If you’d come into my bedroom a few minutes ago you’d have seen a sixty-something woman, a little flabby, with a strangely tonsured half-bald head ringed by longish fine hair, lying flat on her back. My body is a little worn by chemotherapy right now and I’ve gotten into the habit of lying down for a brief rest after my bath or shower. I’m not eating a lot, and I get giddy. I’ve learned that I can’t afford to ignore the signs that my body needs a break – the tingle of neuropathic fingertips and toes, the mild nausea, the annoying little cough and the ever-present threat of an explosion in my bowels.
Sometimes I wake up feeling absolutely shitty and know it would be smart to stay in bed a while longer. But there are an increasing number of mornings like this, when I sense that my energy, though still very limited, is focussed on rebuilding my body rather than putting out fires. Those are generally good days.
But this isn’t meant to be a cancer blog. I can hardly avoid the elephant in the room, that a few months ago, out of the blue, I had a breast cancer diagnosis, got away with a lumpectomy but just squeaked through into the chemo-indicated cohort when four of my lymph nodes turned out to be affected. It’s been quite the ride.
Cancer or no cancer (and right now I’m cancer-free; this is all preventative) we have to start where we are. This morning I took a photograph of myself and realised that, for the first time in months, I looked confident and I was smiling. I’ll probably still cover up my head when I’m out and about but basically, I feel I can hold myself up in my neighbourhood, on the street, and in the coffee shop, which is close to the limit of my world just now. I probably always could, but I didn’t like the thought of arousing sympathy or pity. A lot of people misunderstand chemo. No shame in that, I was until recently one of them. They think you must be terminally ill to be going through something so unpleasant. Some people are, so tread carefully. But many, if not most, are going to be all right, at least for the foreseeable, and they are having it to improve their chances of surviving a few more years without a recurrence.
We’re all dying, to be honest. But for most of us, hopefully, not yet.
I’ve always been a reader, and an acquirer of large numbers of books. The two don’t always go together. You can’t venture into the literary blogosphere without coming across the acronym TBR (To Be Read). The dreaded TBR pile towers over many people who would describe themselves as avid readers, but perhaps more accurately as bookshop junkies. Lately, as I gaze around my groaning shelves, I realise that my TBR pile will probably outlive me unless I figure out how to read 12 books a week.
Do I really want that to happen? Do I (deep breath) actually want to read every book I ever bought, or was given? How many seemed like a good idea at the moment of purchase, maybe an entrance ticket into a world of smart people, or evidence that I really was taking my latest enthusiasm seriously? How many happened as a direct result of a tweet I happened to read, and felt subconsciously moved to respond to by purchasing?
Meanwhile, I haven’t stopped buying new books. But I have begun to do things differently, to choose them for different reasons and, rather than hoarding them, to read them soon after they arrive in my life. This is radical stuff, and it has a lot to do with my recent health challenges.
A while back, my attention started to shift to memoirs. I’ve read some belters this year and hope to discuss at least some in future posts. Some came into my life by chance, but most arrived via Substack and similar platforms. I would come across a blog that resonated with me, find out the writer had published, and check their work out. Or once or twice, I’d respond to one of their posts and they would be gracious enough to reply with a few suggestions, most of which I’d never heard of.
And then there was the old friend who showed up with a book about someone’s life being totally upended when first one of their children, and then their life partner, came out as trans. And I thought, oh God, not another of those books. And read it straight through, totally gripped, at one sitting. Yes, it changed me.
I’ve learned to trust people online. Well, some of them, the ones that just leave you with the feeling that a connection has started. I might not trust them all with my life, but I’ll certainly trust them with my next read. I’ve stopped trying to be clever or prove that I didn’t waste the £20 I splurged in a Waterstones 15 years ago after all. If I’ve moved on from a book, if it’s become a sunk cost, then fine, I’ll read something else.
Because one thing you learn very quickly with cancer. No, two. First, that life is precious. And secondly, that you only have a limited amount of time.