I’ll get the tray. Piece of cake to go with your tea? Go on, sticky malt loaf cake, it’s yummy.
When was it we met for that meal in Krakow? Before the pandemic? No! Has it really been that long?
There were some pretty grim times. The prof nearly died in autumn 2020. No, not Covid, sepsis. Very scary. I don’t like to think about it.
Me? Well, a year after that I was recalled after a routine mammogram. I was lucky, they caught it very early but for four months I had to go to hospital appointments alone while I was being treated – successfully, thank goodness – for breast cancer.
This is the only selfie I have ever taken, while waiting on a winter’s day, alone, for radiotherapy, in a very smart, Scandi-style cancer treatment centre in Liverpool.
It was tough, that loneliness. When I think about those politicians partying while I sat alone waiting for radiotherapy it makes my blood boil. And when I say alone, a couple of times I was the last person in the place, even most of the staff had left. It was pretty bleak despite the stylish surroundings.
The lovely but very empty radiotherapy section of the Clatterbridge Cancer Centre in Liverpool in January 2022. The banner picture at the top of this piece is the area where people normally wait to see a radiotherapy centre nurse, I was the last person around and it was my last day so I was seeing her for lotions and potions. It was like a ghost treatment centre!
No, no, you couldn’t have known, I sent notes with Christmas cards but I didn’t send any abroad that year. It’s odd how people react. Or don’t. I realised quite soon that some people were just unable or unwilling to deal with it. Some friends, even some relatives, never wrote, or messaged, or phoned.
My lonely car waiting for me in the Georgian Square where the prof works (in real life now once again) in January 2022 as it began to snow
Yes, I was hurt, but I realise it can be hard. I mean, when I get a Christmas card telling me a friend’s had some bad medical experience, do I get in touch? Not always. And sometimes I worry I’ve left it so late something worse might have happened and do nothing. So who am I to judge?
I know the note I put in our Christmas card passed some people by. Two friends who thanked me for it admitted they hadn’t read it when they realised. It was very short – but Christmas letters… You know.
Later, I wondered if I’d been too cautious, made it sound less bad than it was. You don’t like to admit you’re a failure, do you? And getting cancer feels like you’ve failed somehow.
I did a lot of wondering, then. About whether we can ever really know ourselves, see how we appear to others.
It was a nurse who set me off thinking about it. Just after my diagnosis she asked when relatives would be visiting. I said they wouldn’t, explained why. She didn’t look convinced. Then I confessed I’d been disappointed when I emailed someone close to me – I didn’t trust myself to talk about it on the phone – and didn’t get a call back. I’d waited, assuming the phone would ring that night or next morning. But it never did.
She looked at me in an odd way. Asked if I thought maybe I give off signals that I’m able to cope with anything, that I wouldn’t want sympathy. Suggested I talk to the person concerned. I could tell she wanted me to say yes, that it’d make her feel better. So I said I would. But I didn’t.
I know. It didn’t help. I began to feel it was all my fault. That I’d spurned what I needed simply by being who I was.
Anyway, you’ll never guess what sorted me out. A self-help book! I know! Ha! How to hold a grudge by best-selling novelist Sophie Hannah. But the reason it worked was it made me realise I wasn’t harbouring a grudge, I was feeling guilty. Yes, guilty, that the lack of reaction from some friends and relatives was my fault.
I know. Barmy. Anyway, it really helped sort me out. That and daily walks.
The beach? No, I haven’t. Normally I’d be there most days in fine weather, keeping myself sane, seeking inspiration.
Ainsdale beach, sadly haven’t been there since August
But suddenly (well, fairly suddenly) this summer I’ve been afflicted by some yet-to-be-diagnosed problem with my left limb, the one that depends on a hip to function. So, other than trips to buy food, attend appointments and a co-working hub I’ve been going to for years, I’m home alone. And sleeping really badly.
Yes, I’ve seen a doctor. Waiting for results of an x-ray. And I’ve got an appointment for a specialist clinic. So much waiting. Three weeks on from my now-annual mammogram and the results still haven’t arrived. I have to wait every day for the post and that’s only been coming alternate days lately. After midday. So stressful.
Ah, that’s kind. No, don’t worry, I’m fine really – and I can’t tell you how good it is to see you. No, I mean it, honestly. And it hasn’t all been doom and gloom. There was some really good news for the prof recently.
Me? Writing? Yes. I’ll tell you all about it, but first, more tea? How was the cake? I know, like malt loaf on steroids isn’t it?
[to be continued – less doom, more vroom (well, positivity), promise! And a bit of archaeological stuff. Some very old wood…]
MEMOIRS OF A HUSK 
Echoing your sentiments to my recent post… what a tough time you’ve been having, and my blood also boils when I think about those for who Covid and real life in general was/is merely inconvenience to be circumvented rather than experienced. I’m so sad about the aloneness: we need community but in too many ways it’s seems we are moving away from its culture. And look here we are each communing across the distances via our screens and keyboards. Oh, how I wish we’d thought to email each other. But that’s just it, the tendency to hunker down when the sh!t hits the fan. I hope the results you’re waiting for show up in a timely fashion. I’m pleased you have written this post, the blogging world lags behind more immediate briefer social media to an extent, however it remains a place where we can sort out our thoughts, offer them up to the possibility of kindred need for connection. One of my enduring challenges has been to appreciate layers of relationships, to embrace the wabi sabi of what is available to me and apply that overly useful phrase “it is what it is” to what is not. Like you also commented… I wish we were neighbours but then I’d probably eat way more sticky malt loaf cake that I should. You can have my slice.
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Dale, thank you for encouraging me to do this. I’ve already lost one follower as a result, a friend IRL who took this as a personal criticism, rang me last night and overnight checked on recent Whatsapp message and was anxious that she should have responded to an earlier issue in my life by phoning. I thought about deleting this post as a result but honestly, your response and Beth’s reassured me that you had understood what I was saying – and I needed to say it. I saw a quote in yesterday’s newspaper from someone called Greg Wheeler, a relationship coach:
“It is typical that how we feel about ourselves, and our sense of self-worth, is dependent on how we feel others feel about us. This includes the usual stuff, such as family and friends, but this self can become untethered in later life as the tectonic plates around us shift.”
Isn’t that so? I’m currently on an author coaching programme that is also rather like a life coaching programme, something I never saw myself doing, but it’s helping me put things in perspective.
I’m so glad we’ve got back in touch, it’s been years now and I always knew you were there, your posts poppingup now and then. We may not have met in person but bars of soap and other material items have been exchanged by post, that’s friendship. Please email me whenever/if ever you feel like it, I’ve got the time to read and reply! Thank you. And I’ll put that leftover slice of cake in the freezer for when the urge to snack strikes!
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Interesting you mention the author coaching programme… years ago in my thirties I spent three and a half years part-time after my day job studying to be a counsellor during which I realised I didn’t want to be a counsellor but I gained much needed and better late than never insight about my self and in relation to others. I gained some tools, and the work helped me just enough to accept imperfection in myself & others, take things less personally, remember people have their own stuff going on & they’re mostly doing the best they can, and things change. Throughout my life people have come, gone, returned and/or disappeared… often for reasons nothing to do with me at all. However, the experiences, lessons and memories remain and are part of who I am.
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Very wise, Dale, and a good reason for having done the course. I have always been of the ‘I can sort it out myself’ school (my dad’s influence) so joining the Dream Author coaching programme is a major step forward for me. I realised that I had been going nowhere with my attitude of self help and I really do think Sophie (Hannah, she of the grudge book and best selling crime fiction writer) has started to change my attitude – it’s a slow change but I can feel it working. Mostly! The Catholic ‘put other people first’ and guilt about so many things don’t help of course!
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Dear Mary,
I wish I could sit down with you in person for tea and cake for a real chat. The trouble with email is the inability to look at someone’s expressions, see behind the words and the humor and have a chance to pause and interact with each other.
Until then, I am thinking of you as you wait to get an answer to your lower appendage situation.
xxBeth
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Dear Beth, I am so glad to hear from you. Yes, a chat over a cup of tea and cake (or a singing little bird and snacks!) would be ideal but sadly not likely any time soon. Thank you for thinking of me, it’s been a trying time. But many others have much worse things to cope with, I know. Sending love, M
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Dear Mary
Good to see you back on your blog again and writing about your feelings even if they can be somewhat harrowing at times. They say it is always good to express your feelings and get them out in the open and I hope that in some way the fact that you have expressed yourself so freely and elegantly has in some way helped with your concerns.
I know these are anxious times for you and I hope that good news arrives in the post soon to relieve some of the anxiety you must be feeling. Always at the end of the phone and can visit if you feel like a chat over a slice of cake or some tasty chocolate. R
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Hi Ron and thank you, that’s very kind of you and I may take you up on it. Still no news in today’s non-existent post, ho hum. I have already upset one person who has unfollowed the blog. I had hoped I’d been clear that I understand how difficult it can be to know what to do or say to someone who’s ill – and none of this is relevant to her so I’m a bit surprised. I’m trying hard not to feel guilty, again! Anyway. Onwards… Thanks again and see you soon, M
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It’s wonderful to hear from you again, yes, really. My heart lit up when I saw ‘Memoirs of a Husk’ in my Monday list of blogs again, but then I read what you had to say. I am so sorry you had to go through all this, first the prof, then you, and in the midst of Covid too. If you had sent a Christmas card to me, yes, I would have definitely responded. I might have put my foot in it, but, as a friend who has lost a daughter and son-in-law to cancer and is left being guardian to her granddaughter, told me, it doesn’t matter what people say, just that they say something.
But, Mary, you have defeated the cancer and the prof sepsis. Sorry to hear you are troubled again, by your left leg, and I hope and pray for the best, that, at the very least, your doctor(s) will be able to make a diagnosis and start you on a course of treatment. I understand how the guilt comes in regarding illness. I have a litany of minor ailments – chronic headaches misdiagnosed (and treated unsuccessfully) as migraine for a decade, IBS and undiagnosed toothache – and when I get a flare-up I always blame myself for doing/eating… something I shouldn’t.
Be interested to hear about what you are writing these days. You know that book you started to beta-read? It was published last month.
Look after yourself. And do keep in touch.
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Rosemary, how lovely to hear from you! I was feeling quite sad last night after a friend in real life unfollowed me because she thought this was criticism directed at her (it wasn’t but she is ultra sensitive) and then along came your lovely message. Thank you. And I am so pleased about your book, I knew it was a good one in the making – tell me how to get hold of it please. Did you keep the title or change it?
I’ve written a non-fiction book which I will mention in the follow up post to this along with news of the prof’s big find. I’ve joined Sophie Hannah’s Dream Author programme to try and get myself more positive and active about things, I think it’s working, slowly!
I’m so glad we’re back in touch. Do let me know about the book please, and yes, I’ll keep in touch if you will! M
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This is beautifully written, is well said and well done Mary. A good idea to write it all down as if sitting down with a friend. A good idea to write it all down, anyway, as the writer you are.
And I’m glad there’ll be more writing to come.
Ronnie
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Thank you so much, Ronnie, I am glad you read it. You are always so encouraging, it really helps. Hope to see you now and again along with the other beans, even if not at Christmas. Meanwhile I’ll try and plan a drive into town sometime, save that foot of yours.
Mary
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