Just to confuse half term even more, my eldest sons school breaks up a week before my other children's various schools, which completely buggers up my last week of morning freedom, er I mean , lets me have some "quality" time with no.1 son! , quality time in inverted commas indeed.
Well as he started a new big school this year I thought it would be nice if he spent a day or so with his new chums, so we invited one to come swimming for the day. Just happens to be the one friend who is the son of my other children's french teacher (great pick there son) but hey ho, off we go to the local leisure centre swimming.
I myself did not partake, just sat in the viewing gallery without a coffee as the blasted cafeteria was closed, just as well as paint stripper resembles the quality of coffee on offer there.
So there I sat watching the children with my quick crosswords book which after attempting several and not completing them leaving me to feel like a total do-do I started to people watch and contemplate.
It was 4 years ago next Friday when our world around us, as we knew it then collapsed.
One night of severe agony in my tummy 8 weeks after the birth of our 5th child, a rush to casualty and an emergency 5 hour operation later and I discovered in intensive care I had advanced aggressive bowel cancer, complete with colostomy bag. If that wasn't enough 3 days later just after emerging from intensive care, another fatal blow, the other half of my bowel burst, leaving me with another 5 hour op peritonitis and an ieliostomy, some people get ologys you know, but I had to go one further.
A dark bleak time followed, 5 children , a damp house in need of renovation we had just moved to, and advanced cancer, things you would have thought couldn't have got any worse.
They did.
6 months of agonising chemo, with every side effect you can and cannot possibly imagine, radiotherapy, builders (you must read my book A November to remember, and yes I try to plug it in every blog!)10 more hours of surgery, I don't think any one could even attempt to beat my determination to get through.
Whilst I was frequenting casualty my husband was in charge of the children. dropping the ones at school to school, the one at nursery to nursery , and then off to the leisure centre to put baby in the creche whilst he had a valuable hour to himself to pray whilst on the running machine that I would come back safe.
Sitting by that very same gym today, I had to wipe a tear from my eye, as it oh so very much reminded me of that fate full time. The time when all I wanted was to go home, praying every night I would start to get better soon, get some strength to do the most menial of tasks, frustrated at my body's lack of compromise to get me home sooner.
I used to watch the nurses change there shifts, to go home to there families and sob each night, knowing I would miss that evenings good night kiss from my little ones, knowing it would be another night without mummy for them, how that scar still throbs inside. Even when I am now chasing the little buggers up the stairs for the umpteenth time to get there jammys on!.
Life has indeed moved on. The house no longer damp, the children no longer very small and the baby no longer a baby. My husband thank full that he is back at work and no longer doing the school run!, and me, a different person completely.
Thank full for life, scarred by the pain cancer causes, but ever, ever so much in the game.
A November to remember is available from Lynn's bowel cancer campaign www.bowelcancer.tv and all good bookshops.
Thursday, 18 October 2007
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
five minutes of fame
Picture the scene,
I am in my bathroom grouting the tiles I put up oh such a long time ago, when the phone rings. Who can it be I ask myself my husband and children call me on the Mobile and I have no friends so who could be calling?.
Grout covered hands I pick up the phone, low and behold it is Cordelia, I do not know a Cordelia, I think to myself whilst saying a very cheery "Hello" (how false).
It turns out she is from GMTV, and we spoke a few years ago when I was on the show with Lynne Faulds Wood talking about bowel cancer and my trusty book "A NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER " if you STILL haven't got a copy, shame on you.
She wanted to know if I was free for filming the following morning, or that evening to do a piece on wrong diagnosis, in A &E Departments.
Hmm, I thought, this one is tricky as yes I was wrongly diagnosed for 17 years, and in many times at A & E but not at my current A & E whom I very much owe much of my survival too.
Anyhow, Whilst on the phone the postman was careering up the drive with arm fulls of post which he had been unable to deliver due to the strike, some of which needed signing for so I ended the call leaving it that she would call me in five minutes to confirm either today or tomorrow for filming.
It didn't even take me the time it takes to get to the front door to start having second thought, more in fact like the time it took to replace the receiver.
I know my situation is a blue print case of misdiagnosis, but not down to A &E these guys work so so hard to try to stabilise things, some times when I went in I couldn't even speak through sheer pain, and they managed to deal with things professionally and as quick as humanly possible; considering all of the many channels they need to go through just to prescribe an aspirin let alone huge amounts of Morphine which I needed constantly.
They are overworked and underpaid, and a service we can do without. I have seen this from both sides of the card.
My son and I waited for 5 hours to be seen when he fractured his arm, I waited ten minutes when I was rushed in on several occasions, its all about prioritising, and a difficult difficult task that is. Especially when you have the elderly coming in in droves who are only there because mainly they are lonely, or haven't been eating properly, which in turn leaves the children with breakages waiting ,as a break is easier to determine than that of loneliness - or if there actually IS really a root problem underlying all else.
Our A & E is facing closure which in turn is devastating, I know for one I would not have made it any further afield at my worst times and also know that those times could so easily come again, and a&E will be my first port of call for assistance but if it is not there, then where and what do I do?.
Wrong or poor diagnosis is a frightening thing and having experienced this first hand, I know if I had been diagnosed properly all those years ago I would not have suffered like I have, but then again I wouldn't have helped all of those I have by writing about Bowel cancer, so always a double edged sword.
I am not angry or bitter about my diagnosis being missed, due to age I didn't fit the criteria of bowel cancer so it wasn't even thought of. And my case was so severe that my surgeon was amazed during the many operations he performed on me; I am a total contradiction to everything he had read and learned which must be a huge amount, but at the end of the day all that reading he did helped me, as he saved my life from one of the most aggressive silent killers known to man.
Some of us are put on this planet for self gain, self promotion, others the quiet ones to help others for self gain. I like to think of myself as one of the quiet ones along with my surgeon and the armada of nurses and A &E who helped me to get through my cancer, no limelight just respect which is reflected on both sides.
So I was not the right person to criticize A & E and my son was a bit coughy with a chesty cough so I called to say I couldn't commit, and my relief was comforting after making the call.
My son asked me the other day what I was good at ( as in there eyes I believe its not much), I thought about it a bit, anagrams I am fairly good at and I can tile a good floor, ut I believe my forte is or well are(apart from my flashes of brilliance at writing of course) contentment, I am happy with my lot and rarely wish for anything more ( apart from complete isolation from the outside world - should live in a field - animals are far more gentler creatures), and surviving, as I do this without thinking day to day, each day a different challenge never two the same. But the one thing I am not good at is fame, I don't like attention nor talking about myself, writing about myself yes ( a lot can be put into the imagination through word, but I sound a bit like Dick Van Dike from Mary Poppins when I open me gob!, true thing guvner)so the GMTV sofa this time around wasn't beckoning me forth.
So after all the mornings excitement I have a Son who drinks nothing but milk with a cough, and a wall with dried on waterproof grout to clean, oh and I need to call my mother in law back, after picking up the rest of the gang, and then doing the dinner, OH and the chest of drawers needs painting, mirrors need hanging........
The life of a celeb - you just can't beat it!
I am in my bathroom grouting the tiles I put up oh such a long time ago, when the phone rings. Who can it be I ask myself my husband and children call me on the Mobile and I have no friends so who could be calling?.
Grout covered hands I pick up the phone, low and behold it is Cordelia, I do not know a Cordelia, I think to myself whilst saying a very cheery "Hello" (how false).
It turns out she is from GMTV, and we spoke a few years ago when I was on the show with Lynne Faulds Wood talking about bowel cancer and my trusty book "A NOVEMBER TO REMEMBER " if you STILL haven't got a copy, shame on you.
She wanted to know if I was free for filming the following morning, or that evening to do a piece on wrong diagnosis, in A &E Departments.
Hmm, I thought, this one is tricky as yes I was wrongly diagnosed for 17 years, and in many times at A & E but not at my current A & E whom I very much owe much of my survival too.
Anyhow, Whilst on the phone the postman was careering up the drive with arm fulls of post which he had been unable to deliver due to the strike, some of which needed signing for so I ended the call leaving it that she would call me in five minutes to confirm either today or tomorrow for filming.
It didn't even take me the time it takes to get to the front door to start having second thought, more in fact like the time it took to replace the receiver.
I know my situation is a blue print case of misdiagnosis, but not down to A &E these guys work so so hard to try to stabilise things, some times when I went in I couldn't even speak through sheer pain, and they managed to deal with things professionally and as quick as humanly possible; considering all of the many channels they need to go through just to prescribe an aspirin let alone huge amounts of Morphine which I needed constantly.
They are overworked and underpaid, and a service we can do without. I have seen this from both sides of the card.
My son and I waited for 5 hours to be seen when he fractured his arm, I waited ten minutes when I was rushed in on several occasions, its all about prioritising, and a difficult difficult task that is. Especially when you have the elderly coming in in droves who are only there because mainly they are lonely, or haven't been eating properly, which in turn leaves the children with breakages waiting ,as a break is easier to determine than that of loneliness - or if there actually IS really a root problem underlying all else.
Our A & E is facing closure which in turn is devastating, I know for one I would not have made it any further afield at my worst times and also know that those times could so easily come again, and a&E will be my first port of call for assistance but if it is not there, then where and what do I do?.
Wrong or poor diagnosis is a frightening thing and having experienced this first hand, I know if I had been diagnosed properly all those years ago I would not have suffered like I have, but then again I wouldn't have helped all of those I have by writing about Bowel cancer, so always a double edged sword.
I am not angry or bitter about my diagnosis being missed, due to age I didn't fit the criteria of bowel cancer so it wasn't even thought of. And my case was so severe that my surgeon was amazed during the many operations he performed on me; I am a total contradiction to everything he had read and learned which must be a huge amount, but at the end of the day all that reading he did helped me, as he saved my life from one of the most aggressive silent killers known to man.
Some of us are put on this planet for self gain, self promotion, others the quiet ones to help others for self gain. I like to think of myself as one of the quiet ones along with my surgeon and the armada of nurses and A &E who helped me to get through my cancer, no limelight just respect which is reflected on both sides.
So I was not the right person to criticize A & E and my son was a bit coughy with a chesty cough so I called to say I couldn't commit, and my relief was comforting after making the call.
My son asked me the other day what I was good at ( as in there eyes I believe its not much), I thought about it a bit, anagrams I am fairly good at and I can tile a good floor, ut I believe my forte is or well are(apart from my flashes of brilliance at writing of course) contentment, I am happy with my lot and rarely wish for anything more ( apart from complete isolation from the outside world - should live in a field - animals are far more gentler creatures), and surviving, as I do this without thinking day to day, each day a different challenge never two the same. But the one thing I am not good at is fame, I don't like attention nor talking about myself, writing about myself yes ( a lot can be put into the imagination through word, but I sound a bit like Dick Van Dike from Mary Poppins when I open me gob!, true thing guvner)so the GMTV sofa this time around wasn't beckoning me forth.
So after all the mornings excitement I have a Son who drinks nothing but milk with a cough, and a wall with dried on waterproof grout to clean, oh and I need to call my mother in law back, after picking up the rest of the gang, and then doing the dinner, OH and the chest of drawers needs painting, mirrors need hanging........
The life of a celeb - you just can't beat it!
Tuesday, 2 October 2007
Elvis has not left this building!
I don't know whether or not you watched the Greatest Elvis show over the past two weekends hosted by Vernon Kaye, but being great great Elvis fans - we did!.
I understand that Vernon got a lot , well a tremendous amount of stick in the newspapers with regards to his suit, his attempts at Elvis impersonating, I on the other hand think he did a wonderful job of hosting a great show , it just really goes to show us all what an utterly fabulous creation Elvis was.
Some of the "Elvi" as Vernon called them, where so very very good, if you closed your eyes, certain phrasing they used Elvis was back and bigger than ever. One, a Swedish one looked a bit like him and when he sang "If I could dream" well , if he was on x factor he should have won it with that one performance. Joe Espisito was one of the judges who was there for Elvis's original performance of the song however said as he had been at the original nothing would ever come close, which I thought although true a bit harsh as the boy did good.
We where thoroughly entertained by all the Elvi, and thought the show was a great idea, as god only knows how many Elvis's there are out there, and are they doing any harm?, no they are actually bringing the Joy that Elvis did through his music, looks etc.
Balls to them all Vernon, I think you did a great job, and lets be honest no one will ever be able to wear a white suit/black leather suit like Elvis did, never ever.
So to all you miserable reporters out there, there is an easy answer if the show comes back on again, don't watch it!
I understand that Vernon got a lot , well a tremendous amount of stick in the newspapers with regards to his suit, his attempts at Elvis impersonating, I on the other hand think he did a wonderful job of hosting a great show , it just really goes to show us all what an utterly fabulous creation Elvis was.
Some of the "Elvi" as Vernon called them, where so very very good, if you closed your eyes, certain phrasing they used Elvis was back and bigger than ever. One, a Swedish one looked a bit like him and when he sang "If I could dream" well , if he was on x factor he should have won it with that one performance. Joe Espisito was one of the judges who was there for Elvis's original performance of the song however said as he had been at the original nothing would ever come close, which I thought although true a bit harsh as the boy did good.
We where thoroughly entertained by all the Elvi, and thought the show was a great idea, as god only knows how many Elvis's there are out there, and are they doing any harm?, no they are actually bringing the Joy that Elvis did through his music, looks etc.
Balls to them all Vernon, I think you did a great job, and lets be honest no one will ever be able to wear a white suit/black leather suit like Elvis did, never ever.
So to all you miserable reporters out there, there is an easy answer if the show comes back on again, don't watch it!
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