Homecoming!

I've just come back from a wonderfully hot, family-soaked holiday in Spain. Not many people know that because I am so very internet paranoid.

I'm not quite sure what I think is going to happen: the local villain will turn to cyber research, picking a name out of a hat which happens to be Jackie Buxton, travel through the 33 'Jackie Buxton's on Facebook – there are this many, I checked – to find the one who lives somewhere around here (obviously I'm far too scared of my cyber shadow to divulge exactly where in the north of England that might be) and, after cracking the 'friends only' block, will smile gleefully at noticing that I happen to be out of the country (and indeed, that my tightly packed neighbours have also chosen this time for an excursion) exactly when he/she has a bit of time on their hands. Next, we hope that this local, cyber researching burglar with time on his/her hands isn't good at busting down doors and foiling alarm codes.

Of course, this could happen. And you can guarantee – because this is exactly how my mind works – that this will happen the day I let down my guard to post on Facebook and Twitter that I am beyond excitement about my pending holiday and if I spend another moment in front of my desk I will fossilise. Thus, I tie myself up in knots not mentioning it. Talk about, Don't mention the war! Every second word is suitcase and Sangria.

But, like my Dad who couldn't close the door on our bedrooms at night without first checking that switching off the light hadn't caused a spark behind the switch and a fire in the wall behind, and my friend whose family sit in the car and count how many times she returns to the door to check it's locked - We all do that, I say. Not seventeen times, the husband replies – pre-holiday internet muteness is how it is for me.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that the holiday was all I hoped for - and some - and although I love where I live and am very happy in my village somewhere in the north of England, no I wasn't ready to come home from the sun, pool, beach, Sangria, reading, cycling, family paella nights, synchronised swimming (sorry, 'synchronised' swimming) family cards, Exploding Kittens, more reading, lack of washing, and did I mention the reading…? and generally being just a whole lot more manana-ish.

Still, at least my return meant I could use my loyalty card at my local hospital to get my broken toe sorted. Yep, a different one this time. And a story for another day. Suffice it to say, please pray this sun continues because the flip flops will be hanging around for another three weeks.

Weekly Timetables? You thought I was joking!

Now that I'm back, I've thrown myself into my usual pre-September de-clutter. I've talked before about September being my New Year here and this year is no different: the idea of filing and rejecting mounds of paperwork and teaching resources, sourcing and recycling new storage solutions so that I can lay my hands on the surviving papers more quickly, finely tuning my weekly timetables because this year I will make tea before 8pm and I will find time for more coffees with friends and filling out my new Passion Planner (thanks for the tip, Erica!) with an achievable list of to-do's… are almost as exciting to me as the first sip of a Spanish lager outside a sun-licked taverna. 

Almost as exciting.

But I also have LOTS of newness to look forward to. Glass Houses and I are going on tour and I am ridiculously excited about it. Please, please do come and say hello if you possibly can when I'm at a place near you. I promise we will have cakes or chocolate or even both. And books, lots of books:  both Glass Houses and Tea & Chemo.

The tour so far – all welcome!

September
Monday 5 September from 8pm @ The Bakewell Book & Gift Shop, Matlock Street, Bakewell, Derbyshire DE45 1EE. View their website here
- for a brief talk, Q&A, book signing and a bit of a chat – with coffee and cake (of course).

Saturday 17 September from 2pm @ Blackwell's Bookshop, 21 Blenheim Terrace, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds LS2 9HJ.
- pop in any time between 2 and 5.30pm for book signing and chat. You'll find me in the Costa café (they insisted) on the first floor. We also plan to host a Q & A session during the afternoon. More on this to follow.

October
Saturday 15 October from 11am @ Octavo's Book Café and Wine Bar, West Bute Street, Cardiff CF10 5LJ
- Writer in Residence for the day. More details to follow but meanwhile, checkout these cakes!

Also
Date TBC for a Saturday book signing in the gorgeous, The Little Ripon Bookshop

Date TBC for a Saturday book signing @ Harrogate Waterstones, very recently refurbished and now with its own café over-looking the high street. I'm hoping I might be based in there…

Do let me know if you're interested in attending any of the events so I can get excited! 

Meanwhile, a very happy new year to you all :) 

Two Years Hence

It slipped itself in between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, waved, smiled, winked and left. I gave a nod of appreciation, lifted an imaginary glass of champagne (imaginary because you know The Body That Got Cancer likes to keep a firm eye on its units and the bubbles had been flowing since Christmas Eve) and took just a moment, a quiet moment - I'm still not ready to dance on the tables - to say thank you.

With the 27^th December came my second Cancerversary. I'm superstitious. I know enough to know that we can never dismiss the potential for secondaries or, indeed, that any of us can be complacent about the potential for a primary cancer to form, but I'm grateful for the relative peace and calm that my Two Year Cancerversary brings.

Last year I wrote about my first Cancerversary here. It was a cautious celebration in a sort of raw, new girl at school kind of way: knowing it should be fun but not quite ready to let down all my defences. This year I feel more settled in, comfortable, that I understand the post cancer diagnosis and treatment world into which I was plunged and most days I can cope with it quite effortlessly, thank you.

The Fear which I wrote about here, does still haunt me from time to time. I've had a few scares, just admirable vigilance on behalf of the medical profession, and although my style is to busy myself so that I have no room left to fret, the fear does nonetheless manage to settle itself in over the top of my brain sometimes and leak into my thoughts. It's not an undue pressure, nothing like the early days of The Wait and The Not Knowing, nothing like the fear of recurrence when chemo finished and for a few months after, but it's 'just there', in an annoying little tic kind of way.

So, from the position of being two years post cancer diagnosis, I would like to say to anybody who is further back on this rocky road than I am, it does get better and it gets a whole lot easier.

So much had happened since my first anniversary a year ago. Last 27^th December, I hadn't even heard of the pioneering publishers, Urbane Publications, let alone submitted to them and here I am with Tea And Chemo published and Glass Houses on its way out of the door next June.

Most of my work was on hold during my year of treatments so I only really started back to teaching and editing at the beginning of 2015 and you know, I'd really missed the buzz of writers excited about their stories. My return to work this year has been a baptism of fire with the writing and promotion of Tea And Chemo to throw into the mix, plus the small matter of my final edits on Glass Houses, which we'll gloss over because I'm a little behind on those. But it's been wonderful to be back to full busy-ness again. Although sometimes I curse the stairs up to my office after dinner or at the weekend, cancer taught me, if I didn't already know, that sitting still doesn't really work for me.

This year other people I know have been diagnosed with cancer, some very young people in my online group have developed secondaries. Some have died from them. My heart breaks a little every time. Not for me, so far I continue to be one of the lucky ones, but because cancer is still such an enormous thorn in the side of human health. Great strides have been made in all areas of cancer diagnoses, cure and care but until we can take a pill to rid ourselves of cancer before it even suggests any danger, until we have 100% accurate diagnostic tests to take action before it dares to become a possibility, we must keep fundraising, caring and raising awareness.

This Cancerversary, in addition to the wonders of the medical profession that blasted the cancer cells and my family and friends who kept me sane and continue to do so, I'd also like to thank Matthew Smith, owner of Urbane Publications. Right from the start, when Tea And Chemo was a collection of blog posts and an idea, Matthew determined that Urbane Publications would also give every penny of profit to the three charities I was keen to support:The Haven in Leeds, The Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre in Harrogate and the national charity, Breast Cancer Now.

If you are interested in buying a copy of Tea And Chemo, your purchase will help the three charities. If you are not interested in buying a copy of Tea And Chemo, that's ok, I need never know… but you could still give your pennies to one of these three charities and then you wouldn't feel half as bad :)

Meanwhile, I'm off to celebrate because it's New Year's Eve and the new year coming, the adventures we don't yet know, now that's something I really love to celebrate. Have a wonderful new year lovely readers, may 2016 be filled with life-affirming moments.

My Cancerversary

Today is my one year cancerversary: twelve months to the day I learned I had cancer.

What do you think I'm going to tell you today? the consultant surgeon asked at 2.30pm a year ago, a nurse by his side. My heart slipped a little closer to my stomach.

During the mammogram and ultra sound tests a week earlier, a couple of comments about the lump (which I'd satisfactorily convinced myself prior to the appointment was the innocuous result of hormones) made me nervous. I asked the radiographer what he was looking for. The mammogram suggests pre-cancer, he said. Pre-cancer, I considered, I like the sound of 'pre'. Yes, he said 'pre' is good.

I left the tests to enjoy Christmas, knowing I'd be returning on the 27^th December for the results. Then they'd tell me whether I had no cancer or pre-cancer. Or so I thought.

I'd learnt about pre-cancer over the festive period. I didn't go near the internet - am way to cautious to trust my sanity to Mr Google - but instead consulted with my wonderful friend who, rather fortuitously for me, happens to be an oncologist in breast cancer. Pre-cancer wasn’t to be taken lightly, I was told. Dependent on the extent of these cells at the first abnormal stage, a mastectomy might be necessary, together with hormone therapy, perhaps, even a dose or two of radiotherapy. But no chemo and, crucially, no risk of death at this pre-cancerous stage. If there's a sentence containing 'cancer' as well as, 'no risk of death', it's hard to feel anything but relief.

I looked at the surgeon and the nurse and I think I smiled. It was OK, I'd prepared for this and the way he'd phrased the question made me certain. You're going to tell me I have pre-cancer, I finally answered. The surgeon and the nurse continued their gaze, not even a twitch from either of them until the surgeon said, I'm afraid it's much worse than that.

February: 8 inches cut off my hair

And thus I trot towards 2015 with three operations, chemotherapy and radiotherapy behind me and with much more optimism about the future than I had last New Year's Eve. Nonetheless, I'm celebrating my cancerversary small; just poking a superstitious toe into the festivities. No parties this year, just gratitude for the brilliance of modern medicine and for the love which has helped me step over the pebbles. Some people have to deal with cancer and other crises on their own and I can't begin to imagine how hard that must be. Being with my family around the gold star-bedecked table, clutching a tiddly wink cracker, brought me to tears this Christmas and not just because I burnt the pigs in blankets. I'm lucky to be here and my cancerversary is a time to give thanks for that.

September: first re-growth

Next year I hope to celebrate two years clear, then three and four and onto five. Five years is a milestone I pray to reach and a significant goal in the life of Grade 3 breast cancer. That's when we can really believe it's finished: every last stray cell gone, no new little blighters gaining strength and preparing to strike. December 27^th 2018 is going to be one heck of a party.

Meanwhile, I shall keep thanking my lucky stars for no signs of recurrence or secondaries. I shall keep checking - you must too, because early detection is your biggest weapon against cancer. Do it on the same day every month and then you won't forget. Boys! Enough sniggering at the back, you know you have to check yourself too, right?

2014: not all bad by any means...

And most of all I shall keep having fun because none of us know where our life is headed. In the inimitable words of the Cold Feet opening credits: Life's a journey, travel it well.

Please raise your glass with me for my cancerversary and here's to a happy and healthy 2015 for all of us!