Crikey – looking back I’ve just realized I
haven’t updated the blog since somewhere in the deep, dark depths of chemo when
everything’s blurry and, let’s be honest, a little bit rubbish. But happy news
is that I’m now out the other side and ploughing on nicely. Since finishing the
chemo I’ve been continuing on with Herceptin and Pertuzamab which are happily
very dealable with and have no horrific evident side-effects. I have to take a
low dose of a heart tablet to make sure I don’t conk out, but other than that
life continues as normal. I’ve had two scans since the chemo finished and both
have shown the cancer receding further, so for the time being we seem to be
getting it right. I almost (almost!) have a liver that vaguely resembles
a liver now!
Normal, post-chemo life is ace. I’ve
essentially been swanning round on holiday – a weekend in Northern Ireland in
October and a “well done me” holiday in Australia and New Zealand in November
and December, which was incredible. Slightly less incredible (although actually
if you’re taking the true meaning of the word, truly incredible) were the astronomical travel insurance fees
associated with recently diagnosed secondary cancer. The extreme
advantage-taking of people in a vulnerable position is horrifying – despite
having clear scans, being able to move around easily and unaided, and being
told (nay, advised) by my oncologist to take a holiday, none of that was taken
into consideration and a holiday that would have incurred a £60 travel
insurance package drifted into 4 figures. I was furious. Didn’t stop me going
though, clearly.
Other than buggering off round the world
though, I’ve also been on a one woman campaign to become the Face of Macmillan.
It all started back in October when I hosted one of those coffee morning
things. I wasn’t massively convinced about it – I’d wanted to do something big
like walking the Great Wall of China, or climbing Kilimanjaro, or sitting in a
bath of beans in Selfridges window for a week. But with an aching back and a
tendency to pick up infection at the drop of a hat, none of those were terribly
achievable. So I opened up my tiny little flat to my friends, set up an urn,
whipped up a vegan chocolate cake and stepped back to watch the fun. By the end
of the day, we’d raised £1400. In my TINY flat. Eating CAKE. Ludicrous.
The next week I went to help out at the
Whittington’s coffee morning for the same cause where I donned a T-shirt and
shook a bucket and we added another £1000 to the pot. It’s also where I met
Rachel, the Macmillan Communications Officer, who’s always on the lookout for
patients who are willing to speak about their experience. As we all know, I
won’t shut UP about my experience. She must’ve seen me coming a mile off.
And that meeting led to an interview on the
radio the other day with Paul Ross and Penny Smith. I imagine people at home
pictured me in an all black ninja suit popping cancer cells off with a bb gun.
In reality I was sitting on the sofa in my pjs with a cup of tea and the cat.
And that meeting also led to yesterday.
To standing in front of 100 or so people in
the reception of the Whittington making a speech to help open the new Macmillan
information centre. Me, a lady from Macmillan, the lead oncologist at the
hospital, and Barbara Windsor. Y’know. Babs. She of precarious bra fame.
So I made my speech, and I made people
laugh and I made people cry. And I nearly cried myself, but I got through it. And
people seemed to think it was quite a good speech. So I thought maybe I should
put I on here, so if anyone wants to read it they can. Maybe they’ll laugh, maybe
they’ll cry.
What a carry on.
“Hello.
My name’s Lucy Booth, and as Steve has just mentioned, I’m a patient here at
the Whittington. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October 2011 at the age
of 32, and last May we found that it had spread to my bones, my liver and my lung.
The
media often like to speak of cancer as a battle. As a fight that we must win.
All too often we hear of someone losing that battle – almost as if it was their
battle and theirs alone. As if they have failed in that mission. As if somehow
they personally just haven’t given a good enough show of beating it. It is a
solitary, isolating description. And ultimately, I feel, a negative one. To me,
the battle analogy conjures up an image of hatred and of war, and frankly,
cancer brings enough of it’s own negativity without us adding to it.
It is
also rather a tired cliché – thanks to years of research and the work of the
oncologists in our lives – the Dr Leonards and Dr Spurrells of the world, it no
longer has to be the battle it once was. Only this week we have heard reports
that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of people living with
cancer for longer. It is no longer necessarily you or it. Sometimes, the two of
you must just learn to live together.
Finally,
the battle analogy is shamelessly anthropomorphic. Cancer doesn’t have a brain,
a mind, a well planned strategy. Let’s not honour it with that status.
Personally,
I see having cancer as a job. It’s a rubbish job – one of the worst you’ll ever
have, and the pay is terrible, but it’s a job nevertheless. You won’t want to
get up and go to work every day, but you do and you must. There are days when
you can’t be bothered – the days when you’re throwing up and your whole body
aches. And there are the days when it is a little bit easier – when you feel
like your normal self (if a little light on hair) and your cancer is nothing
but an occasional thought through the day.
But, as
we all know, the thing that helps you through the working day, when your
project is particularly tricky, or your boss is giving you a hard time, is the group
of people you work with. And the same goes for cancer. The people around you,
the support network you have at hand, they are the things that help you through
the day. And, at times, the night.
I’m
lucky. I have an amazing group of family and friends who are there for me and
with me every step of the way. Who let me cry when I need to, and help me
forget it all when I don’t. And to that group I can now add the nurses in the
chemo suite and the girls at Macmillan – Karen, Renate, Nse, Pat, Tracey,
Elizabeth, Lucy and Helen. And the volunteers – Ivy and Barbara, who come in
while we’re having treatment to bring tea and biscuits and a bit of a gossip.
They’re constantly run off their feet, there’s never enough time in the day and
yet they have all the time in the world to get to know us, make us feel welcome
and make what could be a horrible process altogether more bearable. And they’re
not just there for us, the patients, but they have time for our relatives, and our
friends. Helen and my dad quickly became firm friends during my first round of
chemo when he just didn’t know quite what to make of it all and she took the
time to sit with him, to listen, to explain, and (if I know my dad), give him a
good shake once in a while. Because it’s not just me who’s affected by cancer,
it’s everyone around me.
But, as
I say, I’m one of the lucky ones. I have a strong support network. But some
people sadly don’t, and that’s where these nurses and Macmillan staff really come
into their own. Because as well as the financial and practical support they
offer, they are a shoulder to cry on and a sympathetic ear. And cancer
treatment isn’t just the drugs that pump through your veins, it’s finding the
means and the strength to get up and get the job done. And without this lot,
that job would be nigh on impossible.”
