One week into the New Year, and my family came to visit – all three daughters and all three grandchildren – for a belated Christmas / early birthday celebration. I was still feeling awful – and tried not to show it. But my birthday flowers cheered up the room.

At this family gathering, my youngest daughter, Annie, announced she was unexpectedly pregnant with her first child. She had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, at the age of 31, and documented her story on her TheCBomb site. Tears filled my eyes. I remember thinking, “Whatever happens, I must stay alive to see this baby born.”

“One week into the new year, and I’m still feeling tired and short of breath when I try to do anything,” I wrote in my diary. “But better than I was.”

I used to tell my patients it takes 6 weeks for a wound to heal completely. My ‘wound’ was radiation burns, and I was now only 3 weeks post-end-of-treatment. “3 more weeks to go. Must be PATIENT!,” I wrote in my diary.

Snow came. Too weak to want to venture out in the cold, I stayed indoors.

Meanwhile, life goes on.

My long-awaited new bedroom carpet was finally fitted. I had ordered it from a small local business back in July (I like to support local businesses), but the owner had lied to me, gave many excuses for the delay, and then went bankrupt. I had lost £1,000 but, in the grand scheme of disasters, it didn’t seem very important anymore.

After a week of yoghurt and soft scrambled eggs, I graduated onto food containing lumps. Muesli never tasted so good!

Meanwhile, a new cooker had arrived. The kitchen in this house is on the first floor and the delivery men took one look at the stairs and shook their heads. “We’re not carrying it up there, love.” So, an expensive lump of metal was being stored in a huge box in the garage.

I finally had the energy to contact local gas fitters. Only one firm agreed to take on the difficult task of installing the new cooker – and I spent a day of high anxiety as they erected some rickety-looking scaffolding, set up a tiny-looking pulley system, and attempted to hoist the monstrous thing through the first-floor living room window.

It was too heavy for two men, so they phoned a friend. Sadly, it was too heavy for 3 men. At this point, I thought they would give up.

Finally, a group of Polish, or Ukranian, workmen on the building site next door were asked to help, and a workforce of six men managed to manhandle the new cooker in through the window, and then into the kitchen. And very smart it looked too.

I was still struggling to reclaim the money I had spent on the cancelled Kenya safari. So, one day I set off outside to make the perilous journey to my local GP practice to hand in the insurance company’s medical form

Now, my usual walking speed is SLOW. But, on this first expedition out into the world, even a snail would have overtaken me! People behind tutted impatiently as I staggered along the pavement. It gave me new insights into how elderly people must feel (and I’m ashamed to say I’ve done my fair share of tutting – silently, I hope – when stuck behind a doddery old person too!)

Anyway, I made it to the health centre – a challenging distance of around 400 yards from my house. Had a long sit down in the waiting room for a long rest. And then I tottered home again.

One more jigsaw puzzle to finish…

… but being a cancer patient still kept me busy. The hospital dietician phoned. The community dietician phoned. The specialist nurses phoned. The GP phoned. I had regular check-ins with the pre-hab exercise team – and had to confess I had been unable to do any exercises for some weeks. They booked me in for a post-treatment exercise assessment.

The community nurses were coming every week to change the water in the balloon in my RIG tube (something I could have done myself, to be honest, but they seemed to assume I was incapable and I quite liked the weekly routine.)

Flushed with the success of my visit to the GP practice, a few days later I made it to the local shops to buy a croissant. My first croissant for months, and so extraordinarily tasty!

January was coming to an end. I was now 6 weeks post-treatment, had defied my own expectations by surviving for the first 6 months after diagnosis, and was feeling cautiuosly optimistic about the future.

[To be continued…]

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