Monday, 12 March 2012

YEUK.....a battleground

Difficult to describe and can't quite explain it - but that's how you feel as the chemo settles down to creating havoc in your body.   Of course I have no idea, but that's the best way I can describe it from talking to Ella.  My best guess (and it is a guess) - it's like having a "nasty virus" only much worse - your not yourself and nothing seems to really help.

It helped me to read an article in the Guardian Weekend Magazine this weekend


Cancer is a life-changer, not just for sufferers but for those who care for them, too. A friend, a husband and a mother share their stories

Its  along article - so if you don't want to read it - here is the paragraph that really hit home for me - written by the husband who was caring for his wife with breast cancer....

.....I heard this fatalism in the answer Danny Baker gave on Desert Island Discs to a question about his fight with throat cancer. "You don't fight cancer," he said. "You're the battleground. Science is fighting it. You're Normandy beach, Hastings in 1066." Baker was claiming to be a warzone and I understood why that was comforting: I am blasted heath, oh yes! I am nuclear winter, hoo hah! But I also knew this would be no comfort to Leila. She'd gone through months of chemotherapy, was looking at daily radiotherapy, and had now been told she should consider more surgery. She was ready to accept that it was science's war. But she was being zapped and cut and swilled with poison and, frankly, when the results seemed so uncertain, it was perverse to say: yes, life can be cruel and barren, bring it on!

4 comments:

  1. I read the articles on Saturday too, and obviously thought of Ella and all of you. And the battleground idea was the bit that stood out for me as well. I'm glad it helped. And there was me thinking it would have been nice for you to have had a bit of escapism instead at the weekend. Kate x

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  2. I have visited the Normandy beaches, the Hastings battle ground (at a place called Battle), Marston Moor, Culloden, Little Big Horn, Towton, Bosworth and many other battle sites. They are all peaceful fields (or beaches) these days with the hostilities long finished.

    Love, U Bob

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  3. Think a lot of us read that same article and thought of you.

    Anna and Mike x

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  4. Very moving, All my love Maisy x x

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