Loss, by Wendy Cope
The day that he left was terrible -
That evening she went through hell.
His absence wasn't a problem
But the corkscrew had gone as well.
It's not entirely on point. It was she who left, not he. Her absence most certainly is a problem. She even left the corkscrew behind, not that it's any use to me (maybe they only have screwtops in heaven?).
But oh, what I wouldn't give for a large glass of wine right now.
If you didn't laugh, etc.
This poem previously seen here on the subject of a different loss, that of the recipe book my mum made for me. Not just painful because of the recipes but because she also wrote down all of her favourite poems and I bloody well lost them and do you know how hard it is to pick a bloody poem for a bloody funeral??
Illustration by Caitlin McGauley
This is not the post I ever imagined would follow Wednesday's announcement, but life seems to have little regard for my plans. So does death, for that matter.
On Thursday evening, my wonderful mum, Rosie, died. I am heartbroken.
My mum was so proud of me for writing this blog and loved to read whatever nonsense I'd written. She was the first real-life person, besides Fin, to read it and left so many funny and supportive comments over the years.
Mum was bright, witty and had a fantastic way with words. When I left home, she used to send me constant little letters and notes, which I loved to read (and, thankfully, have kept). She was my inspiration in countless ways, but especially in writing.
Not long after I started this blog, Mother's Day rolled around and I asked if she would like to write something in honour of the occasion. In a strange quirk of fate, or timing, or something else, that post was published exactly three years before she died.
I'm struggling to find words to express everything I'm feeling at this moment, so I'm going to hand over to her. She always knew the right thing to say.
Greetings to those of you who enjoy reading Kirsty's thoughts on weddings, shoes, her lovely Hubster and things in life which take her fancy. Today you are getting, instead, a few words from the person who has known her longer than anyone in the world, who first saw that wee face appearing from the arms of the midwife and who has shared in all the ups and downs of her 27 years. For Mother's Day, dear readers, you are getting the Mother.
I was chuffed when she asked me to write something as it helped to shore up my bizarre belief that I am still young and hip! I mean, blogging. Most of my pals won't even know what blogging is. My wrinkles, body and birth certificate all tell me that I am 60, but this information has failed to get through to my brain. I am not sure what mental age I have, but certainly not very grown up.
You often read about children who live in awe of their parents. Since Kirsty started writing this blog, I feel a certain role reversal. I am so impressed by her writing and crazy thoughts. I have laughed out loud and cried – slow tears dropping onto my laptop and somehow not making it grind to a halt.
Yet while being so impressed by her ability, I have also been touched by how big a part I have played in her life. That may sound stupid – I am her mother, I helped bring her up, of course I am a major player – but we don't really go around all the time saying these things. Kirsty may have written about my lack of religious faith, but I was still brought up a good Scottish Presbyterian girl and we don't gush about our emotions.
There have been a couple of posts which have brought home how much she appreciated something I may have done as a mother. Firstly, the recipe book! I didn't realise at the time how much she had liked that. It just seemed such an obvious thing to do when your kids leave home and I assumed everyone else had done that. Kirsty leaving home was such a heart wrenching time, I was happy to do anything which would take my mind off it all. I wasn't mad when it went missing – what would be the point in that?
I had a Granny who, as they say in my home town of Glasgow, would “go mental” if you broke/lost anything and it was something I didn't want to carry into my family life.
Secondly, I loved her writing on my Mum's wedding book. That my Dad died when I was pregnant with Kirsty and never met her or Ali, her brother, is one of the saddest things in my life. But they did get to know my Mum, albeit for only a few years, and she was one hell of a Nana in that time. That their wedding book played a part in Kirsty's thoughts of her own wedding brought me great joy. That she could use it to write with such humour and so touchingly was the icing on the cake (sorry, bad pun).
However, as you can probably imagine, the post which had the biggest impact on me was A Little Cloud. If my father dying before seeing my children was one of the saddest things for me, then having this wretched disease has definitely overtaken that in the “why did this happen to me?” stakes.
As I have learned over the past 11 years, people with cancer approach it in many different ways. Often they don't want to talk about it all, pretend it isn't happening, and they can make it difficult for others to know how to deal with it. I was definitely in the other camp of believing that a problem shared is a problem halved, and would blab about everything. Maybe I bored friends and family rigid, I don't know, but quite frankly I don't care. [Editor's note: you didn't.]
Those of us with cancer are called many things – the most common one is “brave”. I am not sure if bravery really comes into it; you have no choice in the matter and just have to get on with it. What I think I have been most is “greedy” - greedy for time. When I was first diagnosed, Kirsty was 16 and Ali, 14. She was about to sit her Highers and determined to get the best results possible (and she did!) and I felt so bad breaking this news to her a few weeks before it all.
But most of all I just felt that I was being cheated of time with them. If only I could see them leave school, study or get a job, that would be a bonus. Then as time went by and I seemed to recover from it all, I was greedy for other things. If only I could see them married, be happy, get a job they really liked. These things I have seen and many more great things have been shared with my kids.
But now that my future is less certain, with the spreading of my cancer (I always call it “my” cancer, I am very proprietorial about it) those greedy thoughts have come back to me. If only I could see them settle in their own homes and maybe one day have their own families living in them. But who knows? It is all in the lap of the gods and the drugs which I take. However, to get back to her blog, reading Kirsty's thoughts on it all was so lovely – maybe this time it is harder to share every thought with each other, it is almost too difficult.
I would like to finish this on a lighter note!! As you may have gathered, Kirsty has always had a love affair with shoes [Who, me?]. I have her first pair of wee navy Clarks sandals somewhere which I must give to her to add to her collection. It is bad to generalise, but I am pretty sure most of your fathers were unsure of this “shoe thing” their daughters may have had. In our house, when Kirsty came home with some new shoes, Eric would say, “How much did these cost then?”. “Oh,” would be her reply, “only £30.”. Then, turning to me, in a conspiring whisper would say behind her hand, “Each!”.
That's my girl.
Mum's post was first published on 3 April 2011
If you're reading this, it means my family has made it to Christmas in one piece. Things were looking pretty hairy for a while there, and the new year feels a million miles away, but for now, for today, we are here. Tidings of joy might be pushing it a bit this year, but comfort will do very nicely.
Thank you to everyone who has been thinking of us and for everything you've given me, be that a beautiful wreath, a surprise package of amazingness, or your kind and thoughtful words. I am very lucky.
Wishing you a day filled with love, naps and booze.
Illustration by the wonderful Eilidh Muldoodles
Yesterday, somewhat abruptly, Fin became an uncle. His nephew came 9 weeks early and gave us all a fright. Weighing in at just three and a half pounds, he's a teeny scrap of a thing, with a difficult journey ahead of him. But he's here. He is so loved. He's being given every ounce of care and support that can possibly be given.
Today's topic for the Blog Every Day in November project is "workspace". I had a vague idea to share inspirational pictures of my fantasy working environment: a creative, collaborative space, notable for its excessive amount of windows and abundance of hot pink. The kind of place I could waft around wearing cool outfits and doing unspecified creative things that mysteriously paid me lots of money.
Oh, hello, Perspective. Thanks for stopping by.
Instead of waxing lyrical about some imaginary other life, I'd like to say a very real thank you to the midwives and doctors and nurses (including my amazing sister-in-law) who work tirelessly to bring new lives safely into this world. Thank you for taking care of my other amazing sister-in-law, and thank you for making it physically impossible not to cry at every single episode of One Born Every Minute, damn you.
Welcome to the family, little one. Your auntie and uncle are rooting for you.
Maternity ward in Essen, 1960, by Simon Müller via Wikipedia Commons, courtesy of the German Federal Archive
A few years ago a friend of mine threw a fancy dress party, the theme of which was "dress up as what you wanted to be when you grew up." Most of us at the party were lawyers. Funnily enough, nobody was dressed as one.
And we're off again. This time up to the frozen north for a few days, where I will almost certainly be striking poses in designer skiwear and prancing around in the snow on ponies. Because that's just what people do in Aviemore.
My family has a timeshare up there, a little two-roomed flat with bunkbeds and a pull-out couch. It's far from glamorous, but it's close to my heart. We've been going there since I was little. I remember one year, my dad built us an igloo beside the car park. It suspect it was more for him than for us.
For a few years I stopped going, bored of the long drive up the A9 and the unpredictable Scottish weather. But Fin and I started going up there together when he was learning to ski, and it's become something of a spring tradition.
One of my favourite things about having a timeshare is the year-on-year comparison. Every year, for these same two weeks in March, the little flat is ours. Some years the hills are white, their edges smudged against a flat grey sky. Some years are spent huddled on the couch watching the rain drum against the windows. Last year, we had glorious sunshine. We ate sandwiches on benches and lay on a beach, shivering slightly, in the way only the British can. The year before that, there was too much snow to ski.
Right now, it's -5°C and snowing. That has to mean we're due glorious sunshine next year, right? Maybe?
Happy weekend, folks.
Images: 1&4 Free People November 2012 via Fashion Gone Rogue, 2&3 Koray Birand for Vogue Spain Joyas via Design Scene
I have to apologise. I realised last week, when I wrote about my mum having chemo many years ago, that I haven’t been keeping you in the loop. In fact, I haven’t really given you any update at all since we had bad news last April. So in return for all of your kindness about the new blog design, here is, erm, a nice depressing post about cancer. My thank you notes really leave something to be desired, don't they? Sorry. At least the pictures are pretty.
Last year came and went. There was treatment, there were scans. My mum lost her hair for the third time in her life. I sought some meaning and purpose in all this mess by swapping work for volunteering for a while. Slowly, very slowly, the hair grew back. The scans proved hopeful. We breathed out.
Then on Christmas Eve, of all days, I got a call to tell me she was in hospital with the same symptoms that had us worried last time. Thankfully she wasn't kept overnight into Christmas Day, and it turns out the side effects of steroids (eating constantly, putting on weight) are exactly the same as the side effects of Christmas, so no problems there.
The new year came, and with it a new treatment plan. More chemo. Hurrah. In an exciting new twist, this stuff doesn't make you bald, but it does leave your mouth bubbling with blisters and your feet in perpetual cramping agony, which is quite enough to be getting on with thank you very much.
And here we are still. Chemo, blisters, waiting, caring, hoping.
It’s funny how it gets both easier and harder to deal with bad news. Easier, because you've been through it before and know roughly what to expect. Harder, for the same reasons.
This time around, I've decided to cope by burying myself in creative projects. As well as the blog makeover, I designed and styled a display for my friend Lauren at the Glasgow Wedding Collective fair a couple of weeks ago, and in return she took these beautiful pictures of me with my mum and aunt. I can't thank her enough.
(Pictures of her stand in all its woody, scrabbly, flowery glory coming soon, because I know you're waiting with baited breath.)
And even more exciting than blog makeovers and pretty flowers, Fin and I are going on holiday tomorrow. TOMORROW. I can't wait. It's been a hard start to 2013 in many ways, not just because of the crap that my mum's going through. I'm still building up to telling you about all of it. But in the meantime, I plan on doing nothing in the next week but skiing, sleeping, drinking wine, reading actual printed books, and eating my body weight in unpasteurised cheese. (In case you can't tell from that description, we're going to France, a country where they store their cheese in the basement instead of the fridge. Bring it on.)
So that's where we are. I don't know why I've taken so long to get round to writing about this. You've always been so kind and supportive whenever I've talked about what we're going through, and hitting publish on posts like this always feels like a sigh of relief. Thank you for that.
While we're on this topic, forgive me if I take a moment to plug Breast Cancer Care's Big Pink Bucket Shake. They're holding collections all over the UK around Mother's Day (the UK version, which falls on 10th March this year) and need volunteers who are willing to shake buckets and exude cheer for an hour or two. If you live in the UK, I'd encourage you to check out the collections in your area and sign up if you can, or even organise your own. Pink wigs optional, smiles welcome.
See you on the other side.
Images: Lauren McGlynn Photography, taken in the Palm Court at the Balmoral Hotel, because we're posh.
SEE ALSO:
→ Bad news
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a warm-blooded woman in possession of good eyesight, must be in want of some gratuitous pictures of Colin Firth."
Jane Austen. (Probably.)
If you were in Britain and had a pulse in 1995, you will remember the phenomenon that was the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. It was a classic of the genre, the standard against which all subsequent attempts should be judged. Memorable performances abounded - Julia Sawalha as a giggling, brainless Lydia, Jennifer Ehle's moon-faced beauty and expressive eyebrows, the wickedly caddish portrayal of Wickham by that bloke off Peak Practice - but none permeated the public consciousness like The Man Himself. For me, there will only ever be one Mr Darcy: Oscar-winner and all-round charming man, Colin Firth.
We all know I like a man in period attire, and I can only assume that being exposed at such a tender age to the sight of Colin Firth striding across the lawns in all his manly, dripping glory had more than a little to do with it. That famous lake scene isn't even in the book (he simply walks round a corner - DULL), but what a stroke of genius it was. In one seemingly inconsequential scene, Darcy goes from Mr Uptight Stick-Up-His-Arse to a sensuous man, glistening with sweat, so desperate to feel the cool waters against his skin that he throws propriety (and his clothes) to the wind and surrenders to a deeper, physical urge. Also, you can kind of see his nipples through his shirt. It's steamy stuff.
But what, you might wonder, has prompted this little trip down memory lane? Is this just turning into a blog about on-screen hotties of yesteryear? Sadly not. Colin Firth has been on my mind recently for a very specific reason. This reason:
That's right, people. MR DARCY IS MOVING IN NEXT DOOR. Kind of. Okay fine, he's not technically *moving in*. And that is not technically *my* house, since I haven't actually lived with my parents for the better part of a decade. But Colin Firth is shooting a film all this week mere yards away from the house where I grew up. The very house, in fact, where I first saw him dive into that god damn sexy lake.
Oh yeah, and Nicole Kidman is in it too. Just a couple of Hollywood A-listers, hanging out on my street. No big deal.
As you can imagine, North Berwick is all a-flutter. This is the most exciting celebrity happening in the town since Ronnie Corbett appeared in support of the Save The Outdoor Pool campaign. My mum reports higher than usual traffic along our section of the beach, with people casually strolling first one way, then the other, attempting to appear disinterested while twisting back over their shoulders hoping to catch a glimpse.
The couple who normally live in the house in question have decamped to a neighbouring flat and the decoraters have moved in, transforming it beyond recognition. North Berwick's usual sci-fi-esque streetlamps have been replaced on our street with original 80s fittings, bathing the terrace in a retro orange glow. Soon, though, it will be basking in the bright white light of superstardom emanating from the perfect, screenworthy features of Colin and Nicole. (See how we're on first name terms already?)
Regrettably, I probably won't get to hang out with Col and Nic personally, since they have quite selfishly scheduled filming to take place while I'm at work. I did manage to snap some behind-the-scenes pictures on Saturday though, and my mum has promised me frequent updates, which I will no doubt be relaying on twitter and which I'm sure you're all very excited to hear. "I think I just saw Colin's arm in the window!" "Nicole's assistant's assistant just walked past the back gate!" That kind of thing. In a happy coincidence, Isla has just had her final jags and is now free to run around outside - I think there's a strong chance she might "accidentally" run into Colin Firth's trailer...
So, how was YOUR weekend? See any Hollywood A-listers? Snuggle any puppies? Take any pictures of lampposts?
Second image by Lillian and Leonard. Note the wedding bunting.
So, how was YOUR weekend? See any Hollywood A-listers? Snuggle any puppies? Take any pictures of lampposts?
Second image by Lillian and Leonard. Note the wedding bunting.
I didn't really know how to follow my last post. I don't feel like talking about the whole cancer thing, but it seemed a bit crass to jump right back into my signature blend of inconsequential rants and random nonsense as if nothing had happened. "Hey, my mum's cancer has spread!" "Hey, check out my new skirt!" That is, in fact, how my brain is functioning at the moment - distraction is a wonderful thing - but there's no need to preserve that shameful fact in the archives of the internet for all time coming.
So, to help me avoid having to think of anything appropriate to say, why don't you say hello to my mum's new puppy? Her name is Isla and she is ADORBZ. She's a cross between a Westie and a Lhasa Apso (the breed that was victorious in Crufts this year, don't you know). Tomorrow Isla is meeting Smidgen for the first time, which could go either really well or reeeeeallly badly. (If anyone has any tips for the best way to make the introduction, by the way, please let me know.)
Lookatdatliddleface. This, my friends, is what hope looks like.
Or it's what insanity looks like. But I'm sticking with hope for now.
Have a great weekend, people. I'm sending bug hugs to all of you for being so damn lovely.
So, you know that news I was waiting for? Well, it turned out to be Bad News. News involving my mum and the selfish, rude, demanding cancer that keeps insisting on taking up more room in her body. It's like a bad flatmate, scattering its crap around the place with no regard for personal space and refusing to clean it up. Playing loud, horrible music in the middle of the night when all we want is a moment of calm, just one blessed second of peace and quiet and not having to worry for once. No such luck.
Fortunately the doctors in Edinburgh are good, the best. They have a plan. There's no way to get rid of this anti-social interloper for good, we can't just kick it out and lock the door behind it, but we might be able to find a way to live together in relative harmony. She is in their hands, and I am keeping positive, because she has no choice and neither do I.
Of course, the plan comes with a cost. So this afternoon, my mum and I are heading to the wig shop, NHS prescription in hand, for the third time in twelve years. I'm voting for a pink one this time, because why the hell not?
(Alternative title: I Finally Found the Cable For My Camera)
It started off grey. Low-lying clouds drifted up from the valley, seeping between the trees and into our bones. We moved carefully through the murky half-light, our bodies slowly remembering how to do this thing.
All was well, for the first two hours. Then came a phone call, tears, an ambulance. Sa clavicule, elle est cassée. Fin and I looked at each other and looked away, heartsick. Glad it wasn't us, guilty for our gladness.
We awoke on the third day to fat snowflakes fluttering down, filling the air like confetti. It fell, and it fell, and it fell. We bounced and tumbled and whooped through knee-deep snow. Our car got stuck. We retreated, gratefully, to the hot tub. I cannot overstate how good it was to sink, groaning, into that steaming pool at the end of the day. A drink didn't hurt, either.
Finally the clouds parted. The snow of the previous days had been bullied into submission and the pistes were all but empty. The only sound was the thrum of our skis trembling over the grooved surface. I swished and swooped from one run to the next. Even my mum took to the slopes, for the first time since she left France to come home and begin cancer treatment three years ago. She skied cautiously, carefully, but still - she skied.
Fin began skiing 8 years ago, under the questionable instruction of me and my dad. This year, for the first time, I caught glimpses of how it will be one day when he can effortlessly keep pace with me. I can't wait.
(No, I didn't help him. I was too busy laughing.)
French alpine food follows a basic pattern: meat, cheese, or meat + cheese. In an exciting twist on this theme, the meat above was served with a generous crumbling of salt, a token leaf or two, and a slab of butter. No bread, just... butter. Oh, France.
It was all going so well (broken collarbones and motoring mishaps aside).
And then it got cold. Very, very cold.
That's 9.30 in the morning, just to be clear. And it got colder. So cold that the very air around us seemed to freeze. Tiny particles shimmered in the sunlight like glitter. Every breath chilled me to the bone.
When we stopped at lunchtime - in a hilarious café where the electricity went off every time they used the putain micro-onde (the "fucking microwave"), so that Fin had to continuously flick a switch in the fusebox above his head - it was so cold that the water in the toilet bowl had frozen. Yowza. When I took my glove off to try and take a picture, I lost all feeling in my hand within about ten seconds and didn't get it back for an hour.
This is me. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, Kirsty, maybe you should have laid off on the cheese fondue". And you would be right. But as well as the thin layer of fromage that congealed around my body over the course of the week, I am also wearing:
A thermal vest
A thermal base layer
Another thermal base layer
A fleece
Another fleece
A ski jacket
Thermal long johns
Salopettes
A scarf
A hat
A balaclava
Goggles
A hood
A smile (you'll have to take my word for that, though.)
That's six layers just on my top half, and three on my head. Like I said. Very, very cold.
When we stopped at lunchtime - in a hilarious café where the electricity went off every time they used the putain micro-onde (the "fucking microwave"), so that Fin had to continuously flick a switch in the fusebox above his head - it was so cold that the water in the toilet bowl had frozen. Yowza. When I took my glove off to try and take a picture, I lost all feeling in my hand within about ten seconds and didn't get it back for an hour.
This is me. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Hey, Kirsty, maybe you should have laid off on the cheese fondue". And you would be right. But as well as the thin layer of fromage that congealed around my body over the course of the week, I am also wearing:
A thermal vest
A thermal base layer
Another thermal base layer
A fleece
Another fleece
A ski jacket
Thermal long johns
Salopettes
A scarf
A hat
A balaclava
Goggles
A hood
A smile (you'll have to take my word for that, though.)
That's six layers just on my top half, and three on my head. Like I said. Very, very cold.
And very, very fun.
For those who are interested in these sorts of things, we stayed in the amazing Chalet La Giettaz in La Giettaz en Aravis, in Savoie, which I would recommend a million percent. We flew easyJet to Grenoble, hired a car and drove there in under a couple of hours. We skied in Megève, the Espace Diamant and Le Grand Bornand. Did I mention the HOT TUB?
Images of Fin skiing and of me wearing everything I own by Kieran Burchell
1. How to play my first ever tune on the piano.
2. Always to question the statistics you hear on TV.
3. That it is possible to function in a room where only 10% of the floor space is visible (but that maybe it would make for an easier life just to tidy up a little bit).
4. Which is the best seat on a roller coaster.
5. That life isn't complete without a little adventure.
Happy Birthday, Dad
xxx
Top image by Lillian and Leonard. Bottom image taken in Cairngorm Car Park, April 1969-ish. Some things never change.
2. How to make a mean macaroni cheese.
3. That singing along to a good song is one of life's great joys.
4. The importance of small acts of kindness.
5. How to rock a sheepskin coat.
Happy Birthday, Mum
xxx
Top image of my mum first seen on her guest post. Bottom image from my fun picture-taking day with the wonderful Lauren McGlynn. You can see a couple more on her blog here, along with the first of her series on how to take better photographs.
This weekend, my mum and I are going on a jaunt. We are hopping on a train out of Edinburgh, waving farewell to its stairways and spires and air of refined elegance, and heading west. Back to the city where she was born. The city where I came of age, met my husband and learned the finer points of comparative constitutional law. And drank. A lot.
Every time I return to Glasgow, I take personal offence at things that have changed. How dare they replace the places I used to go with new places where new people go? Who do these new people think they are? Don't they know it's my city? What do you mean I don't live here any more, what does that have to do with anything? Why are you asking me to leave? Please can I finish my cocktail first?
The sad truth of it is, I simply don't know it any more, not like I used to. Glasgow is not the kind of city that sits still, gazing wistfully out of the window as it awaits your return, perhaps doing a bit of embroidery to keep it occupied. Glasgow moves on. Glasgow gets a makeover. Glasgow is snogging someone else before your train has even left the station.
So, I'm asking you for help. Glasgow people, what are your favourite weekend haunts? Anywhere we really ought to go, any hidden gems we should seek out? What are the cool kids (and their mothers) doing these days?
To narrow it down a little, we will be staying in the West End (old habits die hard) from Friday to Sunday and will be mainly focusing on eating, drinking, chatting, shopping, eating, wandering and drinking.
At least some things haven't changed.
{West End Map by Alice Dansey-Wright via They Draw and Travel}
My local supermarket looks like Barbie's wardrobe has exploded all over it. Everything is inexplicably pink. For a moment I'm confused, until it clicks. Ah yes. It must be October.
October, for those who are colour blind or live in a cave, is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I feel oddly ambivalent towards it. On the one hand, it's a cause close to my heart. On the other, I'm very well aware of it already thank you very much. I do not need a vomit-inducing ocean of pink to remind me. And I feel like breast cancer has an unfortunate tendency to hog the limelight - and the funding, and the research - to the detriment of other, less glamorous cancers. As if there's anything glamorous about any of them.
But today, for one day, I will put my misgivings to one side and shout from the rooftops, because today is the second ever Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
I've written a little bit before about how it feels to have loved one with secondary breast cancer (the short version: it feels crap). What makes it even harder is the extreme learning curve that hurls you upwards into a confusing world of metastases and taxotere and stages and prognosis and a million acronyms that you have no hope of ever understanding. At first, I thought my mum just had really bad luck. Imagine getting bone cancer when you've already beaten breast cancer! Then, later, I learned she actually had breast cancer in her bones, and began to understand just how unlucky she really was.
(By the way, if you're still wondering what exactly all this secondary breast cancer stuff is all about, allow me to direct you to this wonderful comic. Its creator's wife was diagnosed last year with Stage III breast cancer and he sums up in a few lines and letters what a hundred detailed booklets and websites can still fail to make clear. Also, this one. Weep.)
I'm not saying it would have been better if I'd known secondary breast cancer was a possibility. I would probably have spent the decade between my mum's primary and secondary diagnoses worrying about every ache and twinge, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But it's scary how many women who have had breast cancer don't even know what it is or, more importantly, what to look out for. And on a purely selfish level, it would be nice, once in a while, not to have to explain to a well-meaning person that words like "cure" and "battle" and "better" don't actually help. Secondary breast cancer requires a different kind of positive thinking.
The bigger issue is that primary breast cancer - its prevention, its treatment, its care - dominates the fun runs and the research budgets and the public understanding of what breast cancer is. It can sometimes feel like the medical community has turned its back on secondary sufferers, preferring to concentrate its precious resources on the victorious finality of a Cure, instead of on the slippery and amorphous concept of Control. Yet many women who have been treated for primary breast cancer will one day have to face the sadness and terror of a secondary diagnosis (we don't know how many, because nobody is even collecting this data), so isn't it time we started paying attention to them too?
So, today, I would be ever so grateful if you would share this link - like it, tweet it, +1 it, print it out and stick it on your notice board, I don't care. Breast Cancer Care is a wonderful charity for all people affected by breast cancer. They have made a big difference to me and my family and they really deserve our support.
But today, for one day, I will put my misgivings to one side and shout from the rooftops, because today is the second ever Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day.
I've written a little bit before about how it feels to have loved one with secondary breast cancer (the short version: it feels crap). What makes it even harder is the extreme learning curve that hurls you upwards into a confusing world of metastases and taxotere and stages and prognosis and a million acronyms that you have no hope of ever understanding. At first, I thought my mum just had really bad luck. Imagine getting bone cancer when you've already beaten breast cancer! Then, later, I learned she actually had breast cancer in her bones, and began to understand just how unlucky she really was.
(By the way, if you're still wondering what exactly all this secondary breast cancer stuff is all about, allow me to direct you to this wonderful comic. Its creator's wife was diagnosed last year with Stage III breast cancer and he sums up in a few lines and letters what a hundred detailed booklets and websites can still fail to make clear. Also, this one. Weep.)
I'm not saying it would have been better if I'd known secondary breast cancer was a possibility. I would probably have spent the decade between my mum's primary and secondary diagnoses worrying about every ache and twinge, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But it's scary how many women who have had breast cancer don't even know what it is or, more importantly, what to look out for. And on a purely selfish level, it would be nice, once in a while, not to have to explain to a well-meaning person that words like "cure" and "battle" and "better" don't actually help. Secondary breast cancer requires a different kind of positive thinking.
The bigger issue is that primary breast cancer - its prevention, its treatment, its care - dominates the fun runs and the research budgets and the public understanding of what breast cancer is. It can sometimes feel like the medical community has turned its back on secondary sufferers, preferring to concentrate its precious resources on the victorious finality of a Cure, instead of on the slippery and amorphous concept of Control. Yet many women who have been treated for primary breast cancer will one day have to face the sadness and terror of a secondary diagnosis (we don't know how many, because nobody is even collecting this data), so isn't it time we started paying attention to them too?
So, today, I would be ever so grateful if you would share this link - like it, tweet it, +1 it, print it out and stick it on your notice board, I don't care. Breast Cancer Care is a wonderful charity for all people affected by breast cancer. They have made a big difference to me and my family and they really deserve our support.
Thanks team.
Top image: collage by Nathalie Boutté via Journal du Design via Anna's Pinterest. Thanks to Trisha and Kayce for the xkcd links.
