16 April 2024

‘And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.’ Ezekiel 34: 25-26

I’m sitting here in my chemotherapy chair trying to reconcile the fact that 24 hours ago I was throwing myself down the Wild Water Rapids at Centre Parcs with squeals of joyful exhilaration. I can’t, so I choose to go back into that world in my head with the help of photos and videos from what was the best weekend ever.

It was the perfect venue for a total escape from everything- I won’t say from reality, as this was its own wonderful reality for 3 days. It was exactly what I wanted for my 50th birthday present: our four children plus partners and of course little Jasper, just being together in the peaceful forest setting, with muntjacs and wildfowl the only extra visitors.

I was granted an extra week off treatment: chemo crash on my 50th birthday would have been more than miserable. It made me realise just what chemo does to the body as for that entire week I felt amazing: strong, fit, well: in a nutshell: NORMAL. Readers, if this is how you feel most of the time then take a moment to stop and appreciate what an absolute blessing and privilege that is. And I myself must realise- and was indeed absolutely aware of this all weekend- how incredible it is that I am even here, pain free and having fun, when there was serious doubt last year that I would even reach my landmark birthday.

I had readied myself for the fact that depsite feeling so well I still might have needed to pace myself in the huge swimming dome with its multiple water slides, preparing Isaac for the fact that I might be sitting out at times… but after the first day, Isaac said to me joyfully: ‘Mummy, you are doing EVERYTHING!’ It was true, I was tearing from pool to slide with the best of them, my legs being put through their paces with the multiple stairs but not a wobble in sight. The wild water rapids had a long list of contradictions but advanced cancer was for some strange reason not mentioned, can’t think why…. so down I went, many many times as it was everyone’s favourite thing by far. Whilst most of the water slides were for single riders, you can go down the rapids in a big group and get tangled together as much as you like: pure fun shared. My relative lack of padding meant that I accumulated huge new bruises each time I went down, but I didn’t care a jot, considering each a badge of honour.

The long weekend was packed with non-stop fun and activity: as well as swimming up to twice a day we rode our bikes, played mini golf and an interesting kind of tennis called Pickle Ball, had fun at the adventure playground (yes I got to the top of the climbing frame) and Steve and I spent a blissful few hours in the spa.

I’m going to make a radical statement: I don’t really like birthdays. I don’t like the focus being on me for a whole day (sharing my birthday with Ariane helps a bit with that), or the pressure for the day to be both special and perfect. My 50th birthday, however, was exactly that, being literally the best day ever from morning to night. Pastries and presents first thing, a blast in the pool, a game of Pickleball, lunch outside as it was the sunniest, warmest day of the year so far, a bike ride, ice cream, bar visit, adventure playground fun, dinner in Thetford at the most amazing steak restaurant, a crazy quick night swim tearing from slide to slide, then finally a log fire and birthday cake at 10 pm. Phew!

The icing on the (birthday) cake was the fact that my hair had kindly decided that it quite likes being on my head after all- or maybe it just fancied a weekend at Center Parcs flying behind me in the wind as I rode my bike. Either way, apart from a bit of thinning it was still very much with me, giving me more time to thrash through wig options and finally make a decision. I bit the bullet this weekend and after consulting with my girls ordered not one but four wigs. Yes, four. I had heard amazing things about an online wig shop called Wig Envy, set up by a very glamourous lady with hair loss who couldn’t find affordable wigs that looked and felt natural and stylish. For less than my wig allowance of £400 from the medical insurance (yes there is such a thing), I was able to order all of the wigs plus a lovely assortment of hats and head coverings. The hope with the wigs is firstly that one of them might be just right, but also that they will all be ok and I can choose my hair each day just as I would my clothes. The school run just got a lot more interesting… I will say no more until they arrive but one of the wigs is definitely a wild card…

The wig shop was recommended by people on a Facebook forum that I belong to called Living with Stage 4 Bowel Cancer. It is a group that no-one in it ever imagined they would be a part of; every few days a ‘newbie’ arrives, scared and bewildered, most of them blinking under the bright lights of a diagnosis come from nowhere. I was expecting most members of a group like this to be older men- isn’t that who gets bowel cancer? But no, almost everyone on the forum is a woman, many younger than me and some with very small children. At my first appointment with SuperProf, he looked at me in my purple dress and heels and stated: ‘There is something going on here’: meaning that he is seeing too many women of my age in this position. Statistics back this up: the fastest-growing group being diagnosed with bowel cancer are females under fifty… so why then do the NHS adverts proudly advertise their screening of 54-74 year olds? That’s not something I relish seeing when it pops up on my Facebook page…

But these are fearsome women. Women who don’t give up and who are arming themselves with knowledge and sharing this with others. Women who don’t let anything compromise their love and sense of duty towards their families. For this reason, it is a positve, encouraging forum to be a part of.

Just to confuse me entirely, today’s chemo is not in the Macmillan centre as last time but at the LOC itself a few doors down. It’s nicer I think: still a big room divided into bays but there is something more welcoming about it that I can’t quite put my finger on. It also has a very impressive set-up with the permanent presence of two doctors on the ward to ensure that all is well.

Things kicked off with the usual weigh in- impressively I have gained 7 pounds! I’d like to say that it was from all the healthy protein that I have been feeding myself, but probably has more to do with the restaurant meals, wine and cake of the last 2 weeks… Still two weekends of celebrations to go- maybe I will be back in my old clothes afterwards!

We had a consultation with SuperProf the day before we went away: he was as lovely and smiley as ever but it was an unwelcome reminder of everything I am dealing with and the seriousness of it. Prof urged that he will need to see some evidence that new drug Irinotecan is working, revealing that my tumour markers are ‘up a bit’ (I have stopped looking at my own bi-weekly blood results as it was becoming too stressful), but that this may well not mean anything at this early stage of treatment. Come on, Irene….

A situation as big as this is never without collateral damage… I received a panicked phone call from Steve this morning to say ‘Don’t drive the car, whatever you do!’ Too late, I had already run Isaac round to his friend’s house but the car seemed fine and hadn’t spontaneously combusted- whatever could be the problem? The problem was that Steve had only just realised that the MOT was well overdue; something that has never happened in our 30 years of owning cars and never would have happened before now… Not a massive issue, though, surely? Couldn’t we just rock up at a same-day MOT centre? We could have done, but for the fact that a stone hit our windscreen on the way to Centre Parcs and over the weekend a huge crack in the windscreen appeared, almost dissecting it in two. A certain MOT fail. It can’t be repaired until two weeks’ time so today’s task is sorting out a hire car…talk about coming down to earth with a bang…

But I am still buoyed up from the wonderful weekend and determined to build on how active I was and how much I enjoyed it by making a special effort to exercise even when the chemo is tough. And I have two more weekends of wonderful birthday celebrations to look forward to, the first one down in Dorset (yay, in a little hire car!). I have been so touched and overwhelmed with not just all of the kind birthday wishes, cards and gifts I have received but also the ongoing support and encouragement of family and friends- I can’t begin to express what a difference it makes. I was having a very difficult couple of days recently when a lovely friend appeared with these:

Keep shining I shall 🤩, whilst trusting and resting in God alone:

‘While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever’. Psalm 146: 2-6