2008 Jun 15th - BBC catch & Race for Life 2008

Ooops, I was reminded this week that I've not posted for the best part of a month! I'm not sure where the time has gone at all.

I intended to post and tell you all about May 16th when me and Beckie went down to the big smoke for the Beating Bowel Cancer event. A room full of Patient Voices (patients who try and spread the word, are there for other patients etc) and their guests met up at the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall. We were grouped on tables by geographical region as far as possible to try and come up with some plans to get the word out there about bowel cancer, how to spot it early and about the charity, with people we live near.

It seemed like a very long day, not least because I was seriously hungover (remember Mr Date/not Date?.....turns out he would like me but has a "complication" who is presumably female). It was lovely to meet some of my bum bandit friends again and I was especially delighted to see Alison, Debsi and Peter who although we've been sharing our ups and downs for well over a year have not managed to meet until the day.

I was sat next to a retired judge......I seriously hoped he couldn't smell the booze on me :o(

Lunch was a buffet but it was served to us by very smartly dressed young and pretty people, which is always nice! Special guest Gillian McKeith was there to give a little speech encouraging us to continue talking about poo.......kinda hard for me NOT to talk about it to be fair, and present awards to top fundraisers. I had managed not to cry despite meeting Peter who looked amazing only 2 weeks out of his ileostomy reversal operation until Alison was given her award. They did that thing where they drop really massive clues about who it is (unless you don't know them) and our Alison who has been living with bowel cancer in her liver for over 5 years now managed to complete an MA during that time. She's looking to publish some of her poetry to raise further funds. As soon as the poetry was mentioned I knew it was her and looked across to Beckie who also nodded and mouthed "Alison!". Couldn't stop a few tears right then. A chap on our table also got an award, not least for climbing Killimanjaro.

I agreed to do some stuff to help spread the word but as a month has gone by and I haven't even written about it, needless to say I've done nothing yet! What a slacker.....but I have been busy....living I guess?

Anyway, I got my smear result back, it's clear! Woop woop.

I've been in to see my surgeon again since my GP, trying to speed up the process, ordered a CT scan weeks ago. The request was eventually returned and denied as GPs can't do that. My surgeon has reordered one and it's on Tuesday 17th June (next week). I'm not going to pretend I'm OK about it, I've wanted this scan for so long but now it's come around I'm dreading the results.

On Thursday I spoke to a friend whose father's tumour marker counts have risen, another who's own brain tumour appears not to have been completely removed last week and my ex mother in law emailed to say her husband is in hospital, turns out he had a stroke. The news that hit me hardest was a very good bowel cancer buddy discovering he has an awful lot of small tumours all over his lungs. Over 20 in one of them.......after getting rid of originally "inoperable" liver spread from his bowel, now this. I shed a few tears and then realised I have nothing to cry about. I'm on the mend (pending scan) and the only thing I can do is keep it together for everyone.

On to today - Race for Life in Boston and my little Beckie was running after practising in the gym on a treadmill. She was a little nervous about how running on a real surface might be, but she managed to sprint in coming TWELFTH!