Cake Day No 15

December 16th is a special day.  It’s the anniversary of the day that I was first diagnosed with cancer.  I read somewhere, a long time ago, that we should see ourselves as survivors from the moment that we’re first diagnosed and celebrate the anniversary of that awful day much like a birthday.  So that’s what we do.

I'm sure there are bound to be Blippers who will be going through something like this right now.  Diagnosis means despair; for us and our loved ones.  But hope is never far behind.  

I was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer on 16th December 2005.  Back then in those dark, dark days, the 5-year survival rate for advanced bowel cancer was just 5%.  Scary stuff.  

It was scary for Anniemay too.  While I had the symptoms, she had the consequences.  As I lay flat on my back staring up at a hospital ceiling, she sat beside me holding my hand.  And eating my grapes.  Or playing with her phone.  

But we got through it and I was back on my bike within 6 months.  

Five years later, in 2010, bowel cancer cells, which had survived surgery and chemo, were discovered living in my left lung.  They can do this. 

The collateral damage was far greater this time; innocent organs and nerves which just happened to be in the way of the surgeon’s knife, were battered and bruised.  Some recovered - after a fashion - others did not.  I still mourn their loss.

But here we are - Cake Day No 15.  Woohoo!  What are the chances?  (Anniemay, being an ex-Maths teacher could probably work it out.) 

I’m convinced my continued survival is down to luck and her baking skills;  rocky roads, flat-nobs, bread and her own brand of breakfast cereal.  And of course, cake.