Cancer cells HATE broccoli and cabbage as much as you do
‘Experiment with juices as they can give you your daily dose of disgusting in just one go...’
no new benefit to you.)
One awful time, the satellite dish broke and my husband undertook to get it fixed before my next chemo so I could follow the Welsh sheepdog trials.
‘Play the cancer card,’ I told my husband bossily. He called the repair man and was given an appointment to get it fixed in two weeks’ time.
I was distraught. Perhaps in those two weeks, for the first time ever, Huw Ap Llewellyn would not get his sheep and I would miss it.
I rang the repair company the next day and said in a breaking voice how I had cancer and the only thing that made the chemo bearable was watching Welshlanguage TV.
‘Oh,’ said the lady manager. ‘Why didn’t your husband say so? I had cancer five years ago and I know exactly what you mean. Leave it with me.’ Twenty-four hours later, my television was new and improved. Always play the cancer card.
POST-SURGERY REALITY CHECK
AFTER the operation your surgeon may well change his tune. Pre-surgery, Mr G’s upbeat view was: ‘The breast I will operate on will be smaller, firmer and higher. And then, if you want, we can make the other side match so you will have had, in effect, a topnotch breast lift.’
Post-surgery, he examines his handiwork with satisfaction and then says: ‘That looks great — and once the swelling goes down, gravity will have its way, it will droop and deflate just like the other side and be a perfect match, so I don’t see any need for further cosmetic work.’
Promises, promises.
MARRIED BLISS
A GOOD husband is a wonderful source of strength and deserves the final word. At dinner with the children one evening, I asked mine if he thought my two 2cm of newly re-grown hair would look good if I dyed it platinum blonde. He said yes, he was sure anything would look good. My eyes grew misty with love and emotion, and I turned to the children and said: ‘You see, children? That is love — when your wife looks like I do and you still think she is beautiful.’
The table fell silent to appreciate the poignancy of the moment; then my husband said, ‘I didn’t say you looked beautiful.’ As it turns out, a year of having cancer has given me an unexpected second chance at glimpsing the meaning of life.
I have finally understood so many crucial things I’d been oblivious to, or to which I had attached no importance: having a peaceful routine focused on health rather than acquiring things; cooking in an engaged and leisurely way, rather than juggling three pans of burning stuff while cradling the phone under my ear; giving quieter or shyer people the time and room to blossom in front of me; appreciating small things and just being kind.
POSTSCRIPT TO MY STORY
FALSE alarm, many apologies, I thought I had finished with the previous nicely judged final paragraph. It turns out that my cancer had metastasised bafflingly fast, has spread all over my liver and is now inoperable.
‘You cannot be serious,’ I say to my doctors. But they are serious. They avoid eye contact, they look away. I am back in Cancerland.
A mental adjustment must now be made — one no longer talks about a cure, one talks about management, with the aim of drawing out as many years of comfortable, high-quality life as possible. Every three weeks from now on, I am to have a ‘light maintenance programme’ (which you are not supposed to call chemo, as it upsets everyone who loves you).
My first few days after the diagnosis of metastasis were spent trying to stop the weeping and wailing from friends, family and colleagues. This is understandable; I make the same mistake even now when I hear someone has cancer. I think, ‘Poor thing, they are dead,’ even though I know from my own situation that this is completely wrong.
Your husband, until now your rock and anchor, suddenly develops full-blown hypochondria. A slight cough, a pain in his side for three weeks, and he tells me: ‘You will have to bury me. I can tell this is the end, I’m riddled with cancer.’
My first reaction was annoyance that I was going to have to stop thinking about myself and start thinking about others again. I am not proud of this but, as almost any wife and mother will know, putting oneself first is a novelty not to be relinquished without a fight.
But a reassuring number of X-rays and scans were unanimous in agreement: it was nothing a bit of vigorous exercise wouldn’t fix.
For me, in summary, the prognosis is good, though the downside is that I might last long enough to get Alzheimer’s.
Cancerland is not where you choose to live, but it is where your job has relocated, so you have to make the best of it.
I have been lucky enough to move almost immediately to the very desirable, leafy residential quarter called Remission, from where I can do my monthly runs down to town for treatment.
And from that peaceful vantage point, the views are good; I can commute easily between it and Normal-land. My glass is always half full, and I raise it every day in silent gratitude for all my blessings.