Give It Some Welly

I’ve been very quiet of late. I’ve either been fastened to my desk in a writing/ editing/ teaching frenzy or struck down by a parade of menieres attacks which stop me so firmly in my tracks, I’m left having to unstick my feet, heave myself back into my chair and type like a second world war typing school graduate (I’m reading the fabulous,  Dear Mrs Bird, at the moment, which is where that image came from) to try to crawl back to where I’d been before the debilitating vertigo struck. Before I’d been practically carried out of the café at Waitrose by the person with whom I’d been having the meeting before it struck, that is, with the help of three members of staff, as well as the store manager and health and safety officer greeting me at the exit because these things have to be documented. Still, the bijoux crew of touchingly compassionate helpers waved me off me with a rather beautiful and very expensive bouquet of flowers which went a long way to erasing the humiliation of a shop full of customers thinking I’d had ten-too-many by 3pm. I’m afraid this has been the general picture of my life since the beginning of the year and my blog and social media have taken a hit.

However, I had the most perfect of motivating, energising blogging tonics last week when I was asked if I’d attend the Yorkshire Cancer Research’s Give It Some Welly event in Leeds town centre. This was to mark the 10-day countdown to Yorkshire Day on 1 August, a highly appropriate occasion to launch Give It Some Welly, Yorkshire Cancer Research’s (YCR) first ever region wide fundraising campaign.

I was more than happy to help in my small way, and very excited to throw miniature wellies at a target with Adil Rashid, the Yorkshire and England World Cup cricketing hero because yes, it’s not widely known, but I am a massive cricket fan. Of course I am. My Dad used to take me to Trent Bridge in the Derek Randall days when he would come out early on to the pitch and show off his fielding brilliance and his equally legendary sense of humour. What’s not to love!

I also got to meet another legend from my childhood: Harry Gration, a thoroughly down to earth, non-super-starry superstar who was as excited as I was to meet Adil Rashid and as interested as I was in Yorkshire Cancer Research’s campaign.

But then it got a bit more serious. I was shocked, really shocked to hear that Yorkshire has one of the highest incidence and mortality rates in the country. It slapped me around the face a bit, I’ll be honest. It made me even more grateful to be one of the lucky ones who survived an, ‘it’s very fast growing’ cancer. It was the type of breast cancer that had it been thirty years ago, I’d have been relying far too heavily on a welly-load of luck to have survived. Pre the wonder drug of Herceptin (Trastuzumab) which has been available on the NHS only since 2006, all the cards would have been in cancer’s hands.

Herceptin and the myriad of new drugs and pioneering treatments which have raised the odds of cancer survival significantly over the past few decades, are the result of research. Without research, they wouldn’t exist. And without funding, there is no research. If we want survival rates to keep on improving, research will need funding. And that is one of the aims of the Give It Some Welly campaign.

Awareness of the importance of taking up screening opportunities is another tool in the armoury to bring down cancer deaths. Take-up is disappointingly low in many parts of the region and yet it could alert us to a cancer forming way before a lump might have forced us to the doctor’s. Whilst early detection won’t stop us getting cancer, it might stop us dying from it. Generally, the earlier cancer is caught, the higher the chance of survival. As somebody who’s gone through cancer treatment and the mental turmoil of dicing with death, trust me, if I receive a letter to attend or make an appointment for screening, it’s done before it’s even made it to my to-do list.

This isn’t a competition, but the thing is, if higher survival rates are achievable elsewhere in the country, then of course they’re achievable here. YCR needs to raise 10 million pounds every year for the next ten to reach its £100 million target. Fundraising starts on Thursday 1 August and Yorkshire peeps, it needs us!

The wonderful thing about this campaign is that it’s so easy and cheap, if not, free, to take part. Anything goes, however loosely themed around a welly you want to make your fundraising event: decorate your wellies, arrange flowers in them, wear them to work or don’t wear them to work (if you’re a farmer) wang them, convert them, build a tower out of them, it really doesn’t matter.

I have to say, my heart is in wanging them but I think I’m going to struggle to sort my wellies out before 1 August. However, if you see me and hopefully a small but perfectly formed crowd in a field in our North Yorkshire village some time in August, hopelessly (in my case – discus and shot never were my forte) tossing wellies in a vague direction and cheering and laughing hysterically, it might just be part of the campaign. Come and join us! And/or why not set up your own fundraiser?? You can find all the information you need, here. 

Happy welly wanging!

And don’t forget, please donate when you can, and attend those screening appointments. You know it makes sense 😊

Dealing with Pain

Back in those terrifyingly warm days in February, I asked for your advice regarding pain remedies and what you found to work in your own pain management.

I was cheating preparing for a talk on pain management from the ‘customer’ angle and suspected that there was a lot I didn’t know. The talk was to take place in March as part of the 2019 Yorkshire Cancer Research conference: Let’s Talk About Cancer.

I say, ‘was’. Alas, due – thankfully – to nothing to do with cancer, but the return of Ménières disease which I thought I’d booted into touch in those heady days of my thirties, I had to cancel my talk. The disease isn’t very pleasant but isn’t life threatening and I find the unpredictably of the attacks of vertigo and sickness it brings, as painful as the attacks themselves because I am forced to become unreliable. I can’t commit to public events knowing that I might be crawling along the floor, or sitting bolt upright staring at the wall with a bowl under my chin, when an audience is waiting for me to speak - or worse, as I'm speaking. Can you imagine!

The good news is that the very lovely, understanding people at Yorkshire Cancer Research (YCR) quickly managed to fill my slot and I have heard from many sources that the conference was a massive success.

Meanwhile, I thought the least I could do would be to cobble together the responses you kind people had bothered to send via the blog, FaceBook and Twitter and post them here. Some I’d forgotten about, and others were new to me, so I hope that this might serve as useful resource if you sadly find yourself in need of something bigger and more enduring than a paracetamol – not that I’m dissing the lonely paracetamol, you understand, paracetamol has saved the day for me on many occasions. I have to say this because I have this slightly disturbing imagination which throws my mind headlong into the family medical box and sees a box of paracetamol sombre, rejected and wondering why on earth it bothers.

I know, it’s a worry.

Before we really start, I’d like to add a note of positivity for anybody with the misfortune to have been recently diagnosed with Menieres disease. It isn’t curable (although does tend to peter out, hopefully never to return) but is often treatable. I am now on a fairly innocuous medication that hasn’t stopped the attacks but has made them much less severe and less frequent. I’m hoping that with continued tweaking I will have enough control over the disease going forward to return to normal life including full attendance at public and social gatherings 😊

And this means that I secretly hope that I will manage to attend the next YCR conference and be able to babble on about pain management without incident, not least because I’d already prepared the talk before I’d cancelled – typical!

Obviously the below isn’t an exhaustive list (and please do let me know your additions) but it is the word - summarised or as a direct quote - from the ground, from the coal face, of making pain slightly easier to bear. Even though there is a bias towards cancer in the responses, much will be relevant whatever the cause of discomfort.

Acupuncture: for mental well-being, aches and pains and hot sweats, and other complementary and alternative therapies.

Distractions: anything with friends and family; colouring, crafting, reading and writing (for mild pain – I knew it was bad when I couldn’t blot out the pain well enough to read or write) and oh, so many other hobbies.

Endorphins: warm, soapy baths (lots of people mentioned hot baths!); Epsom salt baths (with the added bonus of nice, soft skin afterwards) singing and playing instruments; walking, running, swimming and other (gentle) exercising; just being outside - preferably in the sun; dancing on the spot to alleviate restless legs (but it also made me laugh); being active.

Heat pads and hot compresses to soothe sore and tired limbs and muscles, can also help with restless legs.

Infrared sauna: ‘it’s like a sauna that you sit in, but there is no heat. You are baked in infrared light. It heats the blood rather than the skin and improves circulation.'

Mindfulness, meditation and other cognitive therapies.

Reflexology: for general aches and pains and mental well-being.

Reiki: ‘as a Reiki therapist, I’ve helped treat many people undergoing cancer treatments. On a superficial level, it helps to calm their minds from what is such an emotional part of their lives, but does also provide (on many occasions) pain relief as well.’

Soft Toothbrush (!): this had to go in as my pitifully sore mouth is a strong memory of my chemo days. For the ulcers there are stronger topical medicines available on prescription so do visit your doctor, and if the idea of navigating the sores as you clean your teeth is terrifying, try a really soft toothbrush soaked first in hot water. 

Stretching: particularly after Aqua Fit, a hot bath and general exercise.

Steroid cream: for pain in the veins. Also, please note: ‘…I went back to good old fashioned nature - pure aromatherapy lavender oil and hot compresses- working a treat- I'd say take the drugs for sure but don't forget about the healing powers of nature and a good old fashioned positive mental attitude.’

One last thought on pain management.

As a daughter of a nurse, I knew that I’d have to collapse in a heap on the floor and be unable to answer what day of the week it was before I’d be granted a day off school sick. I think this is why I spent my early adulthood with the box of paracetamol – there I go again – being out of date before I opened it, and drinking my body weight in water before I’d even approach the medical box.

But since cancer and a few operations over the years, I've had to retrain my psyche on this. I've had it explained that pain stresses the body with the result that it doesn't function and thus recover as quickly as it might if it were in less pain. I’ve decided that alongside natural boosts of our endorphins, medicines can be our friend and some of the medications to combat the side effects of cancer treatments can be the best buddy ever. Whatever your strategy: medicine, holistic, alternative or a combination, be kind to yourself and use it! Life is too short to stoically suffer in silence...

I wish you a happy and pain-free or pain-eased week 😙

Ah, that's better!

Or it will be, if you help me J

So, I am honoured to have been asked to speak at the Let's Talk About Cancer conference, taking place on 14^th March at the Magna Centre in Rotherham. My 15 minute slot is about coping with pain, the patient's perspective.

Now, whilst I know that bowlfuls of sweet white sauce and dancing on the spot worked wonderfully for me when my mouth was full of ulcers and my limbs felt like I'd been picked up and deposited in Luther, where the baddies didn't believe me and used their special vice-like contraption to squeeze and squeeze until I admitted defeat, I realise that my experience may be different from others. I also recognise that we all have our own ways of dealing with these things and that there are probably hundreds of different methods out there for getting through the bad days of cancer pain and the side effects of treatment.

I'd therefore like to ask if you would tell me about them. And I will steal them and pass them off as my own during my talk. Seriously now, dealing with pain is a big deal and in my fifteen minutes, I'd like to mention as many ways and means of dealing with it as possible. Here's hoping this will be useful to at least some of the audience.

If you, or someone you know, found anything from a medication to a holistic treatment or simply a regime that worked as effective pain relief for you, please would you let me know so I can add it to the list? I promise I will credit my blog readers on the day!

Meanwhile if you, or anyone you know, have been touched by cancer and happen to live in the Yorkshire region, places are still available at the Let's Talk About Cancer event. Tickets are free but limited so you will need to register. For more information and to secure your place, click here.

  

And if you do attend, please come and say hello! Most of the day I'll be in the exhibition area with a pile of books, otherwise you'll find me facilitating a group session, or fretting about my imminent arrival on stage…