May is my favourite month

May is my favourite month, but it came early this year and April took it's place. It's now mid June and it’s a year since I started this journal. A year in my life of extraordinary happenings. I sit in the sunshine on my blue bench in my patio garden. The broken slat still holds and the scar on it, similar in many ways to the one that I proudly wear on my chest, Reminds me that “things can be fixed”!.

The treatment I am having now is giving me some unpleasant side effects but the outcome will be worth it. Herceptin causes fatique and the withdrawal of oestrogen plus the addition of the anti- oestrogen drug Arimidex which I have been taking for 2 months now has given me painful ligaments. I have gone for help to the Haven and have been given medicinal herbs and acupuncture to help these symptons. In additon I am to take Omega 3.6.&9 and 3 fish oils per day plus glucosamine to combat it. It will wear off in time and I just have to be patient for at least another six months. I still haven't had a day of depression thanks to the support I've had - anything else is just a detail and I feel emotionally strong and very grateful.

Above my head is a small plaque that reads “There’s nothing worth the wear of winning, but laughter and the love of friends” H.. Belloc, and as I sit under it and feel the warmth of the sun on my head and my new crop of hair, I ponder on how very true that is and has become though the quotation has always been with me. I found it on the service sheet of my youngest cousin Mikey who tragically died from a burst appendix at St George’s Hospital – now the Lanesborough Hotel where we held Aimi’s wedding. He was an extraordinary young person. Brilliant scholar and spiritual being. He embraced Sufiism in his teenage years and attracted 200 people from all walks of life to attend his funeral at St Pauls in 1960 aged only 21 years old..

This was one of his favourite quotes and came from the old soul he was and in it’s entirety it reads “From quiet homes and small beginnings, unto the world’s remotest ends, there’s nothing worth the wear of winning, save laughter and the love of friends”.

Laughter and the love of friends is what has carried me through this year and I am humbled by the amount of love and attention I have been given.

Highlights of this month include four baby blackbirds learning to fly in my patio for several days. I fed them black and blueberries and had purple poops all over the place and on the blue bench where they practiced leaping off in

to the flower pots. The mother now comes and calls me for attention and food at the open kitchen door. Photos of the month include Mia and co in my wigs on the blue bench; flower from Bishops Park. Connie's mum Rose will be 100 on 30th June. Unfortunately I am not able to attend the very special party she is having - Happy

birthday Rose and many more!, as I am off to America on Sunday, thanks to the kindness of Michael Vaughan - another old friend who has sent me a ticket and will pay all expenses. All that is expected of me is to rest and have a good time. I am going to Nantucket via New York. Playground of the rich and famous and an island of beauty to stay with a group of friends from the days when I lived in America.

Au revoir mes amis. Will try and send a blog postcard!

The Cancer Card

I want to introduce this weblog. I am Sylvan Mason and I am a professional photographer, and my website is here. This is just an explanation of the title of my diary.

Most people are horrified by the words chemotherapy and breast cancer and imagine you go into a black hole from which you may never return. This diary is intended to be a positive and, I hope, lighthearted 'romp' through my personal experience by which I would like to help others in the same situation. The "cancer card" is one of the many benefits that you receive with cancer. It can be "pulled out" to parking attendants; people you don't want to have dinner with (as in "I'm not quite up to it today); cinema attendants (as in "I'm afraid I can't stand in that queue, I'm on week one of chemotherapy") and direct debits to things like the NUJ and the BIPP. (Would you mind if I was let off my subscription for the next six months as I've got breast cancer? I'm on chemo and I'm not able to work until the spring".) They say yes, and let you keep the benefits.

Then you get to get up when you like, eat when you like, play with your computer toys all day long. You don't have to work. You can spend hours on the phone to your friends each day, which I never had time to do before. People drop round with sandwiches and soup for lunch and never expect you to pay in restaurants. Your children suddenly recognise your value and worth. They cannot do enough for you. For the first time in years, they look at you lovingly, instead of raising their eyes to the ceiling whenever you speak.

I will continue this diary shortly, if the chemo or the cancer doesn't kill me first. Meanwhile, thank you to my friend Ruth Gledhill for getting me started.