November 2009 Archives

I never moan when another birthday arrives - I celebrate! Each birthday proves that the medical profession don't always know how long someone has when diagnosed with cancer. Certainly after being given just a year to live in 2001, to have enjoyed a further 8 great birthdays has been a real bonus.

In my last blog I said "How do I follow the excitement of the play?" Well the next day was my birthday and John took me up to Yorkshire to see Bolton Abbey.

As a surprise we stayed at a lovely small Georgian House in Harrogate overlooking "The Stray" which was a large area of grassland and trees. I thought it was called that because they allowed animals to stray and graze !!

Harrogate is such an elegant English town and no one can leave without having tea at "Betty's".

Sadly we lingered there too long so when we headed off for Castle Howard, which has been on my wish list to see for years, we arrived in the pouring rain 10 minutes too late. The house was closed and no amount of charm could persaude the lady in the kiosk to let us in. All those years and all that way from the Midlands and we were too late! I obviously showed my disappointment as we dejectedly sat drinking another pot of tea in the deserted cafe in the gloom. When we got in the car to go home, John suggested staying somewhere another night and going to see it tomorrow. I immediately brightened up - my Hero!! We found a great little place and the next morning the sun was shining and we finally managed to see the magnificent Castle Howard. As we drove home I thought that was a very special happy birthday, I look forward to the next one !!

The party was over and I had 4 talks to give over 3 weeks so down to work again. The first was at the Macmillan Coffee morning at the SIMTR Conference Centre in Solihull.
It was packed and I saw many faces that I recognised from previous talks. Spreading the word of hope is what I love to do. We raised well over £500 for this wonderful worthy cause.

It kept my mind off the following week when I went to have a lump removed from my breast at the University Hospital Coventry. It is getting very bad ratings as reported in the newspapers today, but I have had wonderful service there - no complaints. I had a local anaesthetic and I asked so many questions and joked throughout that the surgeon probably wished he'd given me a general!
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I went home the same day and carried on with my busy life, even doing yoga 2 days later. Not a good idea! I became so tired and the nurse said that I should have listened to my body, it needed to rest to recover. I think my spirit is far stronger than my body and slowing down is not on the agenda, but I know she was right.

A few days later we drove down to Brighton and I was excited to meet up with my son Jonathan who had come over from Canada for just 3 days for a wedding. It was pouring with rain and Brighton Marina was a pretty depressing concrete experience. Three hours after arriving we went back to the car park to discover that someone had bumped the side of Jonathan's hire car and guess what - left no note! What a welcome back to England I felt so sorry for him.

"A very friendly couple we met on our travels!"

Back home I had another talk to give, at a school in Erdington, to thank them for raising money for Macmillan. What I didn't know was that the children had been sent there from main school due to disruptive behaviour. The teacher explained that they came from violent and abusive backgrounds,some had alcoholic or drug addict parents. They also had a low attention span and she warned me that they could throw things. I decided in the light of this information to abandon my speech I had writen the night before and just go for it! I told them about my adventures and experiences and asked if anyone knew what a Macmillan Nurse did. A young gir of about 13 years said "They help you on your cancer journey." I was amazed, I couldn't have put it better myself. After 20 minutes they were all sitting in complete silence and so I thought I had better finish while I was ahead. I have to say, the applause those children gave me meant more to me than any other speech I have ever given. Afterwards the head teacher said they enjoyed it because I told a story and took them to places they will never in their wildest dreams ever visit. Another very humbling but worthwhile experience and I hope those young people go on to make something of their broken lives.

A week later I am off to the hospital again to hear the results of my operation. I drove 25 miles only to discover that they hadn't got them yet! I wonder why they don't let you know to save you the unecessary stress and strain, not to mention the mileage?

Two days later I gave a talk at Hogarth's Hotel for the Ladies' Inner Wheel. I love Hogarth's but I found it very distracting trying to compete with the generator - all character building I thought. A lady came across to me and said "Were you Angela Freeman? (my maiden name). I knew immediately who she was - Pam Young, the BBC Controller's secretary from when we both worked at the BBC in Carpenter Road, Edgbaston 40 odd years ago. It was wonderful to see her after all these years. Good job I always speak the truth in my talks, you never know who you might meet from your past!

September and October have proved to be the busiest and most fulfilling months of 2009.
I returned home after my talk for Macmillan at Warwick to find John entertaining his 3 year old grandson Harry with his electric guitar. So with Harry on maracas and me on tambourine we had a "musical" evening together. Although it was probably not everyone's idea of "music" we had great fun.

The next day I had a real musical treat at Martin St. James School in Malvern. I love driving to Malvern, the hills always look so majestic and the school is a wonderful victorian building - once a hotel I believe. The girls were practising the songs for the play I have been involved with, which was being performed the following week.

"Survivorship to Cancer and Beyond" tells the story of 5 women with different cancers. Each story has a musical theme and for my story of ovarian cancer it was Elgar's "The Rapid Stream" which I had never heard before.The main theme tune which has been specially written by the playwright Monica Price is called "Survive." When the choir sang it we were all so moved there wasn't a dry eye in the room. I always call my talks "I Will Survive" so I could really relate to the words. What a privilege to be a pupil at this special school with such an obvious love of music and what a privilege for me to be part of this play.

I drove home through the sunshine with my heart lifted. I stopped at the little church in Callow End near Malvern, to put flowers on the grave of my friend Toni who died at 36 from cancer. We worked at the BBC together and were great friends. She supported me when I was diagnosed, so to lose her to this disease so young was tragic. Her last wish was to be able to attend my 5 year celebration party and amazingly by sheer willpower, she did, only to die 3 days later. I was asked to give her Eulogy - a first for me and what an honour. It was nerve wracking in front of all my BBC colleagues, but as with all my speeches because it comes from the heart, my nervousness disappeared and the applause told me that I had done Toni proud. Here I was a few years later paying my tribute to her again in a beautiful English churchyard. She loved ballet, so I am going to take her young daughter, Freya to see "The Nutcracker" for the first time. I think she will love it.

The week of the play was completely manic, our friends Ann and Robert from America came to stay with us and celebrate her birthday, I went to London for a Macmillan Trainees' Conference and I have my script to learn - all three lines of it!!

Ann,Robert and Friend!

On the day of the first performance there were photo shoots,interviews and I finally met Hannah Waterman and the othere actresses. Her first words to me were "How's John?" I was puzzled, how did she know John was my husband. When I listened to the rehearsal, I realised that he features largely through the script and as she was playing "me" John was her husband too!

I had a dressing room with my star on the door - what a thrill. I had always wanted to act from a young girl. At 17, my drama teacher had arranged an audition for me at a drama college in London. My parents were horrified and refused to let me go, so 48 years later here I was about to "tread the boards." Everything come to she who waits, I thought. I shared the dressing room with a lovely lady called Pam who also had ovarian cancer but looked amazing and we enjoyed 2 special days together.

The first night was a great success and I was on a high, but the next day found me at 9am sitting outside Professor Poole's office in Coventry Hospital waiting nervously for the results of my scan. Please let it be good news I thought, I have 2 more perfomances to give today." What a Diva I am!" The bad news is that my cancerous lymph nodes are growing, the good news is he still doesn't feel that I need to have chemo just yet. We drove home just in time for "my matinee performance." I might have a very small part, but I am going to give it my all. The actresses were amazing and gave such moving performances which were touched with humour. They got better each performance and Hannah was magnificent on the last night. I had left a note in her dressing room saying that I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to play "me" which she said really touched her.


The cast with playwright Monica Price

John had proudly sat through the perfomances, with my friends and son Justin. On the last night when Hannah says "I was given a year to live, but 8 wonderful life giving years on I am still here surviving this thing they call the "silent killer" - but it won't silence me," a man in the audience shouted "WOW!" I wanted to jump up and say "It's me and despite being given little hope you can survive cancer." Of course I didn't, but the play gave such a powerful message of hope and the audience gave everyone a standing ovation. We had a great party afterwards and when I went home I thought "How do you follow that?"

Hannah, Finn Atkins and me(The make-up artist seems to have overdone my blusher!)