My Life truly is a Rollercoaster and would I have it any other way?

It's been a while since my last blog! It's hard this living in the moment thing in that when I'm feeling well(in relavtive terms)I'm determined to fill in every moment of living life and have no time to reflect and then when I'm not I'm too ill to get any thoughts straight!
My brain doesn't work so well these days either - many misspellings and forgetting or not pressing the space button hard enough as my fingers don't have full strength any more but my thoughts and feelings are still aplenty and it feels good to write my thoughts down whether someone reads them or not.
Feeling down today and very weak after having a very nasty reaction to antibiotics I was prescribed for my chesty cough which I feared was yet another chest infection but is probably just a virus.Whatever it was the same antibiotic that gave me a nasty reaction 9 years ago and should be on my medical records to avoid was given and I,desperate to get rid of yet another chesty,hacking cough,duly took the 3 doses only to wake up yesterday morning with the onset of an awful migraine followed by nausea,vomiting,diarrhoea which lasted a full 12 hours and was frightening,debilitating and lonely.
A good friend called in twice and was very helpful and fed and walked my dog but couldn't take the pain and fear away - I couldn't even keep down sips of water and as it was chemicals trying to get out of my body it was a very slow and agonising process.
The out of hours doctors service isn't great- it took an hour to get a call-back from NHS Direct with a very sympathetic guy - I was violently sick while on the phone and alone worried about the possiblility of dehydrating if I didn't stop vomiting which was now heading to the 12 hour mark since I'd begun!He then said I should ring the out of hours service in case it went on through the night but had to go through all my history yet again to the call handler and there and finally got a callback from a doctor another hour later when my friend had returned.As I hadn't vomited since the poor guy on the phone had had to listen to it I felt I was feeling more stable and able to sleep and the doctor said just to let it purge on through! Nice! Anyway I survived the night with no more incident although woke several times.Am feeling much better but very weak after not eating and barely drinking for over 24 hours.
It's the loneliness of illness alone that's the hardest to cope with even if you're not single and without family support like me.Even if you're surrounded by love as I am with my wonderful friends it's the helplessness of anyone to be able to take away the suffering.It is hard not to have that one special someone to be there whatever by your side unconditionally.I'm getting at better at saying mantras to myself like"it will pass", "you'll be ok again soon" but when you're too weak to even have a conversation or listen to anything as you feel too awful it just feel unending and you just feel like you'd prefer to be just put out of it somehow until your body recovers.With huge nausea and bad head it's hard even to sleep undisturbed and you just don't get any rest from it!I had a migraine only about a month ago. I get fed up and frustrated when my energy is so low as it is today and yet I know I need to rest - I have no choice at the moment!

Leaving low times I must record my incredible Olympic Torch adventure in Blaenavon,South Wales on Friday May 25th which was a glorious sunny day - hard to imagine looking out at this rain!
 This was such a joyous,uplifting proud day for me and so special and something I will always cherish. It wasn't so much the 2 completely spontaneous live interviews on BBC News 24 and BBC One news with Sophie Raworth which were thrilling and yet so hard to imagine the me from 4 years ago capable of just taking it all in her stride and enjoying it so much with no nerves at all but the best feeling for me was to have nearly 30 wonderful friends from all aspects of my life,the old and new life, all there cheering me on with so much love,enthusiasm and support! I felt like I could do anything that day and felt so priveleged and honoured and blessed to just be there at all!
I remember very well the day in 2005 when it was announced that London had won the Olympic bid for 2012 as we had a power cut in our village exactly at the moment of the announcement between us and Paris and only found out a little later that it was London! I was on the daily drug Tamoxifen at the time and supposedly "cancer-free"but living with the worry and uncertainty disabled me from enjoying what I had and worrying too much about what I might not have.
In 2009 after my life had completely turned upside down in 2008 with my secondaries being diagnosed and my beloved husband walking out and immediately beginning divorce proceedings,I was beginning to slowly put pieces of life back to get together which largely meant carving out a new life and a new me. I was chatting on the phone one beautiful summer's day that year (probably the only one we had but hey!)to D a wonderful friend I had made through my cancer journey through an internet forum. There had been about 6 of us on the same treatment for secondaries at the same time and we regularly posted to keep our spirits up or have a moan or rant when needed. I'd struggled to post at first after my husband left - feeling a failure for someone to be able to leave you when you'd been told you were going to die prematurely but gradually built up courage and people were incredibly supportive even towards my husband too realising how hard it is for the partner but as relations worsened and it was clear he wasn't coming back and was actively making things horrendously difficult D in particular was great with me and in her strong Mancunian accent told me to forget about him and move on with my life as bleak as it seemed at the time. D and I started to talk about the Olympics to be in 3 years time. She knew that summer 2009 was likely to be her last summer and spoke bluntly but not resentfully that she knew she wouldn't live to see them (which sadly turned out to be true as she sadly died in December 2009)and I truthfully didn't believe for one minute that I would be either but promised her that if I was I would be there for both of us! The memory of that chat and her personality (I only actually met her once but "knew" her online over several years)are still very much in my heart today. She was a very strong and feisty woman and said things as she saw them - very bluntly - but with a capacity to laugh,joke and smile through the most awful of sufferings. Her very descriptive,no holds barred posts just made you laugh out loud but also cry at the amazing ability to inject humour into the darkest of times.
I wasn't able to apply for tickets with the way the system was so I won't be going to any events but much better than that I held that Oympic Flame for 5 minutes and it was the most incredible day of my life just to be able to say I'm here, I'm alive and I've shared in an amazing moment of history.
I will be in London (health permitting!)3 times during the Olympics and will be able to breathe in some of the atmosphere and buzz I would have wanted to escape pre-cancer! I will be singing in 3 Proms at the Royal Albert Hall with the BBC National Chorus of Wales which again is something I never imagined as I don't consider myself as a singer at all but the feeling of being a small cog in the big community wheel of a choir is truly uplifting.
I will always be indebted to Breast Cancer Care for nominating me and supporting me throughout the nearly 10 years I've lived with this disease and hope for many more to come.
I don't know how to thank my friends but they know who they are and that their part in my life however big or small they feel it is helps me truly every day.
Thanks to the generosity of special friends I am the proud owner of the very torch I carried that amazing day.

It's my own Olympic Gold!

Smoke and Mirrors!

After my New Year's resolution to regularly update my blog I find a third of the year has gone by already! I had been planning to write for ages - I find it hard to want to put down my thoughts when I don't feel so good - I quite often can't think straight at all when my batteries run down which is happening more frequently and I just don't have time when things are good and I'm rushing around fitting in years worth of living into a short space of time in case time runs out! I had come up with the title a while back as I feel that characterises how I am currently living my life and how I cope with the constant uncertainty and fragility of my health by conjuring up excitement,glamour,fun,humour,culture and spending as much time enjoying company of great old and new friends in order to distract myself and those around me from the constant drain of living with terminal cancer which I am never truly able to forget totally for one second. I have always been a cheerful soul by nature - my family nicknamed me "Laughing Anne" when I was small and I was visiting my mum last week and rummaging through old photos and childhood memories and school reports acknowledged my cheerful demeanour and chatty(too much so for some teachers!)disposition despite my disorganisation!! I like to see the best in people and life and look for the good in everything I do and see corny as that may sound. I feel I have inherited this in part from my beloved father who sadly died of prostate cancer when I was 15. He was also very positive through his illness and I'm sure that helped him to cope with the situation. However,being constantly positive can be a strain and just is not possible all the time. I do struggle to admit when I'm finding things tough. I know that I'm very fortunate to have had stable scans for over 3 years now and I look so well and happy most of the time. However,every day I face side effects due to the treatment past and present keeping me alive and keeping the cancer at bay at present. I face a lot of side effects experienced by people in the 60s plus like aching joints,short-term memory and concentration loss,menopausal symptoms and just often generally feeling much older than my years which is hard to square up to at 42 and yet all the time I am just also so grateful to be here nearly 10 years after original diagnosis when I have lost many friends during that time to this awful illness.Moaning doesn't come naturally to me but it does irritate me hearing people moan about such trivial things when I very occasionally mention my discontent of having a crap immune system - this was at a time during the winter when I was constantly ill with bugs,colds,chest infections for 6 months and someone I considered to be a friend said that I should be grateful I've been "so well" for so long referring to my "clear" scans!!I hadn't seen them for ages and I do realise that there is a lot of ignorance around cancer and I don't blame people for that but honestly I think I should be allowed a small rant from time to time! I am not "clear" and never will be - it's just that the 9 months of intensive weekly chemo and biological agent I had in 2008 whilst going through a most acrimonious unexpected divorce (nice timing!)plus the daily hormone drug and 3 monthly hormone injections, which have plunged me straight into the menopause and give countless daily side-effects and undoubtedly have cause some brain damage as my cognitive function has definitely been compromised, are keeping the disease at bay for the moment but is highly likely to relapse at any time. People sometimes comment about the amount of holidays and adventures I have had as if my life is just all fun - this is rarely real friends but people who don't realise what lies beneath my smiling face and the battle my body is constantly up against. I always think to myself "Well - my cancer unfortunately never goes on holiday - I wish it would but it comes with me everywhere I go!!". I went to Sicily alone to celebrate my birthday a year ago in February to return to the great Italian language school I'd been to a few months earlier. I'd gone with the remainder of a cold I'd had since the December and had just got over 2 chest infections and unfortunately as soon as I got there and unfortunately found myself in a very cold unheated appartment another chest infection took hold and I was racked with coughing every morning and knew I should really go to the doctor but was worried about being put into hospital and ruining the holiday so I soldiered on having antibiotics with me and made the best of it and still had an amazing time. I like to feel as "normal" as possible so like to keep as anonymous as I can about my illness. I will tell people if I feel comfortable and if appropriate but generally like to distract myself from the cancer as much as I can as it's with me always! I hadn't meant this post to be downbeat but have just been feeling a bit down as I'm having more of what I call my "crash days" between 1 and 6 days a week!!My problem is that I have limited energy but I put it all into everything I do and it gets depleted more quickly than I would like and when it depletes I have literally nothing left and just walking to the bathroom from my bed takes a major effort and I regularly get migraines and bad headaches.I tend to just have to "hibernate" when this happens and just rest up as best I can with my wonderful dog Bass as my loyal companion and then when energy returns I go out and face "my public" once more to enjoy the next adventures. I have had lots of amazing adventures and experiences already this year and am very excited to have been nominated by Breast Cancer Care to carry the Olympic torch in the relay on 25th May. This will be very challenging for me to have enough stamina for the day but will be a most memorable and wonderful experience for me and all my family of friends. Without the tremendous support and love I receive from those around me I don't know how I would cope so I'm truly grateful to you all.

Happy New Year!

I can't quite believe that 2 years have gone by since my last post!Reaching my 40th birthday felt such a milestone that I never thought I'd reach that now fast-approaching 42 seems miraculous and yet I've got such a lust for life these days I don't want to think of any end to it!
Since my last post I've been in not just one but 3 fashion shows,been to Greece and Italy on wonderful holistic,life-affirming and enriching courses,studied at an Italian language school in Sicily twice and returned there a 3rd time for a holiday last July and discovered a place there where I feel really at home and welcomed there.I've given speeches about my experiences with breast cancer in front of many people including many health professionals and politicians to try and raise awareness of the lack of support for secondary breast cancer patients. I've very much reignited my passion for music and the arts and have been to many operas,concerts including the thrill of seeing Elton John live! I did an audition on a whim for the BBC National Chorus of Wales in June and was pleasantly surprised to get in and amazed that I found myself just a month later singing in my first concert with them which just happened to be the wonderful Verdi Requiem in the Royal Albert Hall at the Proms - something I never dreamed I do especially in the last few years! I also went along with my most promising pupil to the famous(in the piano world) international piano summer school at Chethams Music School in Manchester last August which was a long wished-for dream just to go to Chethams at all. I have had many friends who studied there as children and when I was young I always dreamed of studying there and never thought I would ever be good enough. I loved the summer school and love playing the piano again with much more confidence and passion for the music than I ever did when I was practising and playing several hours a day but full of self-doubt,nerves and fear of failure when I was both studying and a young professional! My pupil loved it too which was great! I was so inspired by the course I have continued practising more when I feel up to it and entered a competitive piano festival in London in May and was amazed and thrilled to win 4 classes and I so enjoyed the experience.

I have met and made lots of interesting and wonderful new friends especially those whose lives have also been touched by breast cancer and have deepened friendships with my closest longer-term friends.
I joined another social activities group 18 months ago which has greatly affected my life and been really good for me. It's run for the members by the members and events from pubnights to trips to the theatre are put or "hosted" by members themselves. I have been able to "put on" lots of cultural events and it has given me so much pleasure to introduce others to the delights of classical music,dance and the theatre and for me to experience new things to me too.
I have been particularly lucky to have met someone who has become very special in my life and I have learned to love again and experience feelings I never expected ever to experience again. We both have our own lives and both like our independence and own interests but I that we have a very special bond that I believe will never be broken whatever should happen in the future and we have learned and continue to learn so much from each other and about life.
As the clock strikes midnight I must leave this party before I turn into my pumpkin! I like to accentuate the positive so in this first post after 2 years I'll leave it there as a catch-up of the very positive experiences I have had since my last post of Jan 2010!