SO THIS IS WHAT THEY CALL RETIREMENT!

The day after my first cancer course for Macmillan I managed to negotiate the study from John as I had some homework to do.

I was asked to appear on the Ed Doolan show to talk about returning to work with cancer.
I thought I would be asked about patients' rights and the benefits they were entitled to, so I trawled the Macmillan website for all the information I could find and read the Discrimination Act. I am a mine of information I thought as I went off to do the interview, my head full of facts and figures. Ed asked me not one question on these subjects as there was a gentleman called Keith who was qualified to answer them. We discussed many other aspects of how you deal with cancer and work and he made me feel so relaxed that I was not at all nervous in front of the microphone.

Afterwards I was able to go and have coffee with Yvonne who I used to work with. I still get a buzz from being at the BBC, although I have not worked there for 8 years now.

On that night, at our Solihull Cancer Support Group we had a brilliant talk by Dr. Paul Crowe who told us about Interventional Radiology. Radiologists can now, in certain cases, perform surgery to remove the tumour during the scan. Apparently it is less evasive and you don't have to wait weeks for scan results before you get your treatment. These are exciting times for cancer patients as great strides are being made in this field.

My working week was still not finished, as the next day I was picked up to go to a Macmillan conference at the Paragon Hotel in Birmingham. Amazingly one of the subjects on the agenda was about going back to work and benefits. Everything I had learnt for my radio interview was discussed and I could ask intelligent questions thanks to all my research. So as they say, "no knowledge is ever wasted"!

Saturday morning arrived and this was "me" time. On a gloriously sunny day I caught the train for London, where I met my friend Debbie and her daugher Hannah to have lunch and see "The King and I" at the Royal Albert Hall. Unknown to us it was "The Trooping of the Colour" the same day and Debbie was unable to get across London for a good hour after my train arrived. This left me free to shop in Kensington which was disastrous for my credit card, but when we finally met up what a lovely day we shared together.

John was waiting for me as my train arrived at Dorridge station that evening and I looked forward to a relaxing night in with a glass of wine after my rather hectic week.