Shell - I really am so so sorry to read your latest post, and just cannot believe that your hospital takes so long to organise tests and treatments. I will be thinking of you again on Friday… and have actually been thinking of you every day since you said about the neck lumps. Not sure what I can say … but even if they do test postive for cancer - they do not count as secondaries, and it is just your lymphatic system doing its job to trap cancer cells.
Gail, I know you are worried about the surgery - and I’ve written this before - but really it is over in a trice. The chemo, well I cannot believe how unpleasant it is by comparison… just hope it is working to keep the cancer at bay.
I went to Knaresborough this morning, a quaint market town about 20 minutes from York - with an impressive viaduct stretching over the river Nidd. There are many steep narrow streets with snickets (tiny passage ways) in between - where it is possible to touch both sides with out-stretched hands. Had morning tea and a lavender and lemon scone in a tearoom looking down on the bustling market square. An attractive feature of many of the buildings is that they are painted in a black and white chequer board design. Many of these are visible from the town’s highest point: a hilltop with the ruins of Knaresborough castle on the pinnacle - with outer sections of the walls remaining along with the dry castle moat.
Then went on to spend the afternoon in the spa town of Harrogate, complete with refurbished Turkish baths and a Victorian arcade of shops with wrought-iron work. The high point though was a late lunch of roasted tomato and celery soup in the drawing room of the Old Swan hotel, a grand hotel - most famous for being the place where in 1926 Agatha Christie ‘disappeared’ for ten days. She stayed there incognito under the name of her husband’s mistress - and her disappearance sparked the country’s biggest ‘manhunt’ at that time - the first to involve aeroplanes. Someone at the hotel eventually noticed her and called the police - and her husband went to collect her. She seemed quite calm, and insisted on staying on for the dinner dance before leaving with him as as couple. He put down her act of irrational behaviour to suffering the after effects of a car crash several days before (crashed and abandoned her car at Sunningdale Station before boarding a train to London and than an interconnecting one to Yorkshire). Her behaviour though was more likely to be a reaction to her husband’s infidelity at the time, and this may pan out as they divorced two years later… Today though I just enjoyed the views and the soup in the drawing room and almost nodded off in front of the log fire.
Sorry - realise none of the above has anything to do with bc. But have not been away since my diagnosis back in early November, and realised these last couple of days - that a change of scene can sometimes just make all the difference in learning to cope with the disease, and how precious life is - not least for sharing it with nearest and dearest and also for taking in new experiences…
Love Bright xx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx