radiotherapy

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Island Blog – Paucity, Abundance, the Tallyman

It has now been just over four weeks since radiotherapy. Feels like four months, at times, so damn tired am I, and being tired is one hell of a pain in the aspidistra. If, when, I allow myself to indulge in self pity I wander into a day of paucity thinking. Not my thing at all. I don’t do paucity nor any other city, for that matter. I am an abundance thinker, dance being right up there for me. I have danced through apocalyptical landscapes over the years, moving purposefully along and crunching paucity underfoot, en route to heaven knew where, anywhere but there. I believed, and still believe, that moving onwards takes me to the beyond of, not only my skinny et collapso thinking, but also of the barren scape within which I appeared to be currently stuck. This tactic has worked well and still does. But the biggest bore seems to have roosted in my eaves. Tiredness, all day, and not just that neither, or is it either(?) for feeling consistently weary is not cheery, and although I have been told, oftentimes, to be patient, I am an impatient by nature.

Rising from another patchy night, I wheech myself out of bed, physically able still, and I command paucity to get-to-hec as I gather my abundance into a warm dressing gown as I descend the stairs for coffee and, hopefully, dawn. I know that dawn, bless her, will always come, eventually. As I sip the hot strong brew, black, no sugar, I call in the tallyman. Take a seat, I say, let’s count blessings, which we do, as I write them all down. I had breast cancer, which was discovered quite by chance; I had excellent surgery to remove the blight; I have been fully supported by the NHS, family, friends and others who know what cancer feels like, the shock of it, the concerns around it and the recovery therefrom; I live in the most beautiful place, on an island, alone and independent; I am loved by many; I can write, used to sing, can dance (a bit) and have full use of all my important extras; I have life, love life, live life. Now I need more coffee.

By the time dawn has risen with the birds and their glorious singing, my mind is full of abundance, the whining of paucity barely audible. Yes I am tired, yes I am impatient, yes I have lost a considerable portion of self-confidence, yes I am lonely at times, and scared of life, but who isn’t once over the cusp of 70? In other words, let these words float out into the big wide sky, to dissipate like steam. I say that out loud. Then I hear the door open and turn around. The tallyman winks at me as we both watch abundance holding it open for paucity to slink through. The door closes quietly and we all watch the slinker trudge down to the shore, and then disappear.

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Island Blog – Trailblazing

Anything that risks showing up whilst other things hold back for more clement weather have my deepest respect. They are showing courage and bravery, risk takers, future makers, trailblazers. ‘Anyone’ who does the same thinks me samely. I thrill to witness the braves. At times, I may have been such a brave, perhaps. As I ‘ink’ my thoughts, I long to cut the ribbon of correctness, and I do, but with caution, because the world is a heavy old judge and everyone listens to him, or her, or so it seems/seemed. I think of song lyrics, of poets, of writers who, in their time, were dismissed and banished, and, yet now we elevate them into an almost saintly status. What they took was a risk. What they said confronted the acceptable, particularly in the UK where class division appeared solid and impermeable and for generations over generations. I smile when I hear the echo of my past generation, sniggering at people from America, as it was called in my day, a country which had no class system and thought it laughable. Actually, most of us here did too, but we never had the brave to challenge the nonsense of it, and, perhaps, for it’s time, it had a place.

Today I met three bumble bees, always the first, these glorious and singular bumblers. They dip into the early blooms, thrumming with hopeful nectar, longing for pollination, and they will get it from these trailblazers. Barrel-bodied, humming like a C-130 Hercules, without a belly full of bombs, they swing crazy , bumping into me, into the window, but when they land on a primrose, a perfect gentle landing. I marvel.

I consider bumbling. With focus, without focus? It thinks me. The bees know nothing but focus. They rise from a dawn of frost and minus, and the minute Father Sun lifts his lazy butt out of bed, they fly. I think about focus. I am bumbling these after radiotherapy days, and may well do so for some weeks, but do I have focus? It’s an ugly word in my personal opinion, for such an important thing, and that thinks me more, because it seems that the speak of a word and the look of a word often don’t match at all.

I am bumbling. The radiotherapy is tireding and the zap map area, stings. I know that this will pass. I do what I need to do, want to do in the light of this new thing in my life. I rest, a lot. Sometimes i am in and out of bed for bits and pieces of the day so much that the concept of a day makes little sense, if any at all. I hoover, a bit, sort things, a bit, clean things, a bit and there’s another thing……what does ‘a bit’ tell me? Much.

It tells me that a bit is often more than enough. That rising through the frost of something is more than enough. That being one of those herculean bumble bees is exactly what I am. I buzz at that.

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Island Blog – Isolation, Connection, Brave

When I talk with people, initiate the conversation via some made up nonsense such as ‘Do you know where the loo is, or where the tea bags are, or Is this Radiotherapy treatment room E?’ Even though I have all the answers anyroad, there’s a sort of lock and load thing that happens, eye contact, a connection. I do this wherever I go, for myself, for my own elevation from isolation……(I can sense too many ‘tions arising here) but, also because my biggest love is of people, all people, any people and everywhere or anywhere. I know about isolation, or the feeling of it, the cut and hollow and dark of it, and not because I am alone, but because I know how it feels to be lonely. I used to think it was just me, that everyone else in their colourful clothing, their smart car, the pretty picture they painted as a completely happy couple, family, friendship et lala, meant that I was the weirdo who just fell short of the mark. I know differently now, now that I talk to people anywhere and everywhere. Not one of us lives the dream we dreamed, or very few.

In Waiting room E for Radiotherapy, I find astonishment at a cancer diagnosis. This person went for an ordinary eye test, another for a check up for a persistent sore throat, yet another for a cough, a sore back, a limpy leg. Not one of us could catch the cancer word and bring it in to ourselves. Some are still reeling, the process of such an acceptance, a long one. But each person can still chuckle, can still be who they were before and with a story. Both in the waiting room and in the Maggie’s centre, I have learned about others lives, and these connections, this eye contact, this sharing, has lifted us both, in each encounter.

We all walk in isolation, at times in our lives. I remember doing just that when my husband was alive. What is important, is to find someone who is on the same path at the same time. Of course, paths divide and one goes this way and the other, that, but just for a moment in time, we can meet and say, without words, hallo. I see you, and you see me, and isolation just became connection.

But first, we must brave up and talk.

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Island Blog – A Crooked- Voiced Crow

I’m hearing sounds unfamiliar to me. Above my hotel lurks a crow with a crooked voice. Sounds to me as if he has wrongly wired vocal chords. I watch him make these strange calls and when a mate joins him on the CCTV camera, it thinks me. I might have, and did, at first, consider him a case for sympathy. With that voice, will he ever attract a mate? The rasp is more ‘Go Away’ than ‘Come Hither’ after all, but how wrong was my judgement on the matter!

Inside the warm and welcoming Maggie’s centre, I watch people. Over there is a man who has throat cancer, his voice, produced via a box implant is a hoarse and raspy whisper, his own voice gone forever. Was he a tenor or a baritone, loud-spoken or honey gentle or a bit of both, depending on circumstances? Did he shout, once, as he will no more, or sing, or summon the troops into battle? I will never know. Then there is the guy who has terminal liver cancer and is just out of hospital. Despite this, he is full of jokes and twinkle, talking to everyone, ready, always ready to laugh.

I watch newbies wander in, eyes darting left and right, looking for a safe landing. I hear the welcomes from the staff, the ‘Come Hither’ in their warm and compassionate eyes. Gradually, the newbie’s coat comes off, she is guided to the kettle, the coffee and the tea, the bowls of fruit, chocolates, biscuits and cake. We sit in sunshine behind the glass walls, talking, wishing each other all the hopes for full recovery. I am aware that some cannot hope for that, but, in talking to them, laughing with them, I can see the cancer slide away from their eyes, just for a moment, an hour, a day. Back home, back into the relentless barrage of tests and therapies, reality may well re-invade, and hope can be a heavy weight to lift up each day, for some. I can afford to play the fool, I am well and ridiculous and always full of mischief. (Mischief…….interesting word to pull apart, methinks.) But, even though I am so lucky, so without pain or a possibly hopeless road ahead, I am accepted because I have cancer. We are a new family and there is much to learn about each other, many random conversations to have, many opportunities within which to uplift each other. If I lived here, I would definitely volunteer in this centre. I would meet and greet, lift and encourage, play the daft eejit, sympathise and sit beside another broken bodied soul. And it isn’t just the one with cancer who needs such. There are partners, children, siblings and friends, all in a permanent state of shock, all battling with an overactive imagination, or with a sharp and agonising truth.

I am learning, as we all must, not to hide our diagnoses nor our feelings around them, but to stand up and out, as survivors, however long that survival might prove to be. To find each other, people we would probably never ever meet, had cancer not found a landing within our trusting bodies, a chink, a broken paving stone, a pothole, an unintentional welcome to a predator. I hear, and see, multi cultures in here. I see all shapes, all sizes, listen to all accents, and all of them are beautiful to me now, in a way they never were before. How easy it is, especially in a city, to march past all of this beauty without even a ‘Hi’. I’ve been ‘Hi-ing’ my walk to my radiotherapy appointment each morning, sometimes to the astonishment of the person coming towards me, so used are they to their own agenda and a perceived unfriendliness of everyone they don’t already know. Mostly, however, I receive a smile and a ‘hi’ back and that thinks me too. We can become so very lonely as we live out our lives, not because we want to, but perhaps through fear, or the ordinary process of keeping our broken parts invisible to all. We cover them in clothes and make-up. We keep our arms close to our bodies, our voices low. But what we all long for, in truth, is connection. We just don’t feel confident enough to reach out for it, to face the risk of rejection, for fear of looking foolish. But if we could just, like the crooked-voiced crow, call out anyway, smile to each other, say ‘Hi’ to a line of folk in a bus stop, a queue for radiotherapy, anywhere, everywhere, I know that loneliness would lift, just a little, and, who knows, it could lead to new friendships, as it has for me.

For anyone interested in learning more about Maggie’s Centres, I am visiting the one in Glasgow, on the Gartnavel Campus, opposite the Beatson Cancer Centre, but these havens of support are everywhere.

Just go to http://www.maggies.org

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Island Blog – Inspiradiation and a Zap Map

Many things inspire me, people too. Something said out loud or communicated through eyes, and in silence, but received, nonetheless. Moments, sounds, lyrics, intuitions, experiences, and many more besides. If I catch these inspirations, like butterflies in a net, they all hold a beauty and intensity, a teaching. But, only if I catch them. I know how it is to barge on through doorways and over sills or along pathways with only a to-do list. Chased by Time, and always just this side of utterly exhausted, it is easy to miss much. When focus is on the familiar, the to-do list, the endless corridors leading to yet another bloody doorway that opens on to more tasks only I can complete, intuition and the chance of inspiration getting so much as a look-in, is unlikely at best. Not now, however, now that I am old and alone and when I have endless time to catch butterflies in the net of my mind. Beautiful things, butterflies, although sometimes I might catch an earwig or a toad, so broad is my sweep. But those critters also bring opportunities for reflection. Perhaps that throwaway comment or that too-quick turn-away upset someone, and this earwig or this toad also have something for me to take in and to consider.  Not all catchings are pleasant, at first. Of course, the key with anything I catch is to eventually release it, be it the beautiful butterfly of epiphany, or the unattractive and dully coloured body of a uncomfortable realisation. One which demands humble action. 

Soon, I am offski to the cancer clinic for a ‘planning CT scan’, where the professionals will create their Zap Map. Through the wonders of technology, they will see precisely where to point the radiotherapeutic laser, ensuring, so they tell me, that all trace of cancer, if any is lurking, will be zapped unto death. Five days is all, and not even the whole of those five days, but a few minutes. Although unpleasant reactions can list bigly horrors, not one of them will affect me, because nothing ever has before. I am blest with ridonculous health, and a big inspiration net, always to hand. I will pay attention to everything and everyone, sweeping a wide catchment area wherever I go. Across the road, in a bus queue, in the hospital amongst others being zapped, the nurses, the doctors. Inside the hotel, the lift, on the stairs, through a window, along the street, butterflies abound. I just know it. And I will return, as I always do, humbled at what I see. A homeless girl, a weary bus driver, someone I meet in a doorway, a harrassed business man in a big rush, a fraught mother weighed down by a cling of children. I will hear sounds I never hear in this wild place. The chatter of a train on the tracks, a colourful hue of voices in languages I cannot speak, the cut of someone’s jib, the smell of exhaust fumes, of perfume, takeaway food and so on. And I will sweep it all in, catch it in my net.

Even the radiation will inspire me, for I am always curious like Alice, eager to learn, not facts but what is really means to be human, to be wonderful, lost, broken, keen, kind, and an integral part of all those ties, colours and stories that bind us together.  

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Island Blog – Radio Gaga

I thought it was Thursday. Certain, I was, and, so much so that I moved my car out of the way for the wood delivery. I also prepped for my counsellor zoom, but, as time twingled on and no lorry appeared through the frantic blur of 60mph wind plus a sideswipe of blattering rain, I did begin to question myself. Then, when I received no link from my counsellor at five to the hour, I could feel a wondering. It began in my toes. and rose up through legs, past butt, and on up through my spine. I laughed, I did. I could be in Thursday, or any day and still be completely present without having a scooby about my connection to the wotwot of days. Days just ‘day’ on. Some of them super slow, like slugs leaving a behinding slime, some cantering on like deer in rifle sight. I never know, never have any control over the wotwot. I can feel drowny, as if I am out of control, or light above the damn waters of it all, in my boat and with my oars and rollicks in place. I know I am not alone in this, met too many people who swivel from a rooted calm to a swindling gale that uproots and fells a body, one with stories yet to tell, a body still determined to ‘alive’, no matter the fall.

Once I got the hang of it being Wednesday, I kind of liked the feeling. It is, after all, Winnie the Pooh’s favourite day and I am fond of the way he takes on life, as if every moment is a foundling, one he will raise it into something wonderful. It also freed me, from wood lorry delivery and that is a thing in itself. The wood bag is crane -lifted over my fence and immediately subject to the slashing rains of the now, in our now. I have a wheelbarrow. I have me, but the me in this scenario is not the strong woman of old. Why do we say that? I want to write, The old woman of young. Anyway, it will arrive tomorrow, and I will move my car again, and will make the barrow trip from open rain-soaked bag to my wood store, and then I will be happy and chuffed and puffed and warm.

It thinks me, and I am happy that I got days wrong inside a week that doesn’t bother me, nor I it. However, soon I go for radiotherapy, just five days, a CT scan before, and I do need to note the days of travel that deliver me into the laser zone of cancer zap. I should have gone last week, but last week was a frickin wild nightmare, no ferry, huge slamdunk gales, punching way beyond their pay grade, and an earthquake that rattled my windows. 

Talking to my lad in Africa, he who knows I am Gaga to of my many grandkids, connected radiotherapy with Gaga. We laughed a lot at the connection.

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Island Blog – The Jousting Woman

Women used to joust, you know, back in the jousting days. Needless to say, they had to look like men, breasts bound. But, coated in gmail, no, chainmail, sorry, all they needed were huge biceps, strong thighs for clamping a horse, hands free, great eye-arm precision and bloody mindedness; a Boudicca sort of attitude and a kick ass determination to be a fighter, regardless of their sex. Altough jousting was fast and furious, it rarely ended in tragedy, but only in collapsed pride. Women, wiry and flexible are less rigid, less stuck in the ways of men and, more importantly, less encumbered by ego and swagger. In fact, swaggering is not what we bother with at all. Wrong shape for starters.

I will get the call tomorrow, the one from my wonderful surgeon, the one who will tell me the wotwot of my nexting. I will hear that only radiotherapy is next, after Christmas, and for one week. Or, I will hear that more surgery is required and, then, the radiotherapy. I have said I refuse chemo. I’ve seen too many of my community go for it, only to lose a year, at least, in sickness and pale-faceless and loss of self-confidence, and then, for some, to fade away anyway. No bloody thanks. However, if I was 40 (loved that birthday) I might have chosen differently, but I am not, I am 70 and that’s a fricken long life. I have lived like nobody else has lived. I have adventured every single day, dealt with chaos, damage, disaster and celebrations which everyone who came would agree were the best. Me and the old bugger were excellent party hosts. Just saying.

Not that I am going under. Whatever my results are, I am ready and peaceful. I cannot control the most of it, but I can control me and my attitude and. my thankfulness and my humour and that mischievous imp behind my eyes and in my throat. I can do that because life is the most wonderful thing. My life is the most wonderful thing. So, btw, is yours because without it, there is nothing much.

So, although I began with jousting, I still like the thought of Joan of Arc-ing myself up to meet the stranger which is Cancer. I doubt I could hold the chainmail, nor clamp the horse, hands free, but there is something about flying there, about letting go, and not just of the joust pole; like a spirited game-on thingy, the pounding of hooves, the tension, the timing, the invisibility.

Whatever I hear tomorrow will take me forward, and forward is the only way for a jousting woman.