It is cancer...

Funny old thing this living - this sentient awarenes of our own mortality. It's a bit of a bitch really - a double edged sword. I've been face to face with my own mortality on more than one occasion but this threat, from so deep inside, has to be the most frightening of all. By a long shot.

And a lot of people have to face this everyday. It isn't just me. I want to say to anyone out there who stumbles across this blog, who has just been told they have cancer, or that someone they love has cancer, that it gets easier - in your head I mean. You have to acknowledge that it is so terrifying at times you feel you are going to implode with the stress of it all - full fight or flight mode but nowhere to go. But eventually - I phone my friends now, for this - you can talk yourself around again, to see that this is not the horror it used to be. That medicine, combined with diet and a positive mental attitude, means we can survive this.

So what's new?

The biospy reports are back and it is non small cell - that is cancerous but slow growing. In the grand scheme of things it's a bit of a lucky break.

They want to see me at the beginning of January and start 'radical treatment' immediately. They are talking about chemotherapy to shrink it and then, when it is small enough, they can cut it out of me. The prognosis is still very very good.

And I'm proud to report that I am getting much braver about needles (which is just as well really isn't it?!). When the PET scan people rang to give me an appointment for next week, they said we have to give you an injection, and I was like, what? Just one? No intravenous?! Fabulous! The woman must have thought I was going mad!

And the chemo thing is by intravenous for up to 3 hours, and you know what? I really don't mind at all. Whatever it takes really. That heart-pounding, chest heaving terror has gone now, and has been replaced by a much more manageable sense of sadness and resignation - resigned to the fact that this body is going to have to suffer a bit in order to livestrong. And livestrong I bloody well will!

So I have decided that this is not going to kill me. Not by a long shot. All the bloods were normal. I'm otherwise very healthy and people beat this thing all the time.

This is something I need to keep telling myself. Until it becomes a fact in my mind that I have nothing to fear because I am going to win this battle. And grow old the way I'm meant to.

And yet the tears come on a daily basis, and I have to just let them come, and then they subside.

Oh Bugger!

So the plan is to get writing again. I'll have lots of time on my hands and probably, I'm guessing, a deep need to escape the places I'm going to be in, physical and mental. I could do worse than immerse myself in the life and language of my beloved Andalucia!!!

Once upon a time....