I never thought I would be writing this post at least not yet. A couple of weeks ago we went on holiday en famile. It was supposed to be a family treat to give me strength for facing more surgery in the form of a second lumpectomy and SIRT. Instead, it turned out to be…
One of my club of cancer bitches, the beautiful Andrea, is campaigning for a change to the way benefits for cancer patients are calculated and paid. I asked her to explain what the issue is. So in her own words, here it is: After finding out that my children are not entitled to free school…
Like many of my tribe, I’ve always been a teeny bit obsessed by the social and personal column in the newspaper. Whilst normal people call this the births, marriages and deaths section, in our family this has long been known as the “hatched, matched and dispatched”. It has been a measure of the years rolling…
My incredible friend Jojo died last night. Jojo and I were online friends but we’d also met in “real” life. Like me, she was a regular feature of the online breast cancer world, through various groups. Like me, she discovered a second breast lump just by the site of her first, when she was finishing…
I have a small secret. I have a guilty pleasure. One that I think about lots, even dream about. I am a teeny bit obsessed. The object of my obsession? I blush to write it down. A U.S. TV show called Once Upon A Time. It’s available on Netflix and I am addicted to it. …
Last year I read a novel called The Rosie Project. It’s a sweet story, about an autistic man looking for a girlfriend. The title stuck with me, for obvious reasons. Today I feel like it’s an apt way to describe my life at the moment. Life is no longer a series of events. It is…
Yesterday was a tough day. I awoke to the news that one of my online friends had passed away. She was a beautiful and very special person, with an inspirational attitude (I don’t use the “i” word lightly). She had made her peace with the fact that she was dying and had found ways to…
A few days ago I had a blood transfusion. This was the second one I’ve had since starting on my current chemo regime. My haemoglobin and platelet levels had both sunk very low, leaving me even more exhausted as well as breathless, and jeopardising my chances of having more chemo, at least until the levels…
Wow! This blog has been shortlisted for an award!! It’s the BritMums Brilliance in Blogging award and it’s in the Inspire category. Now you know how I feel about the word “inspirational”. Nonetheless it’d be kind of great to win it. So if you like what I write, please vote here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/bibs2015 Here are some…
A very religious man was once caught in rising floodwaters. He climbed onto the roof of his house and trusted Gd to rescue him. A neighbour came by in a canoe and said, “The waters will soon be above your house. Hop in and we’ll paddle to safety.” “No thanks” replied the religious man. “I’ve…
I saw my counsellor today. It was extremely cathartic. And I realised that I find it easier to speak the truth to a stranger than to my loved ones, easier to type it into my blog than to say it face to face. I’ve not been feeling great since my Big Chemo day last week.…
Last November when I was going through treatment for my primary breast cancer I blogged about the top ten words or phrases that, as a breast cancer patient, I feared or loathed the most and wanted removed from the dictionary. In the last few weeks and months since my secondary diagnosis, I’ve revisited these. Many…