change…

This is from Ben McLean's web site.

I cut off all my fingernails today. They got so long that they were irritating – plus I tore one off at the quick yesterday lifting a bench whilst balancing a lamp…as you do. Ow. So. Chop with the nail clippers. Spang! [as they fly around the bathroom]. Goodbye. They grow so quickly I shan't miss them for long. Change.

It never ceases to amaze me – how fast things happen, how quickly they change. On TV in the UK there is a retirement advert [some insurance company  or other, grr – you KNOW how I love insurance companies right??]. Last year whenever I saw the ad, I would be on the verge of tears. Or, more often, in tears; thinking that all our plans for retirement, vague as they may be, would never ever happen. I envisaged my own death often. Er – like every day…and I felt too young to die. I FEEL too young to die!

Since the biopsy in February, I have felt differently. Instead of living each and every day [and night] in fear of my life, a feeling that many of you will recognise, I feel as if I MAY have got on top of this mind fuck that is cancer. I am not saying that this is a permanent thing [although it will be good if it is], but for the moment, I feel 'quietly' confident [tap tap on the wooden windowsill]. I listened to Gail on the BBC Radio programme we did – her point about ovarian cancer being a chronic, but nonetheless 'treatable' disease – well, it made me think.

Firstly; how lucky I am – I may have no job and thus no money. I may be scarred and have odd twinges every now and then. I may worry overmuch. BUT, I am alive. And I am SO grateful for that.

I hope it doesn't recur. I really do. But IF it does, every day there are new advances in treatment. New drugs, new insights, new methods.  New hope. There are people out there like Simon and Ben raising funds for research which enable this – we are so lucky to have them. They do the things that we can't. Cycle round all the lighthouses of Britain? RUN all across the Sahara? Run?? Well, I couldn't do either even before I had cancer!! These men are a little crazy – but they must have really BIG hearts to do this for us…and they should  know how grateful we are. They should know that what they are doing, the torture they will go through – well, the funds they raise will save lives. What better? And what they should also know is that we will be there, watching over them every step of the way.

Thanks boys!! ;o)