MarySmith’sPlace – #SilentSunday #ThreaveCastle #Photography
Month: April 2021
MarySmith’sPlace – Cancer Diary#32 #earring #lost&found
Sunday, 18 April: I recently told the world how devastated I was when I lost one of a pair of earrings gifted by my friend Sue Vincent. As always, the response was overwhelming with many people sharing heart-warming stories of treasures lost and found, hopes, wishes, prayers and practical tips for finding the earring.
One friend, jeweller Amanda Hunter, said she’d try to make a replacement for me if I sent her the remaining earring and another, retired farmer (they never actually do retire, though!) John Nelson said he’d bring his metal detector round.
Around 4.30pm on Friday John appeared with the metal detector. Until I lost a tiny earring I’ve always thought of my garden as being small but it suddenly looked dauntingly enormous.
I showed John where I’d been mainly working the day the earring was lost and I’d even kept two black sacks of grubbed up things instead of putting it all in the compost bin. I was convinced if the earring was going to be found it would be in one of those black sacks. It wasn’t.
It was much later when John said he’d do one last sweep along a gravel path. I couldn’t believe it when he said: “There it is.” And there it was, just lying on top of the gravel. I’d walked over the path several times since I lost the earring and I’d sat on the tree stump (old apple tree that had honey fungus), scarcely a foot from where John found it, drinking my coffee and didn’t spot it.
In normal circumstances, I’d have hugged him – in pandemic mode I could only repeat my thanks over and over while remaining socially distanced. Something like this really brings home how strange the world in which we live has become.
Both earrings are sitting on my desk as I type this. I can still hardly believe the lost one is back again. What were the odds of finding it? I really have no idea. I think it was pretty miraculous (but don’t want John to get big-headed!).
Was Sue up to mischievous tricks as some blog followers (who knew her well) suggested? I don’t know but the red kite which has been appearing over my garden every evening around 6pm for several days failed to put in an appearance on Friday.
I know it’s a bit soon for another cancer diary update but I’m fairly sure everyone would want to share in the fantastic news about my earring.
MarySmith’sPlace – Cancerdiary#31 #randomthoughts #randomphotos
Friday 16 April: This is going to be a brief update (do I hear sighs of relief all round????) and I’m aware I’m a couple of days late if this is a weekly update.
My breathlessness and coughing continued to lessen and I felt better, both physically and emotionally (as long as I didn’t/don’t think about the next scan and its result). On Wednesday, the Lung Specialist Nurse, and as I don’t name names on this blog I really ought to pin down what his title is, called to see how I was doing.
I was doing fine. I hardly coughed during our conversation. When I asked about my last blood tests he said the CRP (C – reactive protein), that marker of infection or inflammation was within the normal range. Wow! After only a week the steroids had got on top of the pneumonitis. Chuffed!
He said I sounded well and positive and elated and before I started to backtrack and say things like ‘well, today things seem fine but…’ or ‘we don’t know if this is really an upturn’ or … I remembered a comment from Kim Ayres on my last update: “Not allowing our optimism now, will in no way prepare us, or cushion the blow if negative news comes along. It’s too big. So if it happens, we wasted those chances to feel good.” I decided I wanted to agree with the Specialist Nurse – I was feeling decidedly better than when we last met and he could tell the oncologist so and that I was not sounding as grumpy and bad-tempered as usual.
Wednesday was also when I was doing my talk in the evening for Aberdeen City Library on routes to publication and selling your book once it’s out there. I think the title of the talk was a bit snappier than that. I did my prep. I think the talk went well. The organiser has been in touch and said the feedback has been excellent, which is very pleasing. It makes me feel I can get back to this kind of work – helping and encouraging other writers. Despite a cancer diagnosis it is possible to carry on with ‘normal’ creative practices.
What did annoy me, however, was the number of ‘no shows’. The talk was fully booked with a waiting list. On the day of the talk, a few people contacted the organiser to cancel and she was able to give places to people on the waiting list. Three people were still on the waiting list a few minutes before we went live but did not get the chance to join despite several people not showing up for the talk. Perhaps some, to give them the benefit of the doubt, had technical problems but not all. I have to say I feel signing up for events online and not turning up without sending timely apologies is disrespectful to the organisers of the event who put in huge amounts of time and energy, to the guest speaker and to other potential audience members who could not attend because the event was fully booked and over-subscribed.
Please, please, don’t regard online events as something to sign up to even though you know you might not (probably won’t) attend. Signing up should be a commitment in the same way as buying a ticket for a literature festival event or a concert.
From the organiser of several library events: “The British Library has found it beneficial to charge for their events. Consider people obviously attach more value to something they have paid for – even if just a very small amount. It is something we are considering.”
I did enjoy doing the talk though at the end of the official part of it I felt we should be sitting together having a really good blether, preferably with a glass of wine in hand (looking at you John Nelson) about writing, publishing, the ridiculous behaviour of publishers instead of saying a stilted goodbye.
What has any of this to do with lung cancer and not knowing what the next scan will show? Absolutely nothing and absolutely everything.
Random photos will have appeared throughout this blog. I haven’t been to see any new lambs but have managed a couple of visits to the garden (mainly thinking about how small my garden is until I’ve lost a precious earring and then it seems to be enormous), the osprey walk.
Oh, and I’ve had my second Covid vaccination and should be fully protected by the time I do the next update. And if all of this (brief? Yeah right,) update seems a bit disjointed and a bit rambling it’s because I’ve drunk a lot of red wine (apologies to non-drinkers) – and I’m still alive.
MarySmith’sPlace ~ CancerDiary#30 #thinking aloud
Wednesday 07, April: A week and a day since my last update and it has been a strange week of ups and downs and mixed emotions. Missing Sue terribly yet sometimes forgetting she’s not still here. I find myself thinking, “Oh, I must tell Sue …” and then remember. I read her posts being re-blogged on franceandvincent and laugh and cry and relish the sheer joy she felt exploring her native Yorkshire moors.
And today, I’m devastated because while in the garden I lost one of the earrings she gifted me. I’ve searched and the DH has searched but so far no luck in finding it. I’ll keep on looking, though needle in a haystack comes to mind.
When the weather has been good I’ve spent time in the garden, well wrapped up (I don’t cast clouts until May is out and have still been wearing my thermal vest) mainly reading and gazing at the daffodils.
A friend came one day for coffee in the garden – we last saw each other sometime in the summer of 2020 – so that was pretty special.
Also, on Easter Sunday, Wee-sis came round. The weather had changed by then so we sat freezing for an hour but it was worth it. Last time we were together, socially distanced, was back in February when we went for a walk at Rockcliffe and saw the shell tree, which was the day my cough started.
I’m pleased to say I am coughing less than I was a week ago though I am impatient to be rid of it all together and to stop being so breathless on any exertion – perhaps my expectations of how quickly the steroids would work were too high. I remember when Dad was put on a course of steroids and to our astonishment he managed to get out of his wheelchair (he’d lost all mobility months earlier) and take a few steps. Fortunately, the DH was there to catch him before he hit the floor. I was expecting to be skipping around like a lamb after a week on steroids.
I did manage to walk maybe about a mile to and from the osprey viewing platform at Threave and take a photo of the osprey on the nest. I was ridiculously pleased knowing the ospreys had returned and I was here to see them. I also felt quite chuffed at managing the walk. Next day I was tired but thought it was maybe to be expected. The day after, though, I was coughing a lot more again and feeling very fed up with life. Lesson learned – don’t push, don’t try to do too much.
Since then, I’ve limited my walking to short strolls in the park. I’m ashamed to admit we drive there. I can’t quite believe it has come to this. It’s only a few weeks since a friend and I walked from my house to and around the park and back home – under two miles – and now I can’t even do that. Yet. I will, though, I will.
From time to time the fact my tumour is reducing in size makes me feel astonishingly joyful, though I quickly resume my usual yes, but, we don’t know for sure what’s happening, don’t tempt fate, wait for the next scan … I sometimes wonder what it must be like to be an optimist.
I am, however, beginning to feel human again: not yet a fully formed human but getting there. I’m doing things. I have the talk for Aberdeen Libraries next week (fully booked with a waiting list, which is good to hear), I took part in the Society of Authors in Scotland inaugural Zoom meeting of non-fiction writers and I’m – almost – beginning to write again.
It has been so long. When we went into lockdown last year I stopped writing. Oh, I was always going to get on with it, but there was something about not actually having to do it which let me off the hook. Fortunately, before my writing muscle totally atrophied I took part in the Writedown project, in which 22 people recorded their reactions to what was happening in lockdown. When, as we were emerging from the restrictions, I was told I was not likely to live more than seven months if I did not go for treatment for lung cancer other writing projects were abandoned. Well, apart from this cancer diary and some very rough draft poems.
The voice whispering in my ear was saying: “Wait and see what the treatment achieves. No point spending time editing the My Dad’s a Goldfish memoir if I’m not going to be around to finish it.” Maybe treatment would grant me more time, enough time even to finish the book. Now, I’ve had the treatment. I know the tumour has been shrinking but won’t have a more definitive (is there such a thing in cancer?) result for another seven/eight weeks. How much time might I have? Will I want to spend it working on a book I may not finish? Would I rather spend my time exploring Scotland (Covid restrictions allowing) or making a final attempt to clear out the attic and my dad’s books?
I feel so wishy washy compared to Sue. When told she had probably ‘three to six decent months’ she worked her socks off editing and re-publishing the books she and Stuart France had previously published plus editing and publishing some new books of her own as well as writing blog posts. It turned out her time was much less than estimated but even when told it was going to be ‘days into weeks’ she didn’t sit back, put her feet up, cuddle Ani and let those days drift by but carried on working, despite the pain she was in, to create a legacy for her family and for all of us.
And so, I salute and thank you, Sue for giving me a much-needed nudge and I will pick up my red editing pen tomorrow and get cracking. First, though, I’ll be out in the garden doing a forensic fingertip search for my lost earring.
I leave you with an image of a full-throated song of joy.
Mary Smith's Place 