Christmas, Chemo and the Common Cold

Oops! verging on rude to have left you bloggers with nothing to go on since my late night spiritual musings weeks ago. I've done lots and felt lots since then - quite how to reflect on it now...

In fact 'how to reflect?' is possibly a good place to start. Sometimes I'll be in a situation or a conversation and I'll realise I'm elsewhere in my thoughts.. Sometimes I'll feel grumpy or lonely for no apparent reason. Sometimes I'll get to the end of a day and realise that I have barely paused once to remember the C word. Sometimes I'll just feel great and happy to be alive.

'Happy to be alive' moments this Christmas include the double-decker bus hire to go to a farm with all the kids from church and lots of dressing up clothes; candle-lit midnight mass with Chris preaching (thanks Mary for babysitting); 60 or so of us sitting down to an amazing Christmas Day dinner; Chris and Asha on a carousel roundabout in Leicester Square (Asha to Chris after studying the relative positions of her own and other people's horses - "I think we won, didnt we?") with Julie down from Sheffield and cousin Jesse over from Amsterdam. We're now a few days away from Kirin's Baptism which I think will be wonderful and a few minutes away from mum and dad, Aussie cousin Sarah and Andrew arriving, followed by Sue, Mark and the kids later. At least we've got a warm fire lit and goodies to eat. Still haven't actually iced the amazing christmas cake mum gave us or hung all the cards though.

This Christmas has been the one to 'let ourselves off'. There's a family in Africa that will be a whole lot better off with a cow now as a result. We had intended to send a video of a puppet show that would explain all to all our loved-ones but even that didnt happen! As I write I feel that we have been the recipients of much, maybe more than ever, and the givers of maybe less than ever. Hummm

There's no text book for all this...

After the great news from the scan I felt strangely wrong-footed. Instead of feeling delighted and relieved I felt a bit flat. There's no accounting for human emotion! I guess in some ways this whole thing has been a gift as much as a curse. "Getting better", in some crazy way threatens some of the gift part. All the amazing things that have happened as a result of my becoming sick. Weird because I think I was always pretty sure I wasn't about to die but the possibility of it had enabled all the other stuff - the contact with old old friends; the praying; the holidays; the heightened sense of what matters. Dying is very dramatic - but just being a bit sick is nothing special. If anything its just a bit hard. Lets face it - the only thing that is predictable about this horrible disease is it's unpredictability. Living with the uncertainty (and the emotional rollercoaster) is all part of the territory.

On the back of that sort of feeling I had my 5th chemo, I was sicker and sleepier than previous times. Nad (one of my dearest and oldest friends) arrived to look after us all. She got to the bottom of my laundry bin (more than I ever achieve when I'm fighting fit!) and the last of her flapjack is going to be useful when my folks arrive!

After a few days I was back on form but then I got a COLD. Now Cancer I can do but the Common Cold virtually killed me! I felt sorry for myself for the first time really and felt useless as a mum, a wife and a patient. I think colds can be a bit depressive and I certainly lost the plot just a little bit. There was one particular moment where Asha and I had taken nearly 40 minutes (toddler pace you see) to get to our local library, it had been fun to a point (you try taking a toddler with her buggy and a cuddly toy Father Christmas for a walk and not enjoy the comments) but then, there we sat both a bit knackered and grumpy with the books. I honestly didnt know how I was going to get us back home for tea. All the time I've got this mantra in my head about zest for life and cherishing every moment etc etc. Guess I just have to 'allow myself' and anyway the colds a bit better and my head's alot happier.

Can't completely shake the cold off which might be because my immunity is a bit hammered but hey, cold remedies - what else would we all talk about at this time of year.

Better blog off now. Sorry for all those cards that never got sent and the pressies that never got bought. There's always next year, I hope and pray...

Late Night Early Morning thoughts...

It's late and I'm due at Barts early tomorrow for my 4th lot of chemo, but thought it was time to indulge in a little blogging about my reflections on healing and prayer! After all there's been alot of it around in the last few weeks!

I’ve been overwhelmed at my friends’ willingness and ability to bring my situation before God in prayer. It would seem I was ill equipped before to know who were the pray-ers amongst my friends. As someone who has grown up with the concept of praying (thanks mum and dad!), it - that thing we do that we call ‘prayer’- has taken on new and crazy significance for me in the last few months.

There are people in my life who have found beautiful and profound ways of explaining and talking about prayer that I’ve found really helpful (Doug, Lance, Mary T-N, Chris to name but a few). I wont try and emulate them, I just want to throw some more ideas in…

A friend said recently, praying is what people do with their hopes.

I’ve got friends of every persuasion when it comes to things of faith. Early on several friends said they weren’t able to pray that God would heal me. Phew, I loved their honesty and their integrity, even when the circumstances might have persuaded them to pretend a bit just for my sake.

I also realised how much I love and admire the ones who are pinning everything on God physically healing me. For me they’re risking lots, they’re believing and not just pretending, when they say - God you are able, so do it for Ali!. Afer all it’s there in all the religions – God’s ability to break the rules of creation. This is more than ‘hoping’ this is creating room for the occasional Miracle.

Amongst these friends, maybe doubt is the enemy, is the cancer. Actively believing that God can overcome, can win this one is what’s compelling them to pray for me. Thank you for fearlessly trusting this for me. As you’ve said to me so often - anything is possible!

I too went into this whole thing believing in miracles. I thought it’s quite imaginable that they (those with the medical evidence in front of them) think I’m probably going to die and I just might NOT…

I wrote most of this, one sleepless night way before my scan last Tuesday and now it appears that the chemo and prayer and mistletoe (and anything else you’ve all been doing!) are undeniably helping in shrinking the cancer!

Guess if I’m honest I’m not surprised, just intensely relieved and grateful.

The thing that I’m most grateful for is that my faith doesn’t actually depend on God healing me. We have ‘Prayers’ here every Tues night 9.30pm (where we light a candle, read some stuff and whoever is around prays for a bit about anything that’s on their mind). One Tues recently, after each contribution we sung ‘Lord draw near, draw near and stay’. In essence and especially right now I think prayer is this – God please draw near and stay. I think it is about evoking God, who is unfathomable and certainly untameable, to come close enough to us to share in our human need. In my case God seems to be doing this (as I understand it) through the prayers of people I know. God has never felt so close, so intimately involved, to a point where I feel ‘held’ and even ‘healed’ of the harm of this cancer, whatever the final outcome turns out to be.

That's all for now - they also say sleep helps...! Please forgive me if I just landed a bit of a sermon on you at work on a Wed morning, you know I mean it and do it all in the best possible taste!

it's wednesday - drink champagne!

As if she knew it was a wednesday - our oncologist (she's on maternity leave having just given birth!) phoned us tonight. All the scan results point to a reduction of 50% across all the cancer sites - lymph and liver - and they expect the stomach /gullet is reducing by the same (they didn't actually get a measurement there but knew that the tissue looked like it was less swollen than before). So she said this is really REALLY good news. That's why she wanted to phone us herself even though she's not actually back at work until February! This is a 50% reduction at half way point through chemo - so let's drink to wednesdays and life suddenly being extended and more reasons for tears on bus journeys - tears for the gladness of simply being around and alive....

Scan today

Just fitted in the all-important CT Scan between amazing holiday up in Scotland at Doug and Rachel's, back on the train yesterday and a very special lunch date with Gabi (over from Sweden) and Phil (the very good reason for her being over!). My life is a wirlwind of good things and good people...

Now is the time to tell you about scans - a feature of our modern medicine. As a procedure it is in no way unpleasant but it is pretty damn weird! You get asked to drink a pint of water (or infact the first time, really horrible orange squash with a hint of aniseed). Then you lie down underneath a doughnut-like machine that tells you when to breathe and when to hold your breath. You get injected with this black dye that goes into your arm down a curly telephone-cord tube. You get calmly told that you might feel one or all of 3 sensations: a metalic taste in your mouth, a warm or hot feeling inside and the sensation that you have just wet yourself (they of course say urinate!). I told the guy today (from my vast experience of one previous scan) that it was just like when you wee in a wet suit, just that it's inside your skin. Now those of you who have never done this won't know what I'm talking about and those of you who have, will be slightly embarassed that I'm admitting to it. Anyway he seemed to appreciate it - after all - 'expert patient' and all that.

If this all sounds rather flippant, it isnt the whole story. This morning sitting on the No55 going along Hackney Road, past the Surgery where I'd worked for 5 years (happy crazy memories Fatema) the tears started to flow. All I can say is that there are moments when I realise I'm very attached to my life, that I'm not ready to lose it or leave it and that I'm intensely grateful for it. If it hadn't sunk in before, then today it hit me that this was a significant milestone in the fight. Hackney is full of people, as is London or the whole world for that matter. TodayI was just enjoying watching them out of the window.

This last week on holiday, with inspiring and close friends like Neil and Lynda, Doug and Rach there were chances to talk about all sorts of things. Prayer, healing what it means, parenting, living in relationship and stuff like that. This remains a fairly surreal time for us, when important things get said and sometimes just little things that are said take on new importance.

Amazing time - thanks to those lot. With an incredible setting, a coal fire, the beach, an enormous amount of extremely good food (thanks Neil), our combined children to delight and despair in together and enough time (for once!) to talk - it couldn't fail to be a great holiday.

Now back home the next big hurdle is on Monday morning when we see the Consultant. In the meantime I'm feeling as fit and energetic as ever and so predictably I've got stacks to fit in. For those of you that pray at times like this, we are suggesting a bit of a session on Sunday night might be great. If you live local come and say a prayer with us, light a candle, sing a song, lay a hand on a shoulder, do whatever. Anytime from 8.45pm till 10.30pm here at No33. If you're family down under or up North or on the wrong side of London, just bear us in mind as I know you already are - thank you. Such inadequate words but what else can I say... thank you.

Thought you might enjoy some full-on pics that Neil took a week last Saturday!