Exciting Times

 I was out in the garden early yesterday checking the birds and Todd is looking very happy. He still can only fly up to a low branch and then gradually make it up to a higher one but he spends a lot of time walking around on the floor of the aviary eating the seed I have put down there for him but surprisingly he has really taken to Dottie our rescue dove. He tries to sit next to her all the time and flaps his little wings hopefully, quite clearly thinking she may be able to feed him. She tolerates him sitting next to her but looks a bit bored by the whole thing. It has made me wonder if we have made a mistake and she isn't actually a white dove but a white pigeon. Apparently they are specially bred for release at weddings and funerals but still many of them never make it home. We have always commented that she and Del, the dove we bought to keep her company just ignore each other, both seem very happy, they just don't interact. What ever the ins and outs of pigeon or dove breeds, and I am amazed at how many different breeds of domestic pigeons there are when you look into it, Dottie is definitely giving Todd more confidence as he gets used to being independent so that has to be a good thing. 

I had my telephone consultation with the Royal Marsden yesterday morning and the thyroglobulin levels from my blood test hadn't come back yet. This is the marker to shows if there are any thyroid cancer cells circulating in the body. All the other results were normal and the doctor told me they have no reason to believe there will be anything wrong but I will just have to wait a little while longer to know for sure all is OK. 

Of course there is one other exciting piece of news. England won! They are through to the final on Sunday playing Italy. I'm not quite sure how that will play out in eldest daughters home as her partner is Italian but it should be a brilliant game! I could hear the little girl and boy next door singing "Football's Coming Home" all evening before the match and I felt so happy for them. Eldest son was only four and in the nursery part of the school in the Euros of 96 when the song came out and he says he can still remember the excitement of singing it with his friends. I remember so clearly the World Cup final in 1966 and the excitement of everyone in the country. I had a little World Cup Willie toy I loved. I wonder where that is now, it's probably worth a fortune! Win or lose what happy memories are being made for children all around the country. It has given everyone a real lift after such a bad 18 months.

Scarlett is coming this morning and I'm looking forward to hearing all about her day at school and as Tom is off too he will be able to spend some time with her. I hope everyone has a lovely day what ever you are doing. xx

A Lost Family

 I went to The Royal Marsden Hospital to have my routine six monthly blood test first thing yesterday morning. It is such a wonderful place and so perfectly run. When I first got my Royal Marsden letter three and a half years ago I left it on the coffee table unopened all day. I didn't want to open it, I didn't want to go there at all. When I finally did open it and of course go to my appointment I was so surprised at how different it was to what I expected. It almost didn't feel like a hospital it's so friendly. It's not just the feel of the place though, they dealt with each problem in such a matter of fact way and organised way. I really trust them and as soon as I walk in I feel as though I am among friends. Hopefully I will be told my blood results are fine when I have my appointment next week, but if they aren't I'm sure any problems will be dealt with in their usual professional way. 

It was quite a coincidence, as I mentioned a while ago a young woman had contacted me to say some family had found two large framed photos from around the 1920s in their loft when they moved into a house in Shirley near Croydon. They contacted the previous owners who weren't interested in them and a local history society who didn't want them either. After an internet search this young woman found my Photo Archive website and asked if I would like them. Of course I was thrilled, it is just the sort of thing I put on the website all the time, forgotten photos that no one knows what to do with. She emailed me this week to say she had an appointment nearby and would drop them off yesterday. When she arrived with them she told me she was on her way to The Royal Marsden, which is just up the road, to have chemotherapy which she was receiving for cancer she was diagnosed with last November. I told her I had been there that morning and we had a little chat about it all, she was so young and kind and I couldn't get over she was taking the trouble to bring these photos round while she was in the middle of her treatment. I wished her all the best with her treatment but told her in my experience she was being treated in the best place in the world. Sometimes fate can make you meet someone in your life, just fleetingly, but you feel all the better for having met them.

I spent an hour yesterday taking the backs of the photos and giving them a good clean. They are enormous! Sadly there is no way yet to identify the photos but the photographer was in Peckham. I love them! I think the family look almost theatrical, definitely different with lots of character. I copied them while they were out of their frames so I can add them to the website. 

It turned into such a lovely afternoon, I managed to get a few jobs done in the garden. The little fox cub was round and about again. It seems rather sad to see him on his own all the time, with no siblings. In the evening when I was putting things away, he (or she) was asleep on our neighbours shed, no doubt sleeping off his evening meal we had put out earlier.  

Of course there's another big game tonight. Poor Tom is on a late duty and will miss it all, driving an empty bus around all evening, in the rain apparently, while everyone else is watching it. Have a lovely day everyone what ever your plans and I hope you manage to avoid the rain. xx

Pre-Preparing Vegetables For Quick Warm Veggie Meals

I stopped eating meat 12 years ago. We decided, after years of keeping quail, we wanted to start keeping chickens. We read up about all they needed, set up our chicken coop and run and drove to get our ex battery rescue chickens. It was so exciting we couldn't wait. We drove to a big barn on a farm miles away, where the charity had put hundreds of chickens to be chosen from, with our boxes and donation money. We walked into the barn and I looked around at these poor creatures and the state they were in and I said "I am never eating meat again" and I haven't, not a mouthful. I never criticise anyone for eating meat it is entirely their choice but I knew at that moment it was not for me. 

I used to eat fish a lot but a few years ago had to go on an iodine free diet in preparation for treatment for thyroid cancer. I wasn't allowed fish, dairy, eggs, any type of prepared processed meal, take aways or even chocolate. I could have two pieces of dark 70% cocoa chocolate a day, it was hardly worth the effort! I moaned and moaned and practically went into withdrawal, but then strangely after two weeks I suddenly realised I had got used to it and on this diet of vegetables, beans, pulses and rice I was feeling incredibly well. I haven't kept it up strictly, and I admire committed vegans who are able to, but I have drastically altered the main staples in my diet since then and feel all the better for it.

As my diet has such a high fresh vegetable content, the best bit of advice I read was to prepare the food in advance. If I have some spare time at the beginning of the week I wash and prepare all the vegetables for several days and I store them in plastic containers in the fridge ready for use. How many times did I used to plan to have butternut squash or the like and then at the end of a busy day at 6 o'clock faced with a pile of vegetables to work through think I can't be bothered I'll have something else, always less healthy. Once they are prepared in the fridge it is no bother at all just to put them on. On these cold days, it's so much nicer to eat something hot for my lunch and nice for them to be already prepared. I usually have omelette and roast veg or often just roast veg with some bread. There's nothing nicer than mopping up the warm olive oil and garlic at the end with a chunk of bread.

At the same time I add more prepared vegetables in the slow cooker so they are ready to make another veggie meal in the evening.  I have a large slow cooker for the rest of the family to have their meat meals in and this little one for my vegetables. I have so many quick vegetarian meals I make once the vegetables are all cooked. Sometimes if I tell people I am a vegetarian they say, that sounds like too much hard work! I always think to myself it's the meat meals I make for the rest of the family that are hard work!

If ever there was a day I needed hot meals it was yesterday. It was freezing! I spent so much time walking around with buckets of warm water. I will be glad when the hose pipe defrosts and I'm already planning setting up some sort of new system, running the hose along the edge of the garden and lagging it to try and stop this happening in the future. It was so cold last night apparently the coldest night for 15 years. I'm just grateful for my warm house and feel so much for the people who haven't got one. Have a lovely day everyone and I hope you can keep warm. xx

Dipping In And Out

 I keep doing something, that really frustrates me when I find it on the internet! I do a google search for some piece of information and then am taken to a blog. The writer covers something I am very interested in or need to know and I am thrilled to have found it. I keep reading, "This is just what I was looking for! " I think. This writer with a bantam with a sore foot, a pear tree with orange spots or even a new diagnosis of cancer covers just the problem I have. Then it stops. I look at the date March 1918. What happened next I wonder. Did the bantam recover, the pear tree survive or even the writer survive? It happens all over the internet, so frustrating and I am a culprit too. 

The problem is I find very painful times hard to write about and then just as hard to re read. I think to myself I'll have a little break to recover and then the habit is broken. I post quite often on instagram and keep in touch with some of my dear blogging friends on there, but the writing habit is something, most of the time, I find incredibly relaxing. I sometimes think I should start a new blog. I turned 60 last year and have such plans. Maybe not for the moment but definitely for the future. Then yesterday I suddenly thought why start a new blog? Why not revisit my old one. I always feel I owe it to anyone who stumbles across my blog with a new diagnosis of thyroid cancer. That terrible time when you world is caving in and you are searching and searching for some sort of reassurance. I can now be that little bit of reassurance and I think if only for that reason I shouldn't start a new blog but update this one. 

It's all progressing very nicely. I am having six monthly out patients appointments at the Royal Marsden. They had put me on yearly but after a few problems with symptoms like palpitations due to fluctuating thyroid levels I was put back to six monthly. The Royal Marsden at Sutton, I think, are the most wonderful people in the world, I have complete trust in everything they say.. I always say now that from something that seemed so terrible my cancer diagnosis actually turned out to be a blessing as it has made me appreciate every single day. 

Even in these difficult times it has helped me look on the bright side. I keep thinking I have got through so much I'm not letting this ruin Tom and my plans for when he retires. I keep planning and thinking and try to end each day with a positive thought of something that has happened during the day. We all had coronavirus last April. Tom who started working back on the London buses a few months earlier, caught it first, then me, then my youngest son and daughter. Feeling incredibly ill, we all had to drive to Brighton to be tested. It was very early days of testing and even in my weakened state I thought I could have written a sit com episode about the day! With positive test results and a day we still laugh about I suppose it is all part of the tapestry of life! There are still so many things to enjoy in each day. Never have I felt the early signs of spring in our garden offer more hope than this year.

   I have lots of things to share and will keep dipping in and out. If I am not posting I would love it if any visitors popped over to instagram (link in the side bar) to see how I am doing. Even if there are absences, as a famous person once said, I'll be back! xx

Alive and Kicking

"I haven't written a blog post for months!" I said to me eldest daughter the other day. "They are going to think you have died" she replied. Oh no how dreadful. Imagine if someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer googles "Follicular Thyroid Cancer" and finds my blog, then comes to the same conclusion. It couldn't be further from the truth I'm very much alive and kicking! I remember those first days after diagnosis you feel so desperate and worried and cling to stories of people who have recovered and skim through the the other stories praying that won't be you.Well for any person who is in that situation I will tell you how things have been going.
    The last time I wrote about my thyroid cancer I was just starting the treatment at the Royal Marsden after my two operations. Luckily with thyroid cancer you don't usually need chemotherapy but have Radioactive Iodine Therapy. The hardest part for me was the diet I had to go on for two weeks before the treatment. No dairy or fish and as I don't eat meat anyway, I had to become totally vegan. No chocolate either at least I could drink wine!  I had to go to the Marsden for two days before admission for injections and in June I went in for the treatment.
  "How long will I be in solitary confinement?" I asked the doctor. He visibly flinched. "We like to call it isolation." he answered. I felt like saying I'm in a room on my own, with no visitors or staff members allowed in and my food is passed through a flap in the door, in my view that's solitary confinement! The treatment was fine though, I had a lovely little room with a TV and I took my laptop in even though it did have to be wrapped in cling film! I had a full body scan before I was discharged and had restrictions as to who I could be close to for five days.
   The worst day for me was going back to get the results of the scan two weeks later to see if the cancer had spread. In your life you imagine pictures of the future, weddings, grandchildren, family get togethers and in my mind I was there in the pictures as an old person. In the months after my diagnosis suddenly those pictures were hard to imagine. I may not be in them. As I sat waiting for the results I thought what ever happens I will try to make the best of it all, no point making a fuss, but I was very nervous and had wanted to be on my own, I didn't want to have to worry about anyone else's feelings but my own at that moment. When the doctor came in smiling and told me the scan was all clear it was incredible. Like Marty McFly in "Back To The Future" I could instantly see myself appearing back in the pictures!
   Being diagnosed with cancer has definitely been a positive experience for me. Every day I wake up and if I feel a bit down I think "Stop it. you are alive and have a life!" I enjoy every day now and think I always will. That has been the main reason I haven't been able to write my blog really. I have been doing everything I ever fancied doing! Weekends in our caravan, trips into London, Highclere Castle. meet ups with old friends and afternoon teas. I try not to waste any day. If it is just a quiet day working and pottering in the garden I  love it. I look at my little garden and the flowers and think how lucky I am. Oh and then there is the new puppy! What fun she has been. If there is anyone still hanging on in there with me, I will try over the next weeks to fill you in a bit on what has been going on. Here is a photo of our little 70's time warp caravan until the next post when I'll share some more photos of her.

 

Dreaming Of White Horses!

Thank you for all the brilliant ideas about fixing my Robert's radio in the last post. My Dad has taken it to the little electrical shop near where he lives. It is the same electrical shop that sold our Ferguson radiogram all those years ago although it has changed hands about ten times. They have said they will look at it so I'm hoping they may be able to sort it out.
  Sooze made a comment saying how much she loved the song White Horses that was popular at the time. So did I, in fact I loved anything to do with horses or ponies as a child. Dreaming of White Horses was how I spent years in the 1960s.  I was pony mad and read every book I could about little girls owning ponies or pony care books for children. I knew every piece of equipment I would need ready for when the time finally came. If I wasn't reading about ponies I was galloping around the house or garden singing the theme from White Horses pretending I was actually riding one. I bought this Music For Pleasure Surprise Surprise childrens 7" single at the local newsagents with my pocket money and practically wore it out playing it over and over again.

   These children's 7" singles were quite popular at the time and many songs in the charts had cover versions (some pretty dreadful to be honest) which sold in local shops at pocket money prices. They had a colour in picture on the back which I had not coloured in, rather surprisingly, as I loved colouring. Maybe I was just too busy galloping about!

   Sadly the closest I got to owning a pony or horse was my Troll horse who I called Danny Boy. I wonder what happened to him? I played the White Horses record yesterday and all the memories came flooding back. I was singing it all day. I still haven't given up all hope of my pony, I just don't gallop about anymore when I think of it!  Just to put the song in the head of anyone else who remembers it you can listen to the theme of the White Horses programme here.

   There is something really reassuring about this song, it takes me back to summer holidays as a child when days seemed so carefree. I have an appointment at the Royal Marsden Hospital later today to discuss my treatment which starts next month and if I feel a bit stressed while I'm waiting I may just put my headphones in my phone, listen to it and gallop off on a white horse in my mind!

Coping With Hair Loss

When I was told I had thyroid cancer one of the first things that worried me was having chemotherapy and losing my hair. I hope that doesn't sound shallow but I did think I would hate it. I know I would have coped and probably cracked jokes about it, but I did worry. However when the treatment was explained to me, I will be having Radioactive Iodine therapy. I may be radioactive for a week and my family joke I will glow in the dark when I walk the dogs but it is just swallowing a tablet, being in isolation for a while and maybe suffering nausea. The worst thing I can think of for me is loneliness as I miss my family so much when I am away from them.
  Today I have learned that my cousin's daughter in law is shaving her head as she has lost half of her hair in a very short time. This is not because of chemotherapy but due to auto immune disease. The hair loss has been very rapid. Chloe is a beautiful young woman, the sort of beautiful young woman who would still look beautiful bald, but I bet she doesn't feel like that in low moments. The way she has coped, with dignity and humour, is really humbling. Chloe is trying to raise money for Alopecia UK. Anyone who has been affected in any similar way by the same condition may like to read her story here.
 
  It has been a beautiful day today and my youngest daughter and her boyfriend met friends for the afternoon in St James's Park. On the weather forecast this evening they said it was one of the warmest places in London at 17°C Lucky them. We managed to take the dogs for a walk in the local park this evening . There was a beautiful sunset while we were there I really hope that is the promise of another lovely day tomorrow.

The New Normal

I have got into the habit lately of saying "We''ll do that when everything is back to normal." "We'll go there when all this is behind us." I had my first appointment at The Royal Marsden Hospital this week and was thinking it when I was on the way there. I was quite nervous about the appointment but I shouldn't have been it was a really nice place and everyone was so friendly and kind. I was sitting in the consulting room waiting for the consultant and staring at a print that was on the wall. It was of a wildflower meadow with a stile leading through to a field. It was such a pretty picture I imagined myself running through the meadow, jumping over the stile and walking across the field with my dogs. I'll do that when all this treatment is over I thought.
   I had a long chat with the consultant who explained all the treatment I would have. None of it sounded too terrible but what shocked me was the length of time it was all going to take. I would be having regular blood tests and scans after the treatment and if my blood levels change I may need more treatment. After five years I will not be monitored so often. Five years! That was a long time to wait to run through a wildflower meadow and jump over a stile!
   It has made me realise you can't wait for life to get back to normal, what ever that is. This is my normal now, my new normal. You can't waste any time in life by not doing the things you want to do. I have decided I am not waiting for a date in the future to do the things I want to do. I'm going to do them now in between the scans and the treatment and enjoy every minute. Well I'm off now to look for a meadow to run through and a stile to jump over!

Sitting By My Window

I want to thank people so much for the kind comments left on my last post about my Mum. I still feel a bit too emotional to answer them all but they have meant so much to me. It is incredible to think of people, I have never met, all over the world who have thought of us and left such kind comments. I can't say how much it has helped.
   It was a beautiful sunny day last week, when we said goodbye to Mum, abnormally warm and sunny for a February day which was so fitting. All our family came together from all over the country and it was a lovely day, a true celebration of her life. As we drove away from the house behind the hearse with her wicker coffin covered in roses and spring flowers all I could hear was her little friend the robin singing it's heart out in the hedge. It was so comforting.
  Unfortunately this week I had to go straight into hospital and have the rest of my thyroid, lymph nodes and another parathyroid gland removed. It couldn't have come at a worse time but they had already put it off for two weeks for me so I just had to get on. As I sat in bed looking out over a part of London I don't know at all I felt miles from home and spent the whole week thinking of sitting looking out of my own window. Here I finally am, it is just a bit of a mundane view but to me today it looks like heaven on earth. The operation done, I know I have to get the results and deal with anything else but this stage is out of the way and I have willed this moment to come all week. It's freezing and for anyone outside I hope you are wrapped up warm but I will sit and recuperate for a while. I have a swollen neck, croaky voice and feel a bit weak but I don't really care, I am just happy to be home!

What A Difference A Year Makes!

Never has that been a more true statement than in my life. I have not written a blog post here for just over a year. My Mum was re-addmitted to hospital just after my last post and we were back to weeks of visits and stress. That was the first of several admissions over the year and although she is back home now she is so much frailer and every little health problem seems to turn into a health crisis. It's been heartbreaking to see my poor old dad struggling on.

I managed through all of this with lots of health problems I tried to ignore until in July, when I was putting sun tan lotion on, I felt a large lump in my neck. I went to see my GP the next day and it all started. Months of scans, X Rays, biopsies in between hiding it all from my Mum and Dad.  I didn't want to worry them even though I was constantly being told it was highly unlikely to be cancer. I was finally admitted to hospital for an operation in October only for it to be cancelled as I was waiting to be taken down due to such abnormal blood results. In November I was back in and had half of my thyroid gland, a parathyroid gland and a lymph node removed. To be honest the operation was no were near as bad as I thought it would be and within a few weeks had recovered from the surgery but still these aching symptoms remained.

On the 3rd of January I finally received the diagnosis I have Follicular Thyroid Cancer. It was a shock and I have been told I will need more surgery and treatment. "If I had to have a cancer" my consultant said "I would choose this one." I felt like saying "Well you can have it mate! I don't want it." But I can't, so it's a case of getting on with it. I know so many of my old friends in blog land have been through so much in similar circumstances so I have decided to record my progress and if I can help one person with a similar diagnosis it will have been worth it. It will be a pleasure catching up with old friends. I wish I had returned sooner I have a feeling it would have helped me on dark days.

I changed my profile photo as although I am still a nostalgic person I feel at the moment it is about looking forward not back. The photo was taken at last year's visit to the Smallholders fair in July. Just a few days before I felt the lump. I'm hoping this July Tom and I will be back there and will take a new photo, scars and all! Here we were looking so happy.

It's not all doom and gloom though, we never lose our sense of humours no matter what! I have a lovely new Granddaughter called Scarlett to write about and have made more contact with my 13 year old Granddaughter from my eldest son's previous relationship and I can't tell you how happy that makes me. As a family we still laugh at everything and I have made "It is what it is" our family motto I think I shall get it translated into Latin and put it on a plaque!