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| Me and my lovely hubby when I had Felt the and jumped out of a plane anyway! (Al loved it much he did it again...) |
I had this runny nose! Honestly I went to see my GP with a runny nose, and end up being diagnosed with f**king cancer! (There has been and will be a lot of swearing - sorry Dad, and yes Mum I'll make sure it's grammatically correct).
So from a GP visit with a runny nose, (after Easter 2016) an X-ray, various blood tests, 2 CT scans, a PET scan, a CT-directed needle biopsy of the right lung, appointments with the lung specialist, the haematology specialist and specialist nurses I get a diagnosis of extra nodal marginal zone Lymphoma, which is a type of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) (6/6/2016), apparently the 5th most common type of cancer (for anyone wanting to know more I highly recommend the Lymphoma Association and the Macmillan websites).
The title comes from the texts I sent various friends when I'd had my diagnosis.
Who
I am a fit and healthy(!) 50 year old yoga teacher and workshop facilitator, and until a couple of weeks ago was teaching a full schedule of yoga classes, both YogaBellies (Pre & Postnatal) and regular (for non-pregnant people) including teaching a yoga for cancer class (I know!!!), organising workshops and retreats, Feel the Fear workshops and doing a business development course to help me grow my business. (I still have the plans, they are just on hold for the mo). Now I'm sitting here, still feeling the same physically but knowing that maybe I'm not quite so healthy. This blog is about what is going on, about the physical and the emotional, about how I'm dealing with this (or not as the days go on...) and about my thoughts about all of this crap that is going on in and around me and how I keep (hopefully) sane throughout it all.
I'm a mum to two fabulous (now very much adult) kids, step-grandma to two teenage boys and mum-in-law to their amazing mum, a dog-mum to Floyd (our rescue collie) and wife to the lovely, and ever patient Allan. Before I 'found myself' five years ago as a yoga teacher I have been, amongst other things, a mature student (studying alongside bringing up the family for many years), a book rep for primary education materials, a hotel receptionist/sales manager, a shop assistant, an administrator in Higher Education and a lecturer in the social sciences!
Why
It's been quite a journey over this last month or so to get to this point, but I've been journalling and video journalling (for me, for now) but it feels like the time to share some of my thoughts. This will be the first post, and very much a shitty first draft (SFD) as Brene Brown would say. (Look her up, her work is amazing).
The main pitfalls to avoid when writing a blog of this sort, (according to my very good friend) are quackery, misery and happy smiley optimism. I'll try, but may well fall into a bit of happy smiley optimism though I might label it gratitude (already got a post about gratitude that will be coming soon). I don't think they are the same thing but have been accused of this when I go into gratitude mode!
The why I am writing this comes from my natural way of being; that whatever I learn and find useful I share with others. I learnt yoga and then learnt to teach it as had helped me in so many ways, I read & then read and learnt some more of Feel the Fear, and then taught it in workshops. I learnt about getting more happiness in my life from The Happiness Project and started a Happiness Group. Friends say I've been doing this all of my life, but I only really realised it relatively recently.
I think the tools that I have, the yoga, the Feel the Fear, the reading and the learning I've done over many years of self-development/discovery will help me through this part of my life story, in fact, I think that in many ways this is why I have learnt them, to help me at this time. Hopefully what I learn and share from this might be useful to others going through the same or similar.
Where
I'm based in Hull, UK so all treatment/services are local. I'm now under haematology at the Queen's Centre at Castle Hill. A Centre of Excellence. Haematology as it's a blood problem, as opposed to oncology for cancer lumps in the body). The things you learn that you didn't know you didn't know!
That's all for now
Well that's the bums on the fence done, (back to my academic roots, we taught students to write about the why where when who what and how, the H being the fence and the w's on said fence. If I knew how I'd draw a little diagram, but I'm sure you get the picture). If you think this might be of interest pop back and read more over the coming weeks. As already mentioned I've got a post in draft about gratitude and another about boobs and surgical tape! They'll be with you soon.
Pam xx
