The beauty of sharing...

Often, we are too slow to recognize how much and in what ways we can assist each other through sharing knowledge.


Owen Arthur

After children messing around with my laptop I have had to spend some time fixing things, I have now been forced to create a new blog so I updated it a bit. Anyway, it was interesting to read my previous posts and reminded me of how changeable I can feel. I guess that is the nature of the beast.

I have a few things I want to say in this post. Firstly, I had wonderful news at the clinic last week. I knew that my tumours had shrunk and I previously blogged about it. However it was even better news when my consultant told me that the tumours were now so small that it would be difficult to give an accurate size of them. What a feeling. I am currently on a 3 week break and then I will return to clinic for fortnightly chemo. I am very grateful to my doctor for her attention to individual care. This is not a standard procedure but it is one that she thinks will benefit me and so she is willing to try it. She is the kind of person  that we hope they all are, this sadly is not the case.

On that note I would also like to talk a little bit about my care over the past 2 and a bit years. I have already highlighted my negative experiences with the hope of alerting others to incompetence and I blogged about my response to my formal complaint. The response was quite simply inadequate and lets be honest an insult at that. I therefore decided to take it further. I telephoned a number of weeks ago to say that I was not satisfied with the response and could they tell me how to go about taking this to the Ombudsman. Interestingly at this point I was offered an opportunity to meet with someone to sit down and discuss my concerns. I will happily do so. The appointment should be in the next few weeks. In the meantime I have been given the chance to share my story more widely through a national newspaper, and hopefully help others going through or potentially going through this illness. This will basically highlight NHS incompetence and like this blog, it will pass on information for others who may not end up with incurable cancer as a result. I am delighted by this. Speaking at length about my journey for this article was in some ways a bit difficult. We of course talked in practical terms about my life expectancy etc. and in these moments I am reminded of my illness and what I am living with. I generally don't give in to that but of course the fact remains that my life will be cut short. I feel that I live within 2 minds. One sees my situation as manageable and filled with many positive aspects. It is this mind which doesn't believe in statistics, nor give in to them. It lives one day at a time and tries hard to enjoy each one of them. The other prepares for the worst and organises a will and worries about Olivia. Thankfully I tend to spend most of my time in mind number 1, but I have my moments.

On a really positive note I am going for a week of sunshine next weekend as I have a break from chemo. I am truly looking forward to this. In particular I am keen to get some sun as my joints are sore just now. The chemo attacks joints and cold or damp weather affects this further. Living in Scotland and being on lifelong chemo aren't such a great combination.. But hey, my tumours cannot be measured, a bit like my optimism some days, so I won't complain.