Welcome to Chronicles which is a brand new blog (perhaps vlog too) talking about cancer, which I hope will develop into an informative resource and help raise awareness about this disease at the same time. I am launching this idea today, March 7th 2024, on World Book Day. It is now 5 years since my last book, The Record, was published and 9 years since the hugely successful Lives & Times came out. Times have certainly changed since then. The idea of meeting and talking to people for a book was fairly new in 2015, but these days with podcasts it has become commonplace. Whilst the idea of writing a new book based on the same theme is perhaps beyond me and unlikely to fare well fundraising wise, I feel that creating a blog based on conversations with people from the cancer community sharing their experiences and the impact cancer has had would be fascinating and hugely rewarding. On a personal level I have really missed these interactions with people and my confidence and mental health generally has suffered as a result. Whilst I would hope to be able to meet as many people in the flesh as possible, modern video communication would mean that distance would be no obstacle and will hopefully open up some doors without necessarily having to undertake long trips, although I am still quite partial to an adventure. By making this a blog project it removes the time pressure involved in writing a book and removing the fundraising element also reduces the pressure that I tend to heap upon myself. I must add though, that I am still carrying on with the fundraising, but hopefully I’m just finding a better balance…

At this very early stage, I have no idea how often I will be able to meet people and therefore post, but over the past 5 years since the last book I have made many new friendships and so there are plenty of people I feel I could approach. I won’t pressure anyone into doing this if they don’t want to though as I appreciate that it is not for everyone. However, if you have read Live & Times and The Record, you will know that my style of writing and talking to people is kind and considerate and I would hope result in being an enjoyable experience.

This is also an idea that I am sure will evolve and I am not going to put loads of rules in place and I will just follow where this takes me. It may be that conversations with some of the people I talk to move away from cancer and that is fine. I’m also very open that some conversations might work on platforms like Instagram Live, therefore being a complete resource in itself outside of the blog. So, let’s see where this goes…

Mum with her beloved Shimara

There may be people new to me reading this and wonder about my own connection to cancer… My mum died of bowel cancer in 2016. Prior to her diagnosis in 2012 I knew very little about cancer and certainly bowel cancer. Her stage 3 diagnosis quickly became stage 4 after her initial scans revealed some nodules on her lungs. However, the first massive hurdle for her was a course of chemo and then surgery to remove the tumour in her bowel. In September 2012 she had a successful operation and it was after this that I began my own fundraising journey, which continues to this day. Immediately after her operation attention was switched to the lungs and this was really how the next three years went for Mum. She would have surgery to remove nodules and then spend the next 12 months recovering and living a relatively normal life before having to do it all over again when new nodules appeared. For someone in their late 70s this was no mean achievement to keep going through and literally getting back in the saddle on her horse Shimara. Towards the end of 2015 Mum had a seizure and ended up in hospital. It was a very scary and worrying time, but a plan was put in place for Mum to undergo CyberKnife treatment to try and zap the two lesions on her brain and it was also decided to remove the lower lob on her left lung to try and stop the cancer from returning there. The beginning of 2016 was pretty full on as Mum underwent treatment and lung surgery and we kept everything crossed for the CyberKnife to be successful. Unfortunately when she began to have further seizures we knew that it hadn’t worked. One tumour had been zapped but the other one remained. During May Mum went to Cornwall for a week away with her oldest friends with measures put in place should anything go wrong. The week passed without incident and I made the trip down to Cornwall to pick her up. It really was a special time. Just a couple of weeks later Mum had a massive seizure which paralysed her down her right side and massively impacted on her ability to speak. She was admitted to hospital where she was to stay for almost two months. During that time we got the news we were dreading and that there were no more treatment options available to her in the weakened condition that she was. Arrangements were made for end of life care at a nursing home. To write that down in a couple of sentences obviously can’t properly convey what we were going through. The steroids in hospital had brought back her speech and some movement in her right side, so to then see that treatment ended during end of life care was incredibly upsetting and painful. I can’t fault the care and treatment Mum received over the almost 5 years of her illness, but what I would say is during those last final weeks perhaps we could have been prepared better for what was going to ultimately happen. I felt that we had little support and that made me feel pretty helpless as Mum deteriorated. Mum spent about 5 weeks at the care home before she died on August 29th, 2016, one week after her 80th birthday.

So, for the last 8 years my fundraising and raising awareness about cancer has been done in Mum’s memory. The wonderful gift that Mum left me have been the many wonderful and beautiful connections I have been blessed to have made in the cancer community. Sadly, I have lost a number of these very special friends to cancer in recent years. This only serves to make me even more determined to carry on what I am doing.

I have a large network of contacts in the cancer community to call upon for this project. However, I fully appreciate that some might not want to take part and that really is absolutely fine. My plan is to not stack up a whole line of people waiting to be interviewed. Hopefully, for anyone who says yes to me, we can arrange a time to have a chat and get it done relatively quickly. Obviously it’s always nice when I can meet people in person, but realistically and with the amazing improvements in modern technology, I think much of this will be done on platforms like WhatsApp, Zoom, Facebook and Instagram etc. So, as I said earlier it is possible that some of this blog (vlog) might take a media form, although I am sure I will always want to write up on the experience. I think my only request will be for you send me a photo of yourself that I could include in the blog post. I’m sure that once I get started the format and indeed template for what works will become a lot clearer.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please do get in touch with any questions or indeed suggestions, and of course if you are reading this and would like to take part and be included then drop me a line x

Leave a Reply