We have never met, and like many people who read your words I am sorry we have not as you seem very special indeed. I have just met your brother though in London recently and kept wondering if you are like him in any way.

Your gift in writing comes with a total lack of pomposity. That is quite hard to achieve and is very liberating for the reader. I do not know if you have always been like that or if this has come with your cancer.

My father lived with cancer for seven years, during the last two his body pretty well fell apart, yet there were still especially clear and special days that we spent together. They had a particular light that was born from knowing time was short.

But then I wonder why we should ever take it for granted that we have all the time in the world and so can afford to disregard even a single day. I was going to say waste a single day but realize I meant the opposite. I should waste a lot more of my days doing pointless and wonderful things with those I love.

Warmest wishes,

Mary

I’m so sorry to see you need yet more chemo, but I know what you mean about feeling it’s something you want and need. I also have terminal breast cancer, but mine is Her-2 positive, and diagnosed in 2004, so I’m beating the odds so far. I do hope your experience with docitaxel is as good as mine was - I was given it in combination with herceptin and started to feel better very quickly. But I have not had secondaries in my lungs, so I don’t know what to expect there. Mine were (are)all in my liver, and now in the lymph nodes in my abdomen. I’ve been back on chemo for 15 months - 5 different regimes. The current one is good for me but very bad for our bank balance.

I have really enjoyed your blogs, especially your musings on the best way to behave. I have also had the experience of very short conversations with people who are not used to thinking about such issues, let alone dealing with them in social situations. (Mind you, it happened even more when I was a science student, and later a scientist: “What do you do?” “Plant physiology” “Oh” end of conversation). We seem to have a very limited range of comfortable conversation topics, and can easily be derailed by something that touches on areas we don’t habitually venture into, like the sacred, or science. Writing this I find myself wondering whether some of the awkwardness around science stems from a feeling that it touches in some way on the sacred…now there’s a thought Richard Dawkins wouldn’t like.

Enough maundering. I do hope the docitaxel treats you well, in every sense.

Thinking of you

Debbie

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