point. Do I get someone to bleep her? Do I wait around for her? Do I run away? I'm still so convinced that this is self-indulgent 'chat' that I can't bear to get someone to bleep her; besides, I'd have to go and ask someone to do that and I'm still not really sure what that'll mean so I don't want to do that. I don't want to sit and wait on 'the chairs' because you might as well just hang a sign round your neck that says "I can't cope: pity me" so I'm left with the third option: run away. I'm good at that - I have lots of practice at that: that's what I'll do. But I want her to know that I stopped by, so I write a note and stick to her door. Then she'll know I missed her/she missed me (and she'll feel bad (in my head)). So I write the "I came to see you but you were not there" note with a firm "I'll see you next Thursday". I'm trying to convince myself I can cope until then on my own.

And I go.

Down the lift that takes me out at the Radiotherapy entrance and I go out the doors and I......................................................................stop.
Just outside the doors. And I can't go any further. I don't want to leave, I want to talk to Elaine. And I stand there. I stand there for over half an hour. Not going forwards, not going backwards - and every so often I would call her office and it would always go to the answerphone. As I stood there Keith came by and teased me, saying that the bus didn't stop here - hardy-ha - and then asked if I was waiting for the rain to stop. I replied 'After a fashion' - which was actually a total lie. Now, why I didn't just ask *Keith* to bleep Elaine for me, I have no idea. But I wasn't in a totally logical state really, so that's why. I called again - still the answerphone, I left a message. It was somewhat bizarre I think. Something like "I've been standing ouside the radiotherapy entrance since I left and I can't leave. I'm not sure why I'm telling you this, sorry, bye." Good lord. As I write it out I just think I'm not as insane as that sounds - really, I'm not. Really, I'm not.
Anyway, as I hung up and put my phone away someone came out of the radiotherapy clinic and stopped to put their umbrella up. As he walked off I walked at the same time. Like his movement thawed my inertia and I went home.

In retrospect, I'm alarmed at how off-base I was here. I was convinced that I wasn't in enough of a state to *need* to talk to Elaine - so I wasn't going to. Normally, when I know I'm freaking out I do what I need to do to be helped. I leave her a message if she's not there; I get someone to bleep her. But somewhere in my head I thought I was OK and I wasn't. Is this a step forward or a step backwards?? A step forwards in that my freak-outs are not so dramatic that I can't exercise some control over them? Or backwards in that I'm no longer clearly identifying that panic and distress?
I really have no answers to this. No doubt it will become clear in time.

Abandoned and crazy

OK - so when does the utter over-reacting cease??

I spent an hour sobbing yesterday.
Why?
Because I rang my doctors surgery to make an appointment with my GP; only to be told:

"He's left"

Me:

"Wha..?!"

In head:

"How can he leave me!! I've been abandoned! Now I'm really going to die."

Crazy, over-reacting woman.

I truly felt like, shit, bad things are going to happen now. He was the one who started the process. He was the one who sent me to the Breast Clinic (True, with the words: "I don't think it's cancer: I've felt a 'cancer lump' (note: noone uses the word 'tumor' to the patient) before." Whoops! And now you've met a new lump! Lump, meet GP; GP, meet lump!) If he hadn't done that - I could have really been in trouble. And that happens to young women with breast cancer - their GP thinks that it's so unlikely that he doesn't refer them. My GP did refer me - he did the right thing. And I liked him and felt comfortable with him: and that is a big deal for me. I really do get quite bad 'white-coat' anxiety and I deal with it by knowing the person I'm going to see. I always make sure I see my GP and I want him to know me and how I react and so on. I hope my new GP will be as good.

And now he's gone. He, kind of, rescued me. I'm really grateful to him and I can't even tell him.
And just why haven't they informed his patients?! That's what really gets me: that, surely, is not the way to break the news.

And then I think, shit - I am reacting like a lover had just left me; or a family member or a best friend. He was none of these things. I am over-reacting. But I truly felt so upset yesterday. I sat in Tavistock Square (nice, green gardens with Ghandi statue) and wept (and also muttered to myself - adding to the crazy, insane woman image I seem to be going for nowadays)

Prom

I don't think I've mentioned that I'm singing in the Proms. Well, I'm singing in the Proms. Prom 20 and 21 to be exact, on the 29th of July as part of the 'London rabble' in Orlando Gough's new piece "We turned on the light".
We started rehearsing a couple of weekends ago: none of us knew each other and now, now, we're pretty tight and are making a really good sound together. The piece is not as far-out and weird as I feared it might be. It's a text by Caryl Churchill about global warming (sounds dull, doesn't it?) but it's growing on me and I certainly think the mass of different choirs and groups - including The Shout - will sound absolutely amazing. We'll be performing it twice and it'll be broadcast live on BBC radio 3.

So we started with a weekend rehearsal which was pretty tiring and now we're rehearsing on Tuesday nights. I have learnt a new tongue-twister to add to my vocal warm-up: He rattled his bottles in Rollix's yard. Go on, try it; you know you want to!! And we've had some great African songs to use as warm-ups too. Lots of fun. And it's been so nice to be singing again: