In Person
Wednesday, February 25, 2004
I had a great time in Barcelona: I won't go on about it. It made me angry with England though. I loved the way they wrapped postcards up in thin paper, and took such care over small things. I really enjoyed the hot chocolate, like custard. I admired the varieties of lamp shades, and the millions of small businesses down alleys. And it was warm and lovely on our last day. I bought an orange coat and a purple skirt. When I got back I wrote a manifesto for Newcastle, which turned out to be rather fascist and luddite. I was in Barcelona with Bill Herbert and Linda France, writing material to accompany Northern Stage's 'Homage To Catalonia,' that's on in May.
Then this morning I went to get the results of last week's liver scan, and I'm afraid that my breast cancer has spread into my liver. Although I know that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later I still feel shocked. It was, as my doctor said, a real OH SHIT moment.
This is what will happen....more scans first, and god knows what they will uncover. Then a choice of drugs... Vinorelbine ...a drip, that doesn't make your hair fall out..but which makes you tired and constipated..Capecitabine (xeloda) you take this orally...it can make hands and feet dry, and upset stomachs, or back to TAXOL...which worked really well before (from yew trees)...but the doc thinks we should save this up, like a trump card. Or just change the hormone treatment, as my cancer has always been very receptive to hormones. To be honest, at this point, I don't know if I want anything. None of it sounds particularly appealing.
The thing to remember is that I am the same as I was yesterday. I feel fine, maybe a bit tired, but absolutely fine. It's just my head that has changed. One thing I am sure about....this is the last Jan/Feb I shall spend in Britain. If I am still here in 2005 I am going back to Barcelona.
I shall keep everyone posted...and don't worry if I have made some arrangement with you...I'll let you know if I can't do things.Posted by julia @ 06:43 PM GMT
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Everything is much better. The stitch like pain has disappeared. Yesterday I went for my scan. I fell asleep in the waiting room, and felt very dreamy about the whole affair. It was the jelly ultrasound kind of scan and completely painless. Afterwards I ate a huge baked potato with baked beans that I bought from a counter in the hospital corridor. I got a taxi home with a female taxi driver..the first I have ever met in Newcastle. She told me about an old man who she drove home in the middle of the night. He sat in the back of the cab and didn't speak, just gave her directions, and he lived quite a long way out of the city, so this went on a long time..his dark voice from the back of the car saying.'Turn right at the lights, left,' etc. When they got to a house he jumped out of the cab and said he was just going to get her money. She sat there waiting. then a very angry old woman appeared who screamed 'I told you not to bring him home. he's costing me a fortune. Take him back to hospital!' The old man hovered behind her, shaking his head. The cabbie realised that the man was in his pyjamas.
Anyway, I get the results of the scan next Wednesday, but I feel well enough to go to Barcelona this weekend. Me, and poets Linda France and WN Herbert are going to write a modern Homage To Catalonia to go with the George Orwell Play at Northern Stage. I think mine might be a homage to health. Infact I feel hugely relieved. Pain can be so frightening, and when one doesn't trust one's body it's just terrifying. Anyway, I shall let people know what happens. Thanks so much for all your good thoughts out there. I think perhaps they stopped the pain. My three year old neice sent me a letter this morning that said 'hugs and kiss'...apparently she just said that her Aunt Julia was ill, so she was going to write a letter, even though she knew nothing of all this!Posted by julia @ 02:00 PM GMT
Monday, February 16, 2004
When I started this web log, it was partly about letting people know about my health, because so often when someone has been ill you want to ask how they are, but don't know how, or you might think they are far worse than they really are, or far better. It seemed a good way of telling the truth, and keeping rumour and fearfulness at bay. So I must BE truthful, and write the bad stuff as well as the good, even though a large part of me doesn't want to admit to illness ever. However, when you have a recurrent cancer like mine, the illness is always there somehow. Sometimes I feel like an unexploded bomb!
My last blood tests were a bit iffy. The ensymes in my liver were abnormal, and my calcium levels were high. However, this isn't necessarily bad, even though from where I am standing it's hard not to think the worst. I've started to get a new pain in my side, like a bad stitch. If I had never had cancer I would think I had bruised a rib, or pulled a muscle, but because I have, my partner and I spent the morning at the general hospital, leaving with a large bag of pain killers, and the thought of a scan tomorrow, and quite a few comforting words. It may well not be my liver. My body might be tiring of the hormone treatment its been on for two years, and needs a new shot of something different. It might be appendicitis. It might be bone pain, which is alot better than the cancer spreading to my liver.
However, whatever it is, the worst thing is not knowing, and imagining what will happen. I was just reading Emma Candy's weblong in the Guardian this morning. She says how waiting for test results is worse than waiting for any exam result, and I know just what she means.
I shall keep anyone who reads this posted, and carry on regardless. This evening I am part of a panel at the Lit and Phil in Newcastle, stitch or no stitch, talking about publishing. Starts 5.30/ 6.00 pm.Posted by julia @ 02:08 PM GMT
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Sandra Hunt's version of Fanny at the Crucible was really great. She has created a very powerful Fanny Cradock,and somehow the one woman version is more dramatic than the three hander, even though I enjoyed that too. The play is around the country so you might catch it near you. I rather enjoyed hearing the piece after quite a long gap. The songs had gone, but Sandra uses the song lyrics as poems. I thought I would miss the music more, but the poems manage to change the tempo and give the narrative depth.
Posted by julia @ 02:07 PM GMT
Last night I read at Gateshead Library, where there was a floor spot for anyone in the audience who wanted to stand up and read a poem. The novelist Louise Trondeur had turned up at lunchtime...(she wrote a great novel called The Water's Edge, set in a hotel in Bournemouth). We hadn't met before but I think when you really like someone's work, you always feel as if you know them. Anyway, she came along and read which was lovely. She also had all her long hair cut off in the afternoon. It was a day for courage and bravery. The people who read for the first time at Gateshead were incredibly brave. It's so exposing to read your work aloud, and such a victory when you have done it. Some of the poems that poeple read were so tender, about little details of magic in their lives. Anyway, it was a good night in lots of ways. There is something wonderful about a room full of people on a February night who are willing to listen to, or read poetry. Also, bravery pays....you feel taller and stronger and better afterwards.
I am listening to Rhapsody In Blue every day. It's so dramatic, and sounds like the narrative of my childhood ! I'm writing a story based on the music for Radio Four. I thought I would write about jealous old people, but now I am writing about early television watching. What I can't remember is if we watched American films on tv in the sixties in the afternoons. I'm sure we did, but a little voice tells me that maybe tv was just programmes like Doctor Who and odd quiz shows then, and there was probably only one channel. Does anyone remember what we watched on tv in say 1965, on a Sunday or Saturday afternoon???
I must go and eat some lunch. I get stuck in my room and forget to eat. I wish there were more trolleys in universities. A soup round would be wonderful. But I must go and eat a boring university sandwich, and have a plastic cup of tea.Posted by julia @ 02:03 PM GMT
Monday, February 9, 2004
It's a hard bright day. I am becoming more and more interested in my garden, and steep narrow downward strip. With the help of Cath the gardener we are decking and planting and generally making it a manageable place to be in. I want to get a sculpture of a lovely big stone woman to put at the bottom...an anti Atkins goddess that I can worship.
Today we drive to Sheffield to see the one woman version of Fanny Cradock at the Crucible. I have lots of deadlines this February, so it feels like a bit of a luxury. I am going to write a short story based on Rhapsody In Blue for Radio Four. Also I need to finish the first draft of the sitcom, which is called NEW BLOOD. And whenever I am not doing that I am thinking about Red Spot babies and where science and people collide. Infact, that's the theme that holds everything I am doing together at the moment; it's the interaction of humanity and medicine, creativity and health.
For my own nourishment I have decided to have one day a week which is a poetry day, when I write, or work on poems, or just go and BE. I have such a tendency to work all the the time, that I forget to look around me, or just to enjoy playing with words. Writing poetry or song is the best medicine I know.
The other night we went to the launch concert of Tim Dalling's CD BLOSSOM.....he has set many of Louis McNiece's poems to music...it was a really wonderful performance, and I am a complete fan. Like lots of other writers I am mad about the folksinger Gillian Welch at the moment. I also just bought a Landers and Wilson CD that I really like. February is a good month for new music and interesting soups, I think.Posted by julia @ 12:51 PM GMT
Monday, February 2, 2004
Last week I tried to fly to Bristol, but spent an evening drifting around the departure lounge at Newcastle Airport, watching snow swirl around outside. I was going to do a thing for a programme called Off The Page, when R4 asks three writers to write short pieces and talk about a subject. We were doing the Great British Public. The airport was the perfect spot to watch the British complaining, being cheery, getting drunk, then finally, when the flight was cancelled, queuing for hours to re-arrange flights. The next day I sat in a recording studio here in Ncle and did the programme 'down the line' which is a bit scary as you can't see who you're talking to, and you have to interrupt in order to be heard, which didn't feel very British. I wonder if it will be obvious when the programme goes out that I was sitting alone with headphones on?
I have been going down to an oak panelled archive to read through the data about the 1000 family study. There is so much to read! However, even in the most boring minutes you can see bits of humanity peeking through. There is something fascinating about it. Every so often there is some amazing bit of information...like the couple who kept their new false teeth on the dressing table, who put them on for the health visitor. There is something wonderful about sitting in libraries and archives, using a lead pencil (no biros) to make notes. It's peaceful and simple. I am also co-writing a poem about lovely things, or things we have loved, with Linda France for Valentine's Day. January is now over, thank god, and February seems quite tame in comparison. I am reading Rachel Cusk!Posted by julia @ 12:11 PM GMT
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