Breast Cancer is Not a Pink Ribbon

The SCAR Project.

Getting Help Through Cancer Support Groups and Networks

A guest post from David Haas of the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance:

"Being diagnosed with cancer can often be a stressful and overwhelming experience for many people. However, to help increase the chances of survival, this disease requires early detection. Mesothelioma is one such cancer that is not easily diagnosed and is often detected during the latter stages. With a skilled and frank doctor, a good medical team and emotional support you can receive significant help to cope with cancer and improve you quality of life and recovery.

If you are a cancer survivor or are in remission or going through treatment, you may benefit from the experience of trained volunteers who have been affected by similar treatment and who are fighting the same cancer disease. By using cancer support groups and networks you may receive important benefits such as:

•Receiving emotional support and having a friend in need,
•Getting useful suggestions, tips, advice and ideas on how and where to get information and dealing with side-effects,
•Having practical support during and after treatment as well as during recovery,
•Receiving encouragement and hope for survival and living your life to the fullest,
•Having an outlet to ask questions and share your concerns, story and experience.

Survivors and those who are in remission who help with cancer support groups or networks may benefit from managing survivorship issues, including recurrence of the cancer.

The types of cancer support networks and groups may differ, but you are sure to find one that best fits your needs and situation. Some groups may meet in person, but if you don’t like opening up to people or find it difficult to travel, you may look for a telephone or an internet support group. Other types of group support such as lectures and workshops, faith-based groups or groups led by a doctor or professional therapist are also available.

Other helpful ways of expressing your feeling as you cope with cancer is through journaling or writing. This helps you to get in touch with your true feelings and provides and outlet to share them.

Expressing your feelings through writing or on a one-on-one basis may help you to feel less burdened and dispel any fears and misconceptions that you may have about your cancer. You may also find valuable information by using online resources provided by cancer support groups and networks. Two such resources are the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society’s Network."

Here we Go - Oh! Barfing all over the Ward!

Hello everyone, plus even more new people! Are you absolutely barking? Do you know what you've let yourselves in for? Indeed you do. And you're in good company.

Well, that was an ‘interesting’ week, in the sense of the Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’…

Last Wednesday I went for my first dose of radiotherapy, (I have 30 doses to look forward to) which involved being stapled to a piece of steel for 25 minutes inside the mask I have had made up for me. To say it fits my face & throat like a glove is a bizarre exaggeration. It’s so tight that I can’t even open my EYES when I’ve got it on. Now THAT’S sensory deprivation for you. In fact, to riff off my Ripley / Alien theme, it really isn’t much different to having a face-hugger adhere to my face (thankfully without tube down throat planting alien seed in my stomach…)

Luckily, I’m not claustrophobic, and I can just about relax & persuade myself that it’s a bizarre, beepy, if oddly futuristic sci-fi spa treatment. Yes, I do have a lively imagination. Good thing too!

Anyhow, got that out of the way, and because it was Week One, I had to have one quick dose of chemo.

Quick? Well, that was the plan.

However, I had the worst reaction to any of my treatment so far.

When the Doctor asked me how I was, my answer was to throw up all over myself (how lovely – all my previous tossing-of-cookies has managed to hit a receptacle of some kind), have a massive collapse in the middle of Outpatients involving stretchers, ECG machines, nurses running around with heart monitors & twittering how I had a systolic blood pressure of 27 (impossible apparently) and a haemoglobin count of 7 (ditto).

Clearly, once again I just WASN’T GETTING ENOUGH ATTENTION and had to throw a big drama queen special. Sheesh.

So, I was hauled onto a Ward, and given my very first blood transfusion ever!

Three Bags Full, and all.

I am finally a true vampire living off the blood of others! How apt.

I’m only Type O Neg however, nothing exotic.

I was finally released on Friday night – or rather, I kind of discharged myself. I was fed up of not being able to stop vomiting. I just couldn’t eat the hospital food, and knew I was getting under-nourished, and would just get ‘iller’ if I stayed in. So, I am home and feeling better now that I can eat stuff I can actually (and indeed, literally) stomach.

So, it’s Monday, I have a wonderful friend taking me into radiotherapy, and here we go all over again!

29 doses to go. And counting, believe me.

Big love to all of you gorgeous gorgeous friends!!

Rosie xxxx

‘Some people are like Slinkies, really useless, but make me happy when pushed
down the stairs...’

OUCH!

Evenin’ all,

(…and apologies to anyone (a) under 40 and/or (b) not a Brit as that cultural reference will have gone over your head without parting your hair. Yes I am over 40. I realise that is a shock. I should break these things to you more gently, I know.)

I’m into the final furlong of my week at the Christie, the end is hopefully in sight, and I get out tonight. (Sweet Bird of Space, hurrah!!)

It’s been a mixed week – mostly the choice being which meal shall I barf up next?

In addition, I had a ‘fabulous’ Friday wherein I hurled myself out of a bath and nutted the (very sharp) edge of a hazardous waste bin. Yup, a drama queen to the last, huh? Clearly I wasn’t getting enough attention throwing up, so I decided to throw a faint for a change. One moment I was towelling myself off, the next minute I was flat on my back with my heels in the air (if anyone dares say ‘no change there, then’ I swear I shall SUE your asses), surrounded by nurses asking me how many fingers I could count.

I am now sporting a fine scar, picture attached (only if you have email – sorry Myspace friends, I’m so not posting it). I think the dopey grin is sheer relief that I didn’t faint while I was IN the bath… hmmm.

But my week has improved dramatically since then (could it get worse?) when I discovered that I could order halal meals – yes, CURRY!!!!

For some bizarre reason I thought the halal menu was for Muslims only, but no, not at all. Since then I have been stuffing myself cheerfully with real food. Rice! Veggies! Biriani! Wheee!

.. And I’ll be honest, I think one of the reasons I’ve been so bloody queasy is that the hospital food, though ‘nice’, is nothing like the food I eat at home. And it has been difficult for me to digest anyway… even without chemo to help it on its way.

So my lovelies, take care out there, and Nil Illegitimi Carborundum.

Rosie xxxx

IV Bag Lady

Back in the USSR - er, the NHS

Morning campers!

Or evening, or middle of the night depending on which time zone you’re in… yes, that would be me showing off at how far flung my friends are. Ahem… Hamburg, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Dallas, San Francisco, NYC, Buenos Aires, Sao Tome (look it up, you lazy lot), Winterville GA (honest, not making this one up), wonderful wonderful Copenhagen – not to mention glamorous Widnes and even more glamorous Salford!

Right, showing off completed – for now (he he he).

Yes, I’m checked back into my glamorous boutique hotel – er, ok, the Christie.

And for anyone wanting to visit me this week, I’m on WARD 11!

A whole different part of the hospital too, so lots of exciting new opportunities to get lost while you’re trying to find me. Although this Ward does seem to be better signposted…

I miss the lovely staff on my old ward, but everyone here seems friendly so far. I guess I just got used to the faces on good old ward 4, not to mention the birthday cake & hugs I got off them…

Anyhow, it’s Day 1 of my treatment and naturally I am pretty perky after two weeks respite. I managed to wean myself off Buffy eventually (thank god) as my brain cells returned. You’ll be pleased to know that she did manage to slay all those pesky demons – I know you’ve been holding your breath over that one.

I even did some gardening yesterday! I find ripping up weeds and hacking at things with shears most therapeutic…

I thought I’d send an update now before the drugs kick in and I start feeling GHASTLY. I’ve just poked down a big plateful of veg moussaka with rice followed by chocolate sponge with chocolate custard (delightfully reminiscent of school dinners). I might as well stuff myself while the going’s good.

…and bizarrely, I have lost weight over the past 2 weeks – it hardly seems possible, considering the way I’ve been eating for England. I dunno, maybe chemo/cancer shifts one’s metabolism into a higher gear?

So, nothing profound or zen today folks – just sending love to you all.

Keep rubbing those lucky pebbles & sending Rudie Vibes (you know who you are), lighting candles, or crossing all crossable body parts – whatever it is you are doing, it’s working!

Rosie x

(Aka Barfy the Cancer Slayer)

home again home again jiggety jig

Hello darling friends,

And welcome new friends who have just joined this list!

Needless to say, if anyone is fatigued by / bored with these updates, or if they just aren’t your bag, do say and I’ll take you orf.

Right! It’s a week since I got out of The Christie following the second round of chemo – and oh GAWD have I been knackered…

So apologies if you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded, or have drooled inarticulately at you (something I do very well, apparently).

The drugs were ‘fun’ - the first one (Taxotere – you can look it up if you’re that way inclined, I am still not going anywhere near t’interweb) I don’t really notice because it’s only pumped into me for an hour. The second one (Cisplatin) is shoved into me for 6 hours, and that’s when the amusement starts. Has the dual effect of making me barf AND sleep! Luckily not at the same time… Just when I’ve got over that I get the third drug for days and days (called 5FU because no-one can pronounce it. But it does sound something like an Aztec god) which stops the barfing, but turns me into an insomniac!

Wheeee!

So, cue inspirational power chords on guitar and Alice Cooper yodelling Poison… runnin’ though ma veins…

It was also quite a Zen week. I shared a bay with two women, who were very similar in some ways – both in their seventies, both pipecleaner thin, both with completely ruined lungs and spent most of the day on oxygen / nebulisers.

However.

D. was sparky, cheerful, delighted to see her visitors, enjoyed little pleasures that came her way like one of the nurses taking the time to blow dry & comb her hair, or wheeling her and her oxygen tank into the garden. She told me how she used to be a real worrier. ‘But I don’t worry about anything now. I just enjoy life.’

Then there was L, for whom nothing was enough. In the week I was there she saw more doctors, health care workers, occupational therapists, masseurs, nutritionists, family and other visitors etc etc .. and yet she still said ‘no-one ever comes to see me.’

She moaned about no-one caring about her food – despite having a special diet menu made for her. She was fully mobile (unlike D.) yet, when asked if she’d like to go and sit outside in the garden in the astonishing sunshine, her immediate response was ‘I’d never find my way there.’ When reassured someone would take her, she responded ‘I’d never find my way back.’

The joys of hospital life.

Anyhow, I am back home, and am just about vertical. Have spent much of the week watching Buffy for the umpteenth time as my brain hasn’t been capable of much else… Run, Buffy, Run!

Love and gorgeousness to you,

And here’s to lumps buggering off completely,

Rosie xxxxxxxxx

Recycling Radioactive Waste So You Don’t Have To

The Purple Vampire

Hello all,

A quickie, once again!

I’m sending this partly to celebrate Geek Pride Day. No, really… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd_Pride_Day#Origins

.. As I am proud to be a geeky alien butt kicking vampire queen bitch from hell. Amongst other things…

Also thought I’d send you a pic of me with my Ripley-style Number 2 buzz cut. Of COURSE it’s purple – whaddya mean I can’t dye my hair just because I’ve got cancer? Pffft. The very thought. Yes, I am very aware that I look like an 80s lesbian. Which is odd, because when I WAS an 80s lesbian I looked nothing like this…

I’m back in The Christie tomorrow, so am enjoying my last barf-free day for a while. Then I shall be baldly going where no-one (well, me at least) has gone before.

Enjoy the sunshine, folks, and talk again soon,

Rosie xxxx

Sick AND Twisted

Rosie update

Hello campers,

Sending a quick message to you all… and with great relief I can report that I feel a whole lot perkier! (*burst of hallelujah chorus*)

This week I feel back to myself - which is more marvellous than I can say. A wonderful sense of being returned to the real world after the ghastly nightmare of having poison pumped into my system. And then spending a week waiting for it to go away. Luckily, the delightful side-effects of red bumpy skin, acid reflux, burned mouth, and my lips feeling like they’ve been repeatedly rubbed against a cheesegrater have worn off.

Yup, last week was an on-the-couch-watching-old-star-trek-videos kinda week.

But I forced myself to go out of the house every day – first day I made it 200 yards, then had to sit down. Next day 300 yards and DIDN’T have to sit down… the day after that made it to the post office. And so on.

And on Sunday I had a big adventure & went to the cinema! Finally saw the Star Trek movie, which was … ok. But no way would Spock snog Uhura in the transporter room. Or anywhere else. Sorry, Kirk & Spock are boyfriends, and always will be J

Thank you DARLINGS for your kind thoughts, and all the fabulous support you’ve shown – in all kinds of ways… Taking me places I can’t walk to, ringing me up, emailing, coming round to visit, buying me icecream & sushi & Jolly Green Giant creamed corn, sending me cards & flowers & pretty pictures via the interweb, sending books, dvds, or darnit, just giving LOVE.

I'm back in The Christie for my next round with Mike Tyson (ding ding) next Tuesday 26th, and I'll be stuck in Ward 4 for a week.

I shall be bald, so gear up to me looking like Lieutenant Ilia / Ripley in Alien 4 / The Borg Queen (but without the fetching bulldog clips around my forehead). Yup, my hair is finally relinquishing its hold and I am getting a buzz cut done tomorrow. I would much rather cut the whole damn lot off in one go rather than suffer the death of a thousand small handfuls every time I run my fingers through it.

If you are around at all next week, pop up & see me, make me smile! I promise not to barf all over you. Except on Thursday.

take care of yourselves out there

Rosie x

hello Wednesday x

Update from Rosie ...

Hello darlings all,

Long time no update!

At long last I'm back at home.

I had a pretty bad day on Saturday, and a worse one Sunday, hence no contact… I had a bit of a fainty collapse thing on Sunday and they confined me to bed. Yes, me, confined! I ask you. All together now: DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?

‘But I need a wee!’ I wailed.

Pah, was their sterny faced response. And off we went again with them collecting my pee in buckets. And wheeling it away for who knew what nefarious purposes. Honestly, if anyone thinks for one nanosecond that I entertain medical ‘fantasies’ then they do not know me at all. He he he.

I was also supposed to go home on Sunday night – needless to say that was a blowout. I got an allergic reaction to the drug (gosh, anyone would think that chemo is poison!) & didn’t leave till late Monday while they ran more blood tests - & I did my finest impersonation of someone who is really well & is raring to run a half-marathon.

It worked, I escaped, I got home, I lay down.

Here we are on Wednesday. Recovering slowly; taking it very easy, trying to be both patient and gentle with myself (2 things that don't always come easily to me…)

eating good food and as much of it as I can, taking tiny little walks and letting myself notice when I'm tired and then giving myself permission to sit the hell down!

So, I really do thank you for your warm and loving messages, they mean a lot and are sparkling up my days, my dears. Thanks for continuing to understand how tired I am, and how I’m needing to spend a lot of time curled up on an old towel in the airing cupboard, like that sick kitty you once had.

Take good care yourselves - here's healing all round!

Rosie xxx

Happy Birthday from the NHS

Update from Rosie ...

Hello darling friends,

I just wanted to say an amazingly big thank you for all your wonderful messages of support, love & general Birthday / Barfday celebration!

I've been quite blown away by the flowers, cards, pictures, chocolate, cake, apricots, booze, & pretty pictures of corsets you've sent me over t'interweb & in person.
Not to mention cheering up Ward 4 with glamour & gothicness in the shape of your dear selves. & thanks for understanding how fast I got tired.

I keep telling myself this can't possibly be the NHS: not least when all the staff on the ward yesterday brought a cake in to me & sang happy birthday. Here's the picture to prove it... me and my Borg Implant & my cake!

You are dear & lovely friends.

I should be ill more often, really, if it gets this sort of response...

As for today, my new and exciting symptom is feeling like I've been duffed up in a dark alley by a gang of skinheads. Aaargh..

Hurrah for painkillers!

At least I don't feel queasy... I can deal with anything but queasy...

And I had chips for my lunch & baked beans on toast for breakfast. Bring it on.

love & stuff

Rosie xxx

Cash back for Christie

Representatives of the Christie Charity are presenting a petition to the Prime Minister today asking for compensation for the 13 million pounds it lost in the recent Icelandic banking collapse. Nine Members of Parliament (including my own) will be attending.

Right you lot

Hello & good mornink to you all,

I'm feeling really good, having had 5 hours sleep (excellent result, considering that the woman next to me has a snore like builder's rubble being poured down a drainpipe).

In fact I'm feeling much better than I was expecting to (or warned about) - so there's a good chance the sickness/nausea I was told I might get ain't going to happen to me. Yes, early days, but make the most of 'em. I've just poked down a roast beef & Yorkshire pudding dinner following my vast bowl of porridge & banana for brekkie, so I may end up being the first woman to go into the Christie & come out fatter then I went in! Loss of appetite? What loss of appetite? *polite burp* Yeehaaar!

Sooooo.. with that in mind...

It's my birthday on Friday (I think all I need is a megaphone on top of the CIS building then the whole of Manchester will know)
and People have asked if I'm up to visitors - and I say YES.

visiting hours are 2pm-9pm,
I'm in Ward 4, The Christie Hospital, Wilmslow Road (just past the end of Withington Village, if you are driving south out of Manchester.

I've also asked, and been told that if there are more than 2 people, I can take you into the Day room, where there are chairs, tables etc and more room to quaff sparkling grape juice / appletiser and er...cake?

I've also asked to convert the corridor into a bowling alley, the large bathroom into a jacuzzi, and have tassel-twirling burlesque dancers on tap. Not sure how far I'll get, but one does have to ask...

If you'd like to come in and see me, I'd be delighted.
If you're not sure, do email me, this stuff is free & it's helping stave off the cabin fever.

Love to you all,

Rosie
(the glow-in-the-dark vampire... I don't have to stay away from crowds - they have to stay away from me)

here I am in a Button Moon

Update from Rosie ...

"Hello all,

and thank you to the lovely poetry friend who describes hospital as a trip to Button Moon!

I'm finally here - arrived at 9am and they got me a bed at 4.30pm. 4.30!!! So, much sitting on my arse today. Thank the stars for the free wifi here - I think I'd have been throwing machines that go bing out of the window otherwise...

I'm hooked up to a drip and that is how I'm going to be till next Sunday night - can't leave the ward, and I have to pee into an eggbox - they want to collect my wee & look at it (perverts).

I have a nice window bed, but not the ensuite 4 star spa and sauna package I am sure I ordered...
But everyone seems nice & friendly and I am getting used to dragging a drip machine around with me wherever I go. Rock, and indeed, Roll.

Did my last gigs for a while on Saturday night in Leeds at the fabulous Slippery Belle (what an audience!!), and even last night (Monday) at the Grand in Blackpool. Well, what else was I going to do the night before going into hospital? Stay in and watch telly? It was a wonderful tonic to put on the slap & work an audience up into a frenzy. Wheeee!

Sadly, I've been told I must stay away from crowds, so not only am I spending my birthday in here (this Friday she hinted) BUT when I get out I can't go & see the new Star Trek movie! booooooo. For those of you who already think I'm weird enough, yes, I am a Trek fan. Geek & proud!

Enough, must go & hobble round the ward again like some goffik bag lady.

talk soon, and BIG love to you all,

Rosie xxxxxxxx"

... and today I saw the whole staff of Christies

Hello dear & lovely friends,

More from Castle Lugosi... & at last, today I got dates & details!

Yes - after being left in a broom cupboard & having a consultation with a startled car park attendant last Thursday, this week I saw the entire staff of Christie's and got more info than you can shake a stick at.

Here comes the science... I start chemo on May 5th - I'm having 3 cycles. So that means: one week in hospital having the stuff through a drip, then 2 weeks at home. Then cycle 2 is one week in hospital having the stuff through a drip, then 2 weeks at home. And Cycle three is - yes, you got the idea. 9 weeks in total.

Then I start radiotherapy (with chemo as well) on July 6th, for 6 weeks. Then there's '6 weeks recovery' (no sh*t), then they scan me & find out whether or not I need surgery on my neck & throat. The hope is that the chemo & radiotherapy will have got rid of the tumours. My hope too!

So, it looks like they are blasting me with the heavy-end stuff first off. Works for me. Get the bad news out of the way first.

So, Ms Lugosi is going to be taking a bit of a break. But thank goddess - I already have a box full of unfeasibly glamorous purple wig & sari fabric turbans to choose from.

Could you all keep the vibes a comin' ? And those flexible body parts crossed?
Yes, I thought you could.

If anyone wants to come & see me do my last gigs for a while, I'm hosting the Slippery Belle Burlesque in Manchester tomorrow (friday) & the Grand Theatre Blackpool on Monday 4th May. I might be squeezing a couple more in too (matron).

I'm also having a big party weekend at the Whitby Goff Weekend next weekend, so I shall raise a foaming glass of eyeliner to you all.

love to you all,

Rosie - more updates

7 April

Hello lovely friends,

Right! Latest health gubbins from my hospital trip today, and the news is looking good.

First up, it doesn't look like the cancer has spread. That's the good news I was hoping for.

So, I have 3 squamous (a new adjective for you) cell tumours: the primary (small) one inside my throat. And two secondary tumours on my neck (the larger ones). My first appointment with the oncologist is Thursday, & that's when I'll get the definitive word on the timetable for treatment. The idea is to start treatment in the next 3-4 weeks.

Again, I'll find out for sure on Thursday, but it looks like they'll zap me with a cocktail of radiotherapy & chemo. And do surgery on the neck lumps, but possibly not the throat tumour.

As always, my lovelies, news as I get it.

I'm getting my ups & downs & going with both - but I want to thank you for ALL the fabulous finger / toe / frankly quite athletic body part crossings you've been doing for me. Not to mention the amazing love & good vibes I've been getting loud & clear. It is all clearly WORKING.

talk again soon,

all love

Rosie xxxxxxxxx

9 April

Hello my gorgeous friends,

More health news from Castle Lugosi - mostly to say that there isn't really any more news... bum!

I was meant to see my oncologist for the first time today - but it appeared that everyone at Christie's had gone off on their easter break a day early.

So I saw a very nice - if a little startled - man who proceeded to repeat what I was told on Tuesday, and ask me for the nth time if I am a smoker (maybe they think if they ask me enough times I'll slap my forehead with my palm and go 'oh, you mean a SMOKER! Yes, of course.') They seem to be struggling with the fact that I'm NOT.

So, now I wait till next Thursday to get a timetable of treatment. But still probably starting early May. Till then I am eating steak and buns and chocolate & lots of it, as it looks like I am going to be on baby food for a while after...

So, a frustrating day, and not my best.

toodle pip, and big universal love & delight to you all,

Rosie xxxx

The Christie Hospital

The Christie Hospital in southern Manchester is the foremost treatment centre of adult and late "teenage" (sorry, Lucia) cancer in the north-west of England. My sister-in-law received treatment there and now my friend Rosie is being seen to there.

The hospital recently lost £6.1 million in the Icelandic banking system collapse. Most of this sum came from charitable donations. The government has set up a compensation scheme for those effected by the collapse, considering each application on a case-by-case basis. It has refused the Christie Hospital application. See the Christie Hospital press release here.

Although two planned "out-station" radiotherapy units in Salford and Oldham are not threatened, several important cancer research projects are unlikely to proceed.

There is an online petition on the Prime Minister's 10 Downing Street website protesting this decision. If you are a UK citizen, please sign it. Two parliamentary Early Day Motions (1037 and 1043) have been tabled about this. I note the Liberal Member of Parliament for my constituency has lent his support to the Christie campaign.

There is also Downing Street petition about the UK Bone Marrow Registry (sign up before April 6). Given the support Secretaries of State for Health, and for Children, Education and Families, as well as the Prime Minister's, for the late Adrian Sudbury's campaign for bone marrow donor education in schools and the DoH's cancer reform strategy, I am (not-) surprised at their negative attitude to the Christie Hospital application for compensation.

Unconnected Afterword: as a longtime (and still) socialist, I am rather impressed by my Liberal MP. As well as responding positively to my requesting he sign EDMs 754 and 900 regarding cancer, I am cynical that his delay in signing EDM 900 was due to his attendance at a UN meeting in Geneva on human rights in Kashmir. My cynicism? Many of his constituents are of Kashmiri-origin and his support of the Palestinian cause because they are Muslim. Anyway, I am happy that he has made cancer one of his "causes" (can I claim credit for that?).

Very Small

An update from my friend Rosie ...

"I had my first op yesterday, and they have confirmed that yes, there is a malignant tumour right on the back of my tongue, so far back it's actually in my throat.

The good news is that it is small - 'very small' as the consultant put it. My favourite phrase this week is 'very small'.

Naturally, the hope is that this is the primary tumour, and the lump on my neck is the secondary, and that it hasn't spread.

I won't find this out until the MRI scan (tomorrow, Weds, they have brought it forward, hurrah).

Then I get the results from the whole shebang next Tuesday, when I find out what treatments are going to happen, and in what order.

I want to thank you sooooo much for the love that's been coming from you. I can't begin to say how much it is treasured - well, I CAN begin, so there. Here I am beginning to say how much it means to me.

talk again soon - but it may be email rather than phone, as I'm pretty croaky today. No surprise as I had a large Maglite shoved down my throat for 2 hours yesterday morning. Any further fnarr fnarr jokes cheerfully accepted.

love to you, & the family

Rosie xxx"

From my best friend

you're a long-standing friend, so I want to share this with you, although the news ain't good.

I've not been well since last Sept, and noticed a lump on my neck which I went ot the GP about and initially he said it was nothing to worry about.
Anyway, it wasn't going away, so I went back 2 weeks ago & he decided he didn't like aforementioned lump at all.

He sent me to a consultant... 6 hours at the hospital, Needle biopsy, camera down my throat, being poked with sticks, x-rays, ultrasound, you name it...

However, the results aren't good I'm afraid, as I have cancer.

It is a malignant tumour on the back of my tongue. Apparently the lump on my neck was a red flag, indicating something dodgy going on out of sight. They are doing an investigative op on my tongue next next Monday, and an MRI scan on Wednesday.

They are being cautiously optimistic, and are using phrases like 'we are aiming for a cure'.

I have decided that I am NOT going to bugger about on the internet scaring myself crapless, and I shall divert that energy into being optimistic myself.

This has come as a shock (no sh*t).

But this isn't priviledged information: if people ask you & want to know where I am, I believe in telling the truth (rather than having some big secretive drama). So please share where feels appropriate. I'm telling people.

more news as I get it Angus, and love to you & the family.

Rosie x