I haven’t written about cancer for a while. There are many
reasons for this, none more so than the fact that I don’t have a lot to say, because I
am *Stable Mable. I am a, ‘Strange Phenomenon’. I am an ‘Unusual Body,’ which, in
this instance, is a good thing. I am, in short, insanely lucky.
And yet no one needs me to tell them that cancer is a
heinous, unpredictable disease and there are many people who aren’t so lucky.
Never have I been more acutely aware of this than this week, with the news that
Radio Five Live journalist, Rachael Bland, has died of her cancer. Co-creator
of the chart topping, hilarious, thoughtful, poignant, fantastically direct and
gutsy podcast, You, Me and the Big C, Rachael, and her equally fabulous
colleagues, Lauren Mahon and Deborah James, encouraged everybody to be upbeat
and positive about her death.
But although I recognise that she has left behind the most powerful
of legacies, I admit, the news has rocked me.
It's a reminder that we are so fallible, that cancer, in
fact many diseases, are random and indiscriminate and that a treatment that's
worked for one person, can be totally ineffectual for another. Cancer is not a
'battle' that can be won simply if we have the right ammunition. However, I do
believe that there is nothing wrong with keeping that ammunition in a clean and
nurtured environment, shined and polished so that if cancer comes calling or a
rogue cell gets cocky, it's ready for it, ready to give its best shot at kicking
it into touch.
We might miss, but I'd like to feel we tried. The ammunition
I am most likely to pack in a corner, not pay it its due attention, is my
immune system. Or rather, I'm forever tempted to deprive my immune system of
sleep.
I’d been beavering away, life returning so very definitely
back to a cracking paced normality after the knee buckling curve ball of April
2017, which I wrote about here.
So cracking has been the pace that I admit to having taken
my eye off the sleep monitor just a little.
Don’t misunderstand me, I am still a whole stratosphere away
from my pre-December 2013 delinquency. Back then I prided myself - oh yes - on
my ability to stay awake when all around were slumbering. It meant I could
crack on in my study: just me the pc screen and a flood of ticks on the to-do
list. I’d finish with an indulgent hour
of writing stories, followed by a languorous soak in the bath and the current
book in favour, before dragging myself into a fulfilled and light-headed, 3am
bedtime.
I felt lucky then, as well. My life was the next best thing
to having magical 27 hour days and it meant I could have a lot of every bit of
what I fancied because I had that extra tail end of the day that was denied to
so many.
Post my primary cancer diagnosis on that fateful day at the end
of 2013, my 27 hours had been concertinaed back into 24 and the extra hours of
inertia the body's essential rehabilitation, came at a price.
I struggle to fit my own writing around the little cracks of
time in the day that are left. Indeed, I struggle to fit the day job (oh, the
irony) into the cracks, and I do wonder
if the added stress of never quite managing to achieve as much as I need to do
to keep on top of everything, negates the benefit of the extra sleep.
Ridiculous, scoffs the hubbie. But he is a lark, a
well-meaning, nothing is more important than keeping me alive, lark. Of course
he doesn’t understand. Physically, he couldn’t do it. He is genetically
programmed to stop work at 8pm at the latest and to fall into a deep and
impenetrable sleep not long afterwards. To-do list or otherwise, larks sleep at
night. That’s just how it is. If you want the lark in your family to catch a
wild boar, you'll have to ask them to do it in the morning.
Ridiculous of course, but it’s not that easy is it? And it really
isn't easy if you know you physically could stay up and answer the emails
glowering from the inbox. None of us operate in a vacuum. One man’s, Sod It I’m
Tired I’m Going To Bed, is someone else drumming their fingers, waiting for their
reply, cursing the lack of response whilst muttering, 'Did they get it?' and 'Don’t
they care?'. Or at least, that’s what I suppose.
But Rachael Bland has given me a wake-up call, a kick up the
bum, a reminder of my resolve. And so I have vowed that I will cover my ears
and ignore the chimes to 'catch up'. I will shake away the image of steam
puffing from people's ears as they spit and curse at my lack of response, and I
will switch off, snuggle up, and get my sleep. After all, I owe it to those who
aren't so lucky, to at least try my best.
Rest in peace, Rachael Bland, another brilliant person taken
too soon.
*I stole that term from another fabulous Rachel, Rachel
Ferry, currently NED, and she won't mind me saying, against all odds.
