Abi and Me

The dust jacket is matt pink, scruffy black letters, which appear to have been scrawled with a sooty finger, or stick of crumbly charcoal, announce “This is not a Pity Memoir”. When the outer cover slips the sugar pink clashes with glossy bold yellow like a Battenburg cake full of E numbers. The words hidden beneath - “It’s a love story.” 

My copy is signed in the same scribbly hand – “To Sarah, Happy reading, crying (?) Abi Morgan”

Since trying to fashion my own story into a memoir I’ve been reading more true stories, especially those written by writers.

Abi Morgan is a screen writer and I confess I knew little about her except she wrote “The Split” for the BBC and I am a huge fan. Listening to her at discuss her memoir at the Primadonna festival with Kit de Waal I realised just how many similarities there are between my story and Abi’s.

Both of us were born in 1968 – I add her to the list of “famous” people born that year, Kylie, Jason, Catherine Tate and of course Daniel Craig. I note Abi’s birthday is in September, I am still just a smidge older than all of them!

Both us find our husbands collapsed after severe headaches – only Abi’s husband isn’t really her husband, they never married and the outcomes are starkly different.

Subsequently in the wake of one family trauma we both develop cancer – her breast, me bowel.

Yes, many similarities but also our stories are poles apart. We are like spinning tops which clash and career off in opposite directions rather than balloons benignly nudging each other on the breeze.

Am I waxing lyrical, of course, my writing so often coloured by the style of narrative I am reading, Abi’s stream of consciousness somehow taking my own words along with hers.

I didn’t like her style at first, I’m not sure I will enjoy this, I thought, but then something clicked, her lists, her pop culture references and her brutal honesty started to resonate as I tuned into her wavelength.

Grabbing some post-it notes I began reading like a writer (thanks Kit de Waal for that advice) not only noting what I enjoyed but marking the pages where our stories converged.

We had both written to Jim’ll Fix It – neither of us had our letters answered. We both count our blessings for that – phew! What charmed lives we led.

Although Abi never travelled abroad until she was eighteen, she has made up for it since and recounts many skiing trips and foreign family holidays. She even manages to take her two teenage children, one boy, one girl, away to their holiday home in Italy when her beloved Jacob is in hospital. 

Our family could never manage holidays when Andrew was still alive, I remember only too well the stress at the airport flying to Paris, defusing and calming what could have been a major incident. I still find holidays hard to do.

Do I envy Abi’s “glamourous” lifestyle? Perhaps - not really - I wish the home screen on my computer was Andrew and I standing somewhere more exotic than on Redcar beach. But that is my life and my memories, we can’t make anymore together because Andrew died.

Meanwhile Jacob lived and Abi wonders what it would be like if he hadn’t. Would life be better or just different? She ponders a carefree life as a widow - sorry love that's not all its cracked up to be!

I certainly don’t envy her looking after a man who is her “husband” and yet isn’t – he doesn’t even recognise her – she is NOT the REAL Abi Morgan. A side affect of his debilitating neurological condition.

My heart breaks at the thought and I know full well that I would not have handled that situation as well. If Andrew lived and needed full time care it would have driven me mad, I couldn’t have done it. Only I am allowed to say it but, I do believe it was for the best Andrew’s heart attack was fatal.

Jacob suffers from MS and then develops Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis – 80% of people have a good outcome with treatment, but his prognosis is not so great, they never get fully out of the woods.

I’m not sure what the percentage is of people having heart attacks fully recovering?  I daren’t look it up. It probably quite high and Andrew could have been perfectly fine but from family history I know that his dad was never the same after his first heart attack at the same age of 48. I know how stoic my mother-in-law was but how looking after her husband wore her down and how the ripples scarred the family.

Abi’s grief is so raw and visceral, you can still grieve if someone survives, you still mourn what was lost. 

Many of our challenges were different, I was spared financial worries, the mortgage paid off once I produced the death certificate – I burst into tears when the letter arrived.

Coming on top of all we both lost our cancer diagnoses seemed a cruel twist of fate, far too dramatic for even a weekly soap opera. 

We both think of our children and the unfairness of the situation, already being a family with “one man down”. 

Abi appears to have struggled more than me with the procedures of her own treatment, but she was also caring for Jacob, two hospital stories knotted together – how I admire her for that.

I had been a widow for eight years when I was diagnosed and I had my dad beside me during chemo, we sat side by side being drip fed our individual poisonous cocktails  – “family outings”, that my mum now admits she was weirdly jealous of.

It’s strange what you see in others, you wonder if you would cope differently. Be braver? Fall apart? Stay or leave?

Ultimately Abi’s story is not a pity memoir but a true love story, just as it says on the cover. You will never know how you might react until it happens to you and I pray it never does, at least not as dramatically. It makes a good story but up close and personal is almost too much to bear.

Abi Morgan you have my full admiration.

Everyone else – go read this wonderful, honest, life affirming book and hold you loved ones just that bit tighter in gratitude.

Running up Those Stairs

As I sat in the dentist waiting room the other day I was astounded as I watched the dental nurse run up a flight a flight of stairs.

“I used to be able to do that” I thought to myself.

Part of me is mystified when I lost this super power but of course I know full well it went hand in hand a cancer diagnosis and life changing, life-saving op!

My current earworm is Kate Bush “Running up that Hill”, while never an ability or even an ambition of mine to go quite that far, running up a regular flight of stairs was always manageable.

The staccato sound of shoes on a hard floor or the muffled thud of slippers on carpet, carried out with the precision of a quick step in time to some unheard refrain.

            “I’d be running up that road

            Running up that hill

            With no problems”

Oldest son and I have just been away, for what has turned out to be our annual treat to see the end of year ATP tennis finals at the O2.

Oh boy there were a lot of stairs to climb.

Sometimes we relented and took the escalator, gliding to the next level with ease. But I want to push myself and get fitter, so we often took the stairs, not running, just walking, sometimes getting slower and slower until…

…there was a point where I just had to stop.

These were the stairs that took you to the highest level of seating. Once you start climbing there is no option to switch to the easy life. Other spectators floated past while I caught my breath and regained momentum.

It isn’t just a lack of fitness that makes me slow and steady, like the proverbial tortoise in the fable (always a favourite story of my youngest son).

My lack of pace also comes from Peripheral Neuropathy. An unwanted legacy of the chemo.

I literally, and I’m not kidding when I use that word, cannot feel my feet properly. They are in a perpetual state of tingly pins and needles.

Remember playing in the snow as a child, yes you might have had two pairs of socks on your feet and a thick pair of gloves on your fingers but if you are outside too long your extremities become numb. 

Oh how joyous it is to come inside and get warmed up. Feelings creeping slowly back into your fingers and toes. It happens so naturally you hardly notice.

Now imagine the feeling never comes back.

I have another earworm….

            “I feel it in my fingers

            I feel it in my toes…”

Only I don’t!

I carefully watch each step, knowing my legs work and are propelling me up or down but not entirely feeling when my feet land. I’m on autopilot.

In a way I guess it’s how amputees walk with prosthetic legs, trusting your own instinct.

It’s just something you get used to and maybe the nerve ending will repair themselves and the symptoms will ease over time. On the other hand, this might just be another permanent reminder of all that life has thrown at me.

There’s a bit of a campaign at the moment saying that not all disabilities are visible.You never know everything another person is battling.

I’m not after sympathy or a blue badge but hopefully I’ve given you an insight into what life after having cancer can be like for some. There are many varied symptoms of having poison pumped through your veins and most people just carry on, thankful to have another day before them.

As we were reminded, flashed up on a big screen at the tennis, 1 in 2 people will develop cancer over their lifetime.  Cancer research was the sponsored charity for this years’ event. I hope and pray they can find successful cures and treatment that is symptom free.

When the tennis was over, we negotiated more stairs, this time going down what appeared to be a never-ending spiral of concrete. Down an escalator to the tube, out the other end and then a weary walk to our accommodation for the night.

And then before bed – a final flight of stairs… hahaha

1st September

I can’t believe it’s already September! Where has this year gone?

Oh yes it was stolen from me by cancer and chemo, all my hopes and dreams, all I planned to do when I moved, new adventures, possibilities, travel and maybe even some romance!

Don’t I deserve it?

Well life is never fair and I am far too much of an optimist to be bitter.

There were times when I wasn’t so positive, after my initial diagnosis I pondered how my life could be curtailed early and all I would miss and leave behind. Especially when I was feeling so ill I almost wished it was the end.

But since chemo started, with each one ticked off my hope began to expand like air filling a balloon, breath by breath.

And now chemo is over, there’s no picc line sticking out of my arm – yipppeee!

Then last week I saw the consultant and he had my scan results – everything clear, I’m cancer free!

To be honest it was a bit of an anti-climax, it was after all what I expected. The operation got rid of all the nasty stuff, chemo was belt and braces.

So now September arrives full of new possibilities and beginnings as it always has. New things are always stirring as the autumn leaves start swirling on the wind, kids prepare to go back to school, or in my case now back to uni and this is finally MY time! 

A time of change as you can see in the garden with some plants wilting and dying in the heat of summerdays

Meanwhile my clematis has new flowers, 

the fuscia is still adorned with jewel coloured flowers and I've spotted new buds on the geranium.

It might feel like some time has been taken from me but perhaps there is a purpose, I’ve had time to consider what sort of volunteering I want to be involved in now I've moved, to really consider my options rather than rushing headlong into something.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that I am called to write, I need to make time for that, it has to be a priority. No more excuses and hopefully not too many distractions.

I want to travel and I would like some romance…. But I’ll consider that another day.

God has promised “I, the Lord your God will make up for the losses caused by those swarms and swarms of locusts.” Joel 2:25

I translate that as the first swarm taking my husband and second swarm part of my bowel!

I found this prayer  today from Mandy Hale, who goes by the name of The single Woman on Facebook. I guess mostly she is thinking about new relationships beginning and ditching the old ones but I think it can apply to so much more.

I'm making this my September prayer... as I positively step forward into a cancer and chemo free life. 

LOST

I’m not supposed to be here today, sat on my sofa watching TV, reading a few chapters of my book, faffing on my phone.

I’m supposed to be at a quiet day, a kind of retreat with some painting and reflection.

I was really looking forward to it. I rejoiced when I realised that postponing my chemo for a week when my bloods were low meant this day was free.

This morning I got ready and set off, the venue was a quiet country church, only a few miles away. I’d checked on Google maps last night. I like to think I have a good memory when it comes looking at maps and getting the location lodged in my brain. Left turn, right turn, where the local landmarks are.

But this morning driving along the narrow roads, I made 3 U turns believing I’d driven too far on each particular route.

I was lost, not totally or hopelessly lost, I still knew my way back home.

I could have stopped the car, got out my phone and refreshed my memory of exactly where to go, but instead I did turn round and come home.

Having chemo affects your brain, I can’t remember things like I used to.

Having chemo affects your sleep, your taste buds, your general wellbeing.

Having chemo affects your whole social life, one minute you are planning something you know you will enjoy and the next you are cancelling your plans and retreating to that safe space on the sofa.

My chemo should be finished this time next week, bloods permitting and barring any unforeseen circumstances.

It will be time to get my life back on track, this wonderful life I planned for once youngest son had half flown the nest and gone to uni.

But just like driving on narrow country roads looking for something that I’m sure should stand out proud I fear I may still be a little lost and what I’m looking for will remain obscured.

When I used to regularly go walking with a group of friends, there was always delight in spotting an arrow pointing the direction we should go in. Especially on a long hot excursion when we were longing for a scone and a cuppa!

Yes there were times we would explore and take the adventurous route for the joy of it, we’d laugh as we navigated our way over fallen trees, under branches, down steep slopes and precariously crossing streams on slippery rocks. It was all part of the fun.

Chemo is not fun, being lost is not fun, losing part of yourself is not fun.

I feel like I’ve been living in a haze, especially these last few weeks when the symptoms of chemo have cumulated transforming me into a slob moulded to fit the sofa!

OK. I’m being a bit harsh on myself there. I have actually achieved a great amount with moving only weeks before a major op. My new house is basically in order, all bar the paperwork but when was I ever on top of that since Andrew died?

Ah now that’s another loss, excuse me while we detour up a different path.

I’m an empty nester with a nest for one, I want to explore, to travel and while being on my own doesn’t bother me, I do quite like my own company. Sometimes it would be nice to share experiences with someone, to have memories to look back on together when we grow old!

Anyway back to the proper path, where was I? I’m not sure where I should be going….

Where is the signpost, which way do I take at the crossroads?

It’s alright taking one day at a time and doing all you can manage in a day, that’s been my regime for a while now, I no longer plan like I used to.

But not planning means not dreaming and my dreams have got dusty, to be honest some of them have got lost in the process of dealing with cancer and having treatment.

I know that surgery was successful in removing everything and the chemo is just a mop up, of the harshest kind, but until I see the oncologist and get the results of my latest scan you can only hope and pray.

When you go for a CT scan, in the machine a voice tells you to “breathe in and hold your breath”.

I’m just waiting for the line “and breathe”.

Then I shall consult my maps, dust off my dreams and plan something I can actually achieve – I don’t think it will be finishing the paperwork!

Maybe I’m not really lost. Perhaps I should see this as a detour and this new path will actually lead me to my destination, only time will tell…