Page 21 - She's One Crazy Lady!

mature student took herself off to university to do a part time Fine Arts Degree course and came out with First Class Honours and a new career. In one of our many topical conversations, as is the ‘norm’ when you are in the chair at the hairdresser’s, I asked Tanya how she would want to read my story. She didn’t hesitate.
“Just tell it and write it!”, she said, “tell it and write it as if you are speaking to me, as we are speaking now. It’s your story. Only you know it. I want to hear your voice in it. More importantly, do it for ‘you’.”
Tanya was always so encouraging – and still is. Simple really, isn’t it? I was also told this by the editor of the, then, Evening Telegraph, Jeremy Clifford when, back in 2006, he invited me to be one of their regular columnists, wanting me to write about everyday life as I perceived it – a privileged post that was to last over eleven years, the 300 columns themselves an idea for a further book. Both Tanya and Jeremy were right, but what a huge undertaking! Their enthusiasm, support and belief in me will always be remembered. Thank you, Tanya! Thank you, Jeremy! I hope I have come up to your expectations. Thank you to ‘everyone’ who pushed and encouraged me to complete it!
It hasn’t been easy.
By sharing my colourful ‘crazy’ story with you, which in essence, is in two halves: life before breast cancer and life after breast cancer; I hope I will be able to help others to accept, to heal, to move forward and to embrace life, whilst accepting there will, undoubtedly, be fear and sadness along the way. I have tried to bring the very notion of breast cancer alive in a way that medical personnel, too, are able to understand a little more of what it is really like to be told you have breast cancer, what it all involves for the patient – and carers, how patients cope and how carers and loved ones manage. After all, once the doctors have delivered the diagnosis, carried out procedures, administered cocktails of drugs and followed you up (all very time-consuming), they, as much as they would like, seriously do not have quality time to ‘chat’ and delve into many of the other worrying, every day, issues that are burning and churning inside their patients’ heads. I remember my GP saying, at the time of my diagnosis, surprised as I might be, he had not come across too many breast cancer patients and admitted he didn’t know too much about breast reconstruction either. He wanted to know more. I sincerely thank him, as I do my oncologist, Dr Roy Matthew, and my surgeons and all medical staff that entered my life, for the ‘open’ and honest chats we used to have.
I was presented with other huge challenges when I was diagnosed and afterwards. Sadly, after much soul-searching, I had to ‘retire’ from the profession I loved, and it wasn’t until I was in Debenhams
“The words came straight out of my mouth: “One Very Special Story!”
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