The worst is over !!

The worst is over (fingers crossed). Last Friday I had my 6^th and last session of chemotherapy. All went smoothly – no trouble with the veins. The cold cap was almost unbearably cold now that I have about 10% of the hair I used to have and I nearly gave up but perseverance for that little bit longer paid off and the cold started to ease off. Frances collected me and came with me for the morning session and after seeing Dr Monika and having finally plucked up the courage to ask her to put my details in the computer and come up with a statistic for the future, we celebrated my good news at the Crown. The 94% chance of being alive and well in 10 years time is fine by me – that is if I don’t get run over by a bus in the meantime!. I would still have had an 80% chance of this fact even if I hadn’t had any treatment – just the mastectomy, however, I feel the extra insurance has been and will be well worth the trouble.

As the doctor said at the beginning when I was in a state of shock, Early stage breast cancer (and prostate) are very treatable conditions nowadays.

Frances and I went off in great jubilation to celebrate this news with lunch at the Crown Pub opposite the hospital.

Verena joined us and stayed for the afternoon bringing me another very cute owl for my collection who I have named Toffee after Verena’s sweet dog whom she rescued from Battersea Dogs Home.

This week’s euphoria has been marred by several sad events.

My cousin Digby Willoughby died in his beloved St Morritz at the age of 72. How odd it is, that, having spoken to him a few times during my illness when he called to see how I was, that I am here and he is not. He will be very much missed. He was a brave soldier and a brave Cresta rider and people were quite frightened of his fierce and authoritative front. But I knew him as my gentle older cousin Dig who brought me exotic gifts such as a necklace of unpolished precious stones and beautiful raw silk material from Thailand when I was a pre- teenager and he was staying with us on leave from the Ghurkhas. Who took me for drives with my L plates on in the countryside and kept my parents entertained with his unauthorised “Bawdy songs and Backroom Ballards” albums and rude songs and limericks on his guitar. I knew him as a great fan of Burl Ives and the Ink Spots. I can remember as if it was yesterday how he patiently taught me to play the guitar and wrote down the chords I was to learn which was to lead me personally to a lifetime of adventure. Whenever I went to stay with him and the family, he would say “Bring your guitar” and we would have a jam session and I would sing harmonies with him. I knew him at age 60 something, as a very fearful son who had forgotten his keys to his 90 year old father’s house thus forcing the white-haired old boy to come to the door himself on his zimmer frame. The ancient austere monocled Colonel Bill, the father that never once gave Dig a word of praise for all his courageous achievements and could still cause Digby much anxiety. When he broke his neck at Shuttlecock on the Cresta one year, I phoned Uncle Bill to make sure he knew as there was a piece in William Hickey about it. “Have you heard from Digby?” I said carefully, “Oh Digby, he said, he’s off tobogganing somewhere”.

His death was a quick and sudden heart failure in the place that he loved with people that he loved at three score years and twelve so there’s a lot to be grateful for in that.

I hope you are “off tobogganing” somewhere Dig and really enjoying yourself. You deserve to – God bless you

The second sad news was of an old friend Ian Wooldridge, the Daily Mail sports writer extraordinaire who suffered a long illness with great bravery and courage. I also spoke to him a couple of times en route to his wife Sarah and the last thing I said to him was “Keep buggering on” (courtesy Caroline Upton who always says it to me!) Coincidentally I met Ian through his beloved wife Sarah who’s brother Tim Chappell shared a flat with Digby when they were both on leave in London.

The obituaries and Radio 4 etc have been full of both of them this week and feel pretty sure they are enjoying the prestigious reviews over a glass (or two) of whisky together.

After two deaths in a week I was feeling nervous as things often go in three’s, when yesterday at 8.30, I was hauled out of bed by a boy on his way to school, who knocked on my door to ask if an expired cat outside my house was mine. Having told him it unfortunately belonged to the people across the road and was very very old, I said a quick prayer for it and breathed a sigh of relief.

"The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop;
At late or early hour.
Now is the only time you own,
Live! Toil with a will!
Place no faith in tomorrow;
For the clock may then be still".

On a happier note we celebrated my other cousin Christopher’s birthday in style with a drinks party here and then dinner at the Blue Elephant, Fulham’s best Thai Restaurant.

Mia carried in a birthday cake and we sang Happy Birthday. Lisa gave him a super new croquet set for the garden at Kenilworth, and I gave him a framed picture of him and the goat on the Majorca beach that we always tease him about, and a “Shag a Sheep” novelty apron to go with it! We also had fun with a pair of glasses I found that are made from a plastic drinking straw. You put one end of the straw in your mouth and the other in your drink and the glasses in the middle go on your face. When you suck on the straw, your drink travels up the straw and winds through the glasses round and round and them ends up in your mouth. It is hilarious to watch and we all had a go. Although it was Chris’s turn to pay for the dinner owing to losing the latest dieting competition, Lisa very kindly insisted on picking up the tab in celebration of the birthday and my getting over the chemo.

It was funny to think that is was nearly 6 months to the day that I found out I had cancer and we went to that same restaurant that night and I had tried to eat between bouts of tears.