"Fat to Fittie"

When it comes to the “C” word, cancer is the one that people avoid most, no one’s comfortable mentioning it and very few actually want to talk about it, as something that will effect one in four of us, the subject shouldn’t really be avoided, no matter how difficult. Last year, I lost a niece to this dreadful disease, after a long while just communicating by text and phone, we’d finally met up again and brought many of our family together, some for the first time. We met up on several occasions last year and planned many more future gathering’s, but sadly, all these plans were taken away. She was a bright intelligent woman, with a wonderful future ahead in childcare, a job she gave as much to as she did her own family. I’ve tried to write about Helen several times, but found it hard, she was an avid reader and supporter of this blog and gave me a lot of confidence to continue, I miss reading her comments, often sent after I published, one in particular describing how she felt reading about my trip to Wales, “I’m pissing myself” was the feedback “You need to do more of this”. There is of course, no such thing as a good cancer, but hers was particularly brutal, it struck very fast and therefore took away the chance of saying goodbye, I’ll always regret not seeing her one last time, but that’s nothing compared to the family she’s left behind. A truly wonderful lady, the testament to which was stamped home by the amount of people who attended her funeral and the emotion that was shown by each and every one, this will be her legacy and not what took this mum, niece, cousin and friend from us.

When I decided to write this blog two friend’s were also in my thoughts, the first was diagnosed with cancer during covid, which you’ll agree, was not a great time to be fighting this cruel thing, even worse if the type you have has a low survival rate. I remember where I was when he told me and how I felt, this put into perspective what it must be like as the one actually being diagnosed, shock and fear feature high in the emotions. He’d known something wasn’t right for a while and after tests, was told he had a tumour, with the outlook not looking good, thankfully his determination to survive helped him beat it and he now gives help and advice to others going through the trauma of diagnosis.

Let’s be honest, this was never going to be a happy blog, pretty sure nobody clicked on the link expecting to get a few laughs, but like everything in life, it’s important to see a humorous side. The second friend of mine who ran a pub in York, sadly lost his fight in 2017, all the time I knew him, he had a wicked sense of humour and despite being diagnosed with a terminal outcome, it never left him. He wasn’t a big man, quite slight and despite liking a pint, never seemed to weigh much. he sent me a picture of himself while he was on chemotherapy, “f*****g hell” I said, ” have you been eating just pies”? He looked great, unlike many who undertake the treatment he seemed to have gained a bit of weight instead of losing it. “I know” he replied, “I’ve never been so heavy, though I’ll need to be on chemo another two years before I catch up to you, ya fat bastard”.

Sending love and best wishes to anyone affected X