Wear a Hat Day in Brain Tumour Awareness Month

Brain Tumour Action are encouraging organisations, schools, colleges even local churches and pubs to pick a date in March and hold a Wear a Hat day for brain tumours and donate a pound (or more if they so wish) to go towards brain tumour research.

33% more children died from a brain tumour in 2007 than 2001

16,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year

More children and people under the age of 40 die of a brain tumour than leukaemia or any other cancer and five year survival is still only 14%

For more information please visit our website www.braintumouraction.org.uk or our partner's site at www.braintumourresearch.org

SNOWED IN

As Britain shivers in twelve degrees of overnight frost, I reflect on how I can't really enjoy the novelty of being snowed in. I wish I could. I wish I could revel in it in a near-hysterical way, like the schoolchildren, especially those who look like getting a suspension of next week's GCSE exams. But I have been snowed in for the last nine months, dependent on kind friends for lifts to the bank and shopping and excursions to the coast. I'm like some old person now, afraid to go out on my own, scared of falling. I have got to shake this feeling off. I have got to stretch my spine and exercise my leg muscles. No, I may never be legally empowered to drive again, but I've got functioning legs that used to be ready to walk anywhere and no one, except me, is going to impose health and safety sanctions on them. I have got to get a grip.

Yesterday, my Herceptin treatment nurse trudged for forty minutes through the snow to my house, an enormous rucksack on her back containing collapsible drip pole, syringes, sharps box and drugs. The dedication of the vast majority of medical people I have encountered through this disease never ceases to overwhelm me, as does the stoicism of some patients, especially the dialysis group who have to attend at the hospital three or four days a week for four or more hours, with travelling time and hold-ups added on. Or the neurology patients who shared a ward with me for six weeks last summer; some had been there for six months, unable to sit up to read or eat. Being snowed in may impose some physical restrictions, but the real obstacle is the state of being. If you make being snowed in your state of being, then snowed in you will be until you ice right over.

FAREWELL NOUGHTY NINE...

It has been nine months or so since I last checked in with this blog, most of this time spent in or on bed, at home or in hospital. I have become very acquainted with the oak tree outside my window, which I managed to rescue from decimation last year (I think there's a reference to the tree battles in the Intertalea blog), and which, consequently, reminded me of the cussedly tenacious bugger I can be when I can steel myself to keep on going.

But I seriously underestimated the power of side effects after two craniotomies and 15 doses of radiotherapy, washed down with a month or so's worth of strong steroids and a raft of antibiotics, given to check the bacterial meningitis I contracted after the first lot of surgery to my skull. The surgery left me wobbly-kneed and knackered. The steroids turned my face into a yellow moon, unable to tolerate my contact lenses. But the radiotherapy to my whole head was like going ten rounds with Mike Tyson, only wearing feather gloves since it isn't painful exactly just debilitating to the point of complete exhaustion. I was so tired, I couldn't eat, and this led only to dehydration and more hospitalisation in August. I soon perked up on the cancer ward, however. We were on the same journey after all; and all I can give to the fellow patients and patient staff I encountered in both Derriford and Royal Cornwall Hospitals is heartfelt thanks.

Boxing Day saw me, my daughter, and two wonderfully supportive friends at Hexworthy Tor on Dartmoor, which exhausted me but showed I could walk on the grass again without falling over. This morning, I played the piano and sang a bunch of folk songs without gasping for breath or embarrassing myself too much. This spring-like renewal of strength may be down to the acupuncture I've been having recently. But maybe it is down to the hope I have been so bad at summoning these last dazed months. I know that I am lucky to be alive still and have something to live for.

Thanks to all the friends who have thought of me and asked about me these past months, including readers of this blog (and especially Lesley!). I believe such positive thoughts and prayers work on the level of a mystery that no one can understand, and it is futile to try. But I have benefitted positively from these thoughts and prayers, whatever I may have done to sabotage myself with doubts and not-eating. I have been well taken care of, from the most senior consultations to the trips to hospital and back with the marvellous, selfless volunteer drivers and a great many nurses, radiographers, fellow patients and friends in between. I wish you all and every one a happy, prosperous and healthy new decade.

Update on Anne

I've heard from Anne, here are her words for all of you:

"I had a 6 hour craniotomy (brain operation) to remove a tumour. I woke up in Intensive Care Unit and heard the neurosurgeon shouting, 'Anne, Anne. We've got it.'

So it all turned out right in the end!"

She's already checked the blog and seen the posts, she'll be back with you soon no doubt.
Lesley

writers and anxiety

Sometimes it seems to me that anxiety is the writer's disease. The key question for anyone suffering from an anxiety disorder is almost always What if? So: What if the lift doors don't open? What if I panic in the middle of Tesco and make a fool of myself? What if I forget to count the lampposts and something bad happens as a result?

Well, isn't that what writers do? We put our characters into situations and ask - what if? What if the embarrasing mother costs Jane Bennett her chance of happiness? What if an evil person persuades Othello his wife is being unfaithful? What if a modern cop travels back in time to the 1970s?

And so many writers have said openly that anxiety has troubled them personally in various ways, it's almost as if we need that anxious edge to drive our writing.

So, my question is, since many writers have experience of and insight into anxiety, why aren't there more characters in literature with anxiety disorders? Where are the agoraphobics in Shakespeare, or the panic attacks in Dickens? There are some in the Kingsley Amis oeuvre but not much else. Or have I just been reading the wrong books?
Lesley

help for anxiety

I was talking to Anne about my life outside writing (or what used to be my life outside writing, of which more in a minute) and she wanted me to post something about it on the blog. Part of my other life is that I’ve been involved, for some years, with various charities that help people cope with anxiety disorders, and I’ve worked with quite a few people as a mentor trying to help them overcome panic, phobias or obsessive compulsive disorder.

The techniques used are a combination of commonsense and cognitive behaviour therapy. The commonsense is stuff like getting enough sleep, eating well, cutting down caffeine and nicotine (which both make anxiety worse), taking aerobic exercise and learning relaxation and breathing techniques.

The CBT works by changing both behaviour and thinking (which is the cognitive bit).

It is fair to say that people with anxiety disorders are being plagued by irrational worries, whereas someone with breast cancer has a perfectly rational set of worries. Still, the techniques could be useful for someone trying to stay calm and maintain their quality of life while dealing with their breast cancer.

The other thing that can happen is that sometimes people develop an anxiety disorder as an aftereffect of a traumatic event, so that someone could make a good physical recovery from breast cancer but find that their mental health was affected by what they’d been through. Again, the techniques could be useful.

I’m currently involved with an anxiety charity called First Steps to Freedom, which runs a helpline every day, including weekends, from 10 am to 10 pm on 0845 120 2916. Anyone can phone for help and support with their anxiety, although the main focus of the charity is anxiety disorders.

And of course after more than 10 years of doing this voluntary work I found myself writing about it. The book is called Free Yourself from Anxiety, by Emma Fletcher and Martha Langley (Martha is my pen name). It’s on Amazon, and most libraries in the country seem to have a copy.
Lesley

YES, NO OR DON’T GIVE A DAMN?

I’m getting the hang of this blogging business now – not exactly rocket science, which suits me fine. But now I find myself wondering, how do all you readers feel about me taking over? After all this is a blog by and for breast cancer sufferers. I don’t have breast cancer. Does it spoil things to have me here? Do you welcome a different perspective? Or do you just not mind either way? Leave a comment, let me know.
Lesley