141. Breastless on the beach

I try to stick to the principle that this blog is about breast cancer. Which is why I haven't blogged for months. After all, cancer no longer affects my life. At all. Does it?

Doesn't it?

I suppose I've got used to being a cancer patient, or, as I should probably say now, a cancer survivor (although that makes it sound a bit like I've been in a nuclear war). It is two years since we sat in the doctor's office, listening with trepidation as she displayed her chemical weapons of cell destruction. Since then, almost imperceptibly, cancer has been normalised.

I nod my head knowingly when I read articles or books about the debilitating impact of chemotherapy. Yep. Been there.

I put novel items on my holiday packing list. Pills. Swimming softie.

Ah, yes, the swimming softie. Trying to cool down from the heat of southern France earlier this month, dashing in and out of the Mediterranean Sea, it did strike me that perhaps my lack of concern about a missing breast is worth noting. In answer to the questions I asked myself in July 2014 (should I wear a softie in the pool? should I wear a swimming cap when I'm bald?): Yes, I do wear the softie, in the same way as I wear a fake breast in my bra, to balance my outfit. It's just part of what my bras and swimming costumes are like these days, top-heavy on one side. Who cares. Perhaps my tops are not as low cut as they used to be, but I don't feel limited by this, and feel no less comfortable in the heat.

I thought I'd tell you this, just in case there is someone out there, reading this blog, facing a mastectomy and worrying about future scar-filled summers. Of course we are all different in the way we cope and live with what life throws at us, but I am truly unbothered by my single-breast status.

So, thankfully, is my family. I don't hide anything when dashing in and out of the shower. (Not much left to hide! Ha!)

One day, when playing Ticket To Ride and placing my train carriages in Eastern France, one daughter exclaimed: "I know which route mum has! Brest to Petrograd! She only has one brest, that's why she wants to go there!" We all howled with laughter. I thought it was genuinely funny, but I was also rather moved, because when your children can joke about your mastectomy, then you know that life is back to normal.

There was one other moment, during those few weeks in France, that I felt the aftermath of cancer treatment. There we were, in one of those huge supermarché's that seem to be designed for a family day out. I had been hot and bothered by my hair. It was too long, too outgrown, and inconvenient if you're swimming three times a day. It had (alas) started to grow straight again, and my attempts to hang on to my lovely curls were increasingly futile. I mean, look at it. Too much like a regretted perm.

June 2016

So, when the others were stocking up on sirop de pamplemousse, I spotted a scissor-wielding man idling in a place that had the word COIFFURE on it. I ran in and whipped out my iPhone to show him a picture on my blog. (Useful things, blogs.)

July 2014: Comme ça

"Comme ça!" I said, stabbing at the picture. And, for good measure, making snip-snipping movements close to my skull, "Très très courte!", in case le coiffeur was in any doubt about my desire for a complete change of image.

It was the first time I was aware that I actually missed something about my cancer treatments. The convenience, ease and summer comfort of very short hair. And if that dreadful year of treatment has taught me anything, it's that none of it really matters. Not the number of breasts you have, nor the length of your hair.

So, here we are. Happy holidays.

July 2016: Voilà

140. Brave battles

Cancer has been in the news far too often in 2016. One famous person after another seems to have died of it, starting with David Bowie at the beginning of January. Victoria Wood has just been added to the sorry list.

It's not just dying of cancer that's the common thread here.

All of these famous people fought brave battles.

At least that's how their deaths were announced by their families or publicists. They died after...

"...a courageous 18 month battle with cancer" (David Bowie)

"...a short but brave battle with cancer" (Terry Wogan)
"...a short but brave battle with cancer"  (Victoria Wood) (well spotted: exactly the same wording)

Even if the initial announcement is devoid of any warfare or bravery, the newspapers quickly provide the missing words. Alan Rickman's family simply stated that he "has died from cancer at the age of 69." Media reports announced "his secret battle with cancer", "he bravely battled cancer".

All this makes me wonder what the alternative is. A cowardly surrender?

What, exactly, does a brave battle with cancer look like? As far as I can imagine, being confronted with terminal cancer is like this.

1. You get the cancer diagnosis. You are probably going to die of it.
2. You are shocked and terrified.
3. You get to the end of each day and wake up at the start of each new one. Somehow. Simply because there is no alternative.

You cope in the only way you can. Perhaps you try not to think about it. Carry on as if nothing has happened. Don't even tell anyone, except perhaps your nearest and dearest - certainly not the Daily Mirror. (Is that brave? It'll certainly be a batlle.)

Or you focus on it. Talk about it. You may even inflict a cancer blog on the unsuspecting public. (Is that brave? No less of a battle, probably.)

I'm not sure what "a battle with cancer" is, anyway. Throwing as much treatment at it as your body can take? (Fight until the bitter end! Die fighting! Even if the enemy has machine guns and nuclear bombs, and all you have is a catapult.)

How about accepting that nothing can be done to ward off death, or deciding that the extra months you might live if you have more chemotherapy are not worth the misery of side effects? No less of a battle, I'd say, if you're into that kind of vocabulary.

I'm just trying to visualise what a cowardly cancer patient looks like. 

So I looked it up in the dictionary.

BRAVE: to face and endure pain or difficulty without showing fear

COWARD: a person who is not brave and who is too eager to avoid danger, difficulty or pain 

Now, of course I never knew David Bowie or Victoria Wood or any of the other famous people who have died of cancer in recent months, but I think I can be pretty sure about one thing: all of them must have felt fear. (See above, number 2: "shocked and frightened".) I think I can also put a safe bet on the proposition that each one of them was rather eager to avoid danger, difficulty and pain.

Because who could face suffering and death without feeling any fear? Even Jesus wasn't immune to a bit of courage failure (Take this cup away from me; Father, why have You forsaken me?), but you wouldn't call Him a coward, exactly.

In fact, I have just read that of all the concerns that cancer patients have, WORRY, FEAR and ANXIETY comes top. Well above PAIN (which comes fourth).

The crucial words in the definitions of bravery and courage are without showing fear.

So perhaps this is what cowardly cancer patients looks like:

• they cry a lot
• they lie awake at night
• they find themselves physically shaking

Looking back at my own cancer year, I can tick all those boxes. Coward? Ah, no, because I usually DIDN'T SHOW IT. (Not until I started blogging about it. And when I did own up to a spot of weeping, you were all so alarmed that from then on, I tried to keep things a bit more cheerful, at least in cyberspace.)

Being with people in distress or despair or terror is terribly, terribly difficult. It is unbearable, in fact. They make you realise that there is nothing you can do. (All you can do is "be there", and that is painfully difficult.) They also make you think about your own fears and pain.

No wonder we'd rather have brave cancer patients who don't share their worries with us. If I were a celebrity, I bet I wouldn't have shared it either. Having cancer is bad enough without being cheered on to fight battles with it. As if you had the energy to be a David in the face of a cancerous Goliath.

The dictionary definitions lead me to the following conclusion:

A true coward is someone who is eager (determined, in fact) to avoid cancer altogether. 

Well, I've had enough of that particular "battle", so from henceforth,  you can count me in with the cowards. Either that, or stop calling us all "brave".

139. Time is elastic

My son turns 18 today.

I am now the * mother of an adult.

*The word "elderly" springs to mind here, fitting in well with the creaking bones and the grey hair. (Oops, sorry, I forgot I wasn't going to mention the hair again.)

I am not sure how it happened. One day you fiddle with socks like finger puppets and you sort out their playground troubles; the next you trip over shoes like ships and they sort out your computer problems. One day you nurse them through the misery of inocculations; the next they fetch you drinks whilst you're hooked up to the chemotherapy drip.

There must have been days in-between, but they are a bit of a blur. And it certainly cannot be true that there were over six and a half thousand days between his birth day and today, his 18th birthday.

The thing is, when you are looking ahead at an unimaginable future moment, time stretches like elastic.

The road from here to there looks like a tightrope, and off you go, looking at your feet because otherwise you'll fall off. The end of the elastic is nowhere in sight.

But when you look back, time can suddenly concertina towards you. Sometimes it still stretches and you cannot quite remember the person you once were. (The one who spent all day covered in goo, singing nursery rhymes to a fretful baby. The one who thought she was invincible, healthy and strong until the day she'd die in a bicycle crash, aged 107.)

Occasionally, it is as if someone has let go and that far-off past moment pings you in the face. But mostly, the elastic sits on the floor behind you in a messy heap. That's when you realise it wasn't half as long as you thought.

I'll keep that in mind when I look at the nine years of hormone treatment I've got left. I'll try to remember how impossible it seemed that my tiny baby would one day be a man. How long it seemed, having to go through an entire year of cancer treatments and another year (or two, or nine) of trying to wobble back to normal. Now, I look back and the time seems to have collapsed with a gentle twang.

It's both frightening and reassuring. Frightening, because I like to think that the time still ahead of me stretches on and on; but today is one of those days when it suddenly hits me how deluded that thought is.

Reassuring, because last night I sat down and looked back at those 18 years, picking up the pieces of slack time on the floor and remembering. There was something peaceful and happy about that. Something hopeful, too. Somehow I have ended up with a charming young man, despite all that wobbling on tightropes.

And if, one day in the future, there is not much going forward, then that will somehow be OK too, because I shall enjoy looking back.

Now, if you'll excuse me. There is a case of vintage wine in the cellar that has been waiting for this very day. Let me go and get the glasses ready.

138. In the hair and now

My Hairy Situation has happily stopped us from having to talk about the weather for roughly a year and a half. 

That glamorous I-wouldn't-dare-to-go-that-short look, but doesn't it suit you!

Those curls that have, quite literally, come out of nowhere.

The hair loss has made me cry (once or twice) and laugh (countless times), and has provided all of us with plenty of entertainment.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow.

Wish You Were Hair.

But this is the end of that era. My friends, I have paid a visit to Andrew the hairdresser. (Remember him?)

About, oh, once a month or so, I would look in the mirror and decide that something had to be done at last. Too wild! Too strange!

But I never dialled Andrew's number, because I was too intrigued. What would happen to the curls? Would it suit me to wear it a bit longer? I decided to leave it uncut for exactly one year after it started growing.

This was quite a safe thing to do. I have discovered that no-one, but NO-ONE, will dare to criticise the hairdo of a recovering cancer patient. However outrageous it might look, I could safely predict that people would fall over themselves to compliment me on it. With relief in their eyes, because frankly, they couldn't really compliment me on the bald look. They tried, and many of you sounded reasonably convincing, but really: looking at the photo gallery below, you will have to admit that you wouldn't pick the first one out of Andrew's catalogue of options.

But now the year is over. I finished my treatment at the end of January 2015 and stopped shaving the miserly stubble there and then. A year on, it had grown exactly 12 centimetres.

This is what 12 centimetres looks like.

The wild hair, untamed

Welcome back to the 1980s. It's not an era you'd like to recommend to your stylist.

Andrew was booked in.

Cries of protests erupted from friends and even from daughters.
NOOOO!!! It looks lovely, so thick and luscious and amazing etc etc.
Don't cut it, was the consensus instruction.

I sort of agreed and almost cancelled Andrew, but not having seen him for so long, I thought I'd go anyway and ask his opinion. He cheered me into the salon, took one look and said, "It doesn't need cutting."

He sat me down and ran his fingers through the curls, marvelling. We stared in the mirror.

The wild hair, tamed

"Why change it?" he asked. "You like it. It suits you. It's not offending me in any way. Not the back, not the longer bits on the top. I can tidy it up, but you'll walk out of here looking pretty much the same."

So whilst catching up on a year and a half of news, he made me look less like Wild Woman of Cancerland, more like someone with a choice. For good measure, and on the spur of the moment, I went straight from the hair chair to an eyebrow chair. I have never, ever had my eyebrows plucked (I confess that until fairly recently, I didn't even know that eyebrow chairs existed).

I discovered the effect of organised eyebrows when I had none and occasionally painted them on - and on those fake-brow-days, I would miraculously get multiple comments on how well and glamorous I looked.

(Don't be fooled by people looking well and glamorous. It's war paint, mostly.)

Nobody has noticed either the hair cut or the tidy brows.

The only person in our household who usually does notice such things is in bed with a fever. But who cares?

Having gone through a wide range of diverse looks, I now know with great clarity and certainty that your looks truly don't matter beyond fleeting first impressions (which your friends don't need, as they are impressed already). But strangely, simultaneously, looks DO matter.

Because you might not notice my tamed locks, but I notice. That's what matters. 

So here I am, in the Hair And Now.

I leave you with a gallery of the past year.

These selfies were taken at monthly intervals. And that is the final word on my hair. I'm afraid we'll now have to go back to discussing the weather. Did you hear about the havoc caused by storm Gertrude?

January 2015 (0 cm)

February 2015 (1 cm)

March 2015 (2 cm)

April 2015 (3 cm)

May 2015 (4 cm)

June 2015 (5 cm)

July 2015 (6 cm)

August 2015 (7 cm)

September 2015 (8 cm)

October 2015 (9 cm)

November 2015 (10 cm)

December 2015 (11 cm)

January 2016.  (12 cm. The end)

137. Taking each day

This is the fourth time I have sat down at my computer to write a blog post.

First of all, there was the Happy Christmas one.

Then the Happy New Year one.

Then the "Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas/New Year" one.

Each of these drafts was deleted. I'd envisaged something Meaningful and Profound, along the lines of I've looked back on my year / forward to the next year / reflected on my colourful cancer experiences / learned so much / let me tell you all about it.

Christmas, then New Year, seemed auspicious times to write such profundities. Nothing profound was forthcoming.

Alas, I thought. Tomorrow perhaps. But now, it seems to me that you've had a lucky escape. Who wants to hear about someone else's deep and meaningful thoughts? You'd only compare them to your own thoughts (the ones about chocolate and shopping and the latest whodunnit) and find yourself wanting.

And what cancer patient wants to hear about the life lessons other cancer patients have learnt? You'd only sit down exhausted and find yourself wanting even more.

The trouble is, life's lessons are alarmingly easy to forget.

I'm not sure I've learnt anything new during the past few years; it's just that some things become blindingly obvious when you are ill, because you don't have the energy to rush around and Do Stuff.

The absolute need for the support of family and friends, even if you've always pretended to be Superwoman; and the deeply life-affirming discovery that such family and friends really are there.

The joy that can be found in the smallest of things (well, you don't have a choice, because the big things have been cancelled).

The need to take each day as it comes.

That last one is nothing new either. I've even written about it, well before my cancer diagnosis, in one of my books:

"People with cancer need to find ways of living with the knowledge that life may change in a way that is unimaginable and devastating. One way of coping is to learn to ‘take each day as it comes’. It is not unusual to hear a cancer patient say, ‘I am living much more in the moment now. I try and enjoy every day, because you never know what will happen next.’"

(The point I went on to make was that many people with learning disabilities are rather good at living in the moment, and therefore have an advantage when it comes to coping with cancer.)

So, I'd like to be able to say "Right folks! I've cracked it! I'm taking each day as it comes!"

No such luck. With each bit of new energy comes a new expectation. Aha! I can do full working days again! Let me plan a new project, cook dinner, do the shopping and then clear out the garden at the weekend. Oh, and write that deep and meaningful blog post."

The trouble is, when you're physically and mentally healthy, life actually involves planning and looking forward to things. The trouble is in knowing how healthy and able you are. Personally, I haven't yet figured it out.

So, with each new expectation comes frustration. Because A doesn't necessarily lead to B. Swimming 40 lengths one day doesn't mean I can swim 50 the next (in fact it usually means I can swim none the next). It's hard to take that next day as it comes.

New year's resolution: I'm cancelling my swim membership this month. Yes, I'll still swim, but no more than once a week (it used to be three or four times a week), because instead of invigorating me as it did in the past, now it just exhausts me. Cue failed expectation, cue frustration. I've kept the swimming going all through my treatment, but I've taken so many days as they came (and they came without the 50 lengths) that I'm admitting defeat. Or, if I'm into rephrasing things positively, focusing my energies elsewhere.

There's one small triumph though.

Just before my cancer diagnosis, I started practicing for my first ever music exam. I'd been learning the cello for three years - fiendishly difficult; being able to play other instruments (guitar, recorder, piano accordion) was no help. I wanted to set myself a target, plus, I hoped it would give my efforts a bit of gravitas in the eyes of my children, who have worked through many such exams.

It was all put on hold. I didn't play for a whole year. I tried a few times, but I discovered that playing instruments (and singing, for that matter) is physically rather exhausting.

But last summer, I picked up my cello again. And just before Christmas, I appeared before the examiner.

Readers, I passed my grade 3 cello exam with distinction. This is an unashamed boast. It involved hours and hours and hours of practice, and I'm rather proud of it.

Have I learned any lessons from having breast cancer?

Perhaps this: if you have a choice, then focus on the things that give you pleasure and energy. I missed playing my cello when I was ill, but enjoyed Escape To The Country. I don't have time for Escape To The Country now. There's a cello to play.

Who knows? One day, I might not have time to play my cello, because there is the daily swim to fit in. I'm trying not to plan for it though.

There are 357 days of 2016 left. I doubt I will take each one as it comes, but I'll try. Wish me luck.

Happy new year.

136. Something Sinister?

For the ex-cancer patient, an ache or twinge or bout of tiredness is not easily waved aside. You try to forget about the dangerous surprises your body might spring on you, but it is always there, lurking ominously in the dark alleys of your mind: the possibility that your weariness or your aching bones are evidence of Something Sinister.

I have discovered that Something Sinister is one of the many euphemisms for Cancer.

Busting medical jargon is part of my job, but I had never come across that one before. Not until I heard my doctors use it.

"I'm sure your lump is nothing serious, but let's get you checked out anyway, in case it's Something Sinister," my GP said.

"I don't think there's Anything Sinister going on," my hospital consultant might say in an effort to reassure.

So there I was, back at the breast clinic with worries about Something Sinister.

I've been pretty gung-ho about getting on with my cancer-free life. What else can you do? I've been cut up, poisoned, blasted, and now I've got a mighty deterrent in the shape of 10 years worth of drugs. Tiny, innocent-looking pills called Letrozole whose job it is to keep me free of oestrogen, the hormone that was to blame for the growth of my cancer lump. (Not all breast cancers are cheered on by oestrogen, but mine was.)

So what's there to fear?

Debilitating exhaustion, that's what. The kind of exhaustion that saw me slumped on my desk by lunchtime, back in bed most afternoons just so that I could get through the evenings. Yes, I could manage full days (two in a row, at a push), but paid for it by needing several days to recover. This was new. I've never regained my full energy since the cancer treatments, but it had not been this bad. I mean, I've walked a marathon, for crying out loud! I wasn't full of bouncy energy then, but even so, I managed it. I couldn't contemplate walking even a fraction of that distance now.

Theories abounded.

"What do you expect? You've bounced back too quickly! You've overdone things! Think of all that poison last year!"

"It takes at least a year to recover from breast cancer treatments. In fact, it can take up to five."

"Perhaps - perhaps - you are experiencing some form of depression?" (This was always floated tentatively.)

Well, yes, but. But. Why on earth would I be feeling better and better, gradually, only for things to go downhill again? This was no ordinary tiredness. I am quite a positive kind of person, but now I was beginning to wake up with a sense of dread about the day ahead, which would invariably end up in frustrated tiredness.

I didn't dismiss the possibility of Depression. Why should I be immune to such illness? But really, would depression cause such extremes of tiredness?

I'm not even mentioning the bone aches. Those, I knew, were courtesy of the Letrozole tablets. But there was the somewhat worrying matter of Shortness Of Breath. As I said, an ex-cancer patient notes every change and every niggle.

The sum total of all this looked very much like a woman in extreme old age, hobbling about before collapsing in a reclining chair for her afternoon rest. Actually, make that a morning rest.

Thankfully, my GP and hospital consultant took me seriously.

They started their detective work with gusto. Blood tests. X-rays. A string of appointments.

And thankfully, they found Nothing Sinister.

I could have kissed my consultant when she suggested plan C, which was to experiment with stopping my tablets for a couple of weeks. Could they be the culprit? I had my suspicions. I know that it's impossible to predict women's response to these kind of pills. "Some of my patients don't really notice they're taking them," my GP had said. "Other can't bear it, they can hardly get through the day."

I didn't take the tablet one Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, I felt better. More positive. Less tired. On Thursday, I was a New Woman.

This was three weeks ago, and I haven't had a single daytime hour in bed since stopping those pills. My bone aches are just a faint echo of their previous ferocity.

I had started to think very seriously about giving up work altogether. Now, I am planning my next projects.

It's by no means a miracle cure. I am not the woman I once was, sprightly and lithe and full of possibilities. I have to pace myself, take it easy. But then, so do most of my friends who are in their fifties and sixties.

Could I stay off those pills forever? Alas, no such luck. Last week, I started another one. Same type of medicine, different make, different name (Exemestane). Alarmingly, the list of side effects looks identical to the those on the Letrozole leaflets. So far so good, but be warned little pills, I'm keeping my eye on you.

If they cause similar debilitating side effects, there's a plan D in the shape of the more widely known Tamoxifen. For ten years.

Do I really need to take these wretched things for that long? Yes, apparently I do.

I quizzed my consultant today. What are the actual benefits of this hormone treatment? What is the research evidence?

She looked somewhat alarmed at my apparent willingness to sacrifice these benefits if I felt that the disadvantages were worse. Not being able to get through the day for the next 10 years is, it seems to me, quite a high price to pay. For what?

Well, here it is. "Studies have shown that over 10 to 15 years," my consultant explained, leaning forward so that she could look straight into my eyes, "3% of women benefit from taking the tablets."

I know what doctors mean by "benefit", but I needed to clarify, just to be sure, so I asked: "That means that in the group of women taking the tablets, 3% more women are alive after 10 years than in the group of women not taking any tablets?"

Yes, that's correct. "So please," the consultant implored, touching my arm, "stick with it. We will find one that works for you, even if this one doesn't."

Right now, with my replenished levels of energy, I am willing to agree that it is worth it, because I could easily imagine being one of those three out of a hundred women who didn't take the tablets and died of Something Sinister.

What I didn't dare ask is how many women took the tablets and died anyway.

Perhaps it's better not to know. Let's leave that possibility safely tucked away in the dark alleys of my mind.

135. Hurray! Breast Cancer Will Improve Your Life!!

You've got breast cancer? Worry not.

Congratulations, in fact. Because here is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to Transform Your Life.

Take our word for it. You go through cancer and you emerge on the other side a Better Person, or at the very least a person with a Better Life.

Healthier - because of that diet you've discovered, full of liquidised greens and purples and browns, which you will stick with forever. You now feel so lovely and fit! And you are thin at last!

More loved - what with all these people who've fallen over themselves to help and support you and tell you how precious you are. (In the spirit of Queen Victoria who survived several assassination attempts and observed, "It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.")

More worthwhile - because now you no longer fritter your life away watching cats on Facebook. No sir! You have started support groups and raised bucket loads of money for good causes. Not a day of your life is wasted anymore.

With less baggage - because cancer has focused the mind so within months of diagnosis, you ditched your husband. And your job. Oh, and you've started a university degree. You see, cancer has also made you:

More fulfilled.

Plus, you've learned how you can Help Your Children Through Difficult Times. You've started sewing Cancer Owls! Spread the word!

This is the kind of thing you read in magazines.

In this particular case, the October issue of a woman's magazine. It doesn't matter which one. I'm only blogging about this now that the issue of WomMag is safely off the supermarket shelves, so there is no risk of you rushing off to buy a copy. (Fortunately, none of my friends and acquaintances seem to have read it, as nobody commented "I saw you in Wommag," whilst loads of people told me "I read your letter in the Guardian" last year.)

A Wommag journalist interviewed me alongside seven other breast cancer survivors. As part of a special feature, my cancer year was summarised in 150 words and put out there alongside my photograph:

'Find your own way to help kids understand.' Irene Tuffrey, 52, London.

Why did I agree? Because, rightly or wrongly, I fancied that it might help some people to read about Owl. I knew 150 words is nothing (you've read almost 400 words so far) so I urged the journalist to include a link to this blog, for those who'd like to find out more. It won't suit all (read: most) families but it might help just one or two, I reckoned.

"Of course," she agreed. "I will."

But the web address wasn't there, just the paltry 150 words, so what's the point? Worse: it included several misquotes, including "quotes" of what my children allegedly said. (It starts badly enough in the headline: I don't use the word "kids").

Note to self: never agree to this sort of thing again, unless I write it myself or have editorial control.

I haven't dreamt up the messages about cancer making you more loved / healthy / fulfilled / worthwhile.

It's all there in the pen portraits of the seven other women. (Although there's no guarantee, we now know, that they really said what's written.)

In fact the one about healthy eating is printed in extra-large font with full details of the life-transforming diet book. I'm not surprised, as the interviewer was clearly taken by this. She told me all about it on the phone, hinting that I might like to try the diet too. I thanked her politely, saying I'm glad it helped Ms 'Make it the start of a healthier you' (that's the headline she got) but personally I didn't feel the need for a new diet.

(Between you and me, I'm just glad I can enjoy the old one.)

"I just need to find one more woman to interview," the journalist said.

"For some reason, I've only got younger women. I need to find someone over the age of 60. Do you know of anyone who'd be happy to share her story?"

As it happened, I did. I rang Choir Friend, who is in her early 60s.

"Well, yes, I don't mind," said Choir Friend. "But I don't really have a story. I mean, I had breast cancer, it was treated, it's over, I'm fine, and I just carry on with my life. It hasn't really affected me that much and I hardly think about it anymore."

Now that, I told her, is exactly the kind of story that should go into Wommag. I mean, how utterly reassuring would that be to other women?

Look everyone, it's possible to have cancer without it transforming your life.

No story to tell? Why on earth is THAT not a story? From where I'm sitting, it sounds like the best story of all.

So I emailed the journalist and told her as much.

"My friend," I wrote in my email, "had a lumpectomy and radiotherapy this winter. She says that she has nothing interesting to say because she doesn't think her life has changed at all, she just dealt with it and got on with it. Personally, I think that's actually a really important perspective: that cancer doesn't have to be a highly interesting and life changing event, but simply one of the many things that can happen to you!"

The journalist replied:

"I've just found someone to be my 60-something, thankfully but thanks so much for your help, I'm interested to find out why it's been so hard to find women in the older age group when there are so many of them going through diagnosis..."

Perhaps they are just more like Choir Friend, dealing with cancer in whatever way they can without feeling the need to have a New Life afterwards? Or perhaps they do have a New Life, but it's less glamorous, more full of aches and pains and exhaustion, and therefore of less interest to glossy magazines?

The 60-something in Wommag said (wait for it)...

"Having breast cancer transformed my life - for the better... within months of my diagnosis I'd left my husband, started an Open University degree and changed jobs... I've raised £120,000..."

You can see why Wommag liked her story better than Choir Friend's. They want Positive. Dramatic. Transformative.

Something to look forward to then, and no pressure, if you're a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient picking up Wommag in the consultant's waiting room.

But I wonder, now, who this is really written for. I imagine all these women reading this, the women who have survived breast cancer and feel that their lives are not better, but more difficult now. Why don't we read anything about them? It makes me even more regretful that my story featured in Wommag.

I want to say to those women: Sorry if this makes you feel inadequate, as if you've failed in some way, having done nothing special to cope with your illness. 

I feel uncomfortable nowadays, when I hear people say things like Hasn't she coped well with all this.

I have coped in the only way I can. So will you, when cancer hits you. It will be your way, no better and no worse than mine, just different.

I'd like to propose another magazine feature.

It goes like this.

Breast cancer?*
It's rotten.
It robbed me of my energy / faculties / sanity / bodily functions.

*Could easily be substituted for: Bereavement / Rheumatoid arthritis / Depression

Here are some pen portraits of breast cancer survivors.

• Breast cancer hasn't changed my life. (Yes, well spotted, that's Choir Friend in the photograph.)
• I had breast cancer last year and I'm still tired / achy / worried. But I mustn't complain because aren't I lucky? (Could this be Yours Truly? No comment.)
• I never got used to my flat chest / reconstruction / new hair.
• I haven't taken up fundraising / a new degree / a new job / a new husband. No... Instead, I've had to give up my volunteering job / sex life / hobbies.

The title of this fascinating feature would be:

WARNING: a sprinkling of breast cancer may not improve the flavour of life.

Editors, if you're reading this: I will provide my journalistic services for free. Plenty of material to choose from. Please form an orderly queue.