The Lymphoma Association...

....is planning to celebrate 25 years of helping people with various lymphatic cancers and I have been asked to work on the committee to mark this milestone. The LA is based in Aylesbury and was formed by Felicity and Tim Hilder after Tim was diagnosed with the disease.
Now it has a helpline, chatroom and publishes several helpful guides on coping with the various forms that lymphatic cancer can take
I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1998, after being unwell for several months, and the support and help that was freely given was a tremendous gift at the most difficult time. I described it as being given a light to help me find my way through the dark cave that cancer was for me. Sadly after diagnosis, most consultants can offer little more than platitudes about how I "may" be lucky as NHL can be managed quite well (usually!)
In the event I was referred to an absolutely brilliant NHS based haemotologist who has given me wonderful care for the last 12 years, and it would be no over statemtn to say that I owe him my life.
Anyway, the LA will be 25 years old in 2011, and needs more money, support, awareness etc to continue to offer the wonderful help that the members provide to people like me - a sobering thought is that lymphoma is the most common cause of cancer in under 30 year olds, and that someone is diagnosed with lymphoma EVERY 7 MINUTES.....there is no "type" of person that can become ill with lymphoma - it is not a disease that is even fully understood yet. Often very healthy active people, like sportsmen and show business celebrities become ill. I had never been really ill in my life until my diagnosis - the first tim that I went into a hospital bed was when I was having a biopsy in 1998 - you can imagine the sheer shock of being told that you have cancer... when you feel only mildly "under the weather". That is the problem with lymphomas, they "lurk" and by the time the avrage patient is diagnosed it has taken a hold.... I was at stage 4 of 4!!! The images show me getting a new type of radioactive treatment a few years ago... this gave me two years of remission! Please note I DID not take the shaky pix... it was the photographer was was nervous, not me !!!
Please check out the Lymphoma Association's website and think about what you can do to help. Please?

Bonusses and redundancies...

... are in the news today. The ending of steelmaking on Teesside with almost 2000 job losses comes at a time when bankers, especially the RBS board, claim that they have earned the right to be paid bonus money already!!!! If anyone deserves bonus payments in my opinion it is the men and woman who work so hard in dangerous and difficult conditions, rather than someone who uses his "network" of similarly placed friends to market dubious financial schemes to an unsuspecting and innocent market of people who have been told to trust the very institutions that are making fortunes while they lose their livelihoods.
In another news report, the problem of cancer patients, and other chronically sick people, not being able to afford to hear their homes adequately was discussed. A few hundred pounds could change the lives of such people for ashort time while they recover or prepare for the death. And the Board of the RBS have the temerity to threaten resignation if they are not paid the £1.5 BILLION they have squirrelled away for themselves.... do these bankers and finaciers have NO conscience or humanity left? Clearly they don't....

It's my birthday...

... and it started out not very well! I had to call the hospital to sort out this long running chest infection that has been troubling me for a month. As a cancer patient chest infections can be especially worrying and it should have been better by now, after three weeks of anti biotics... eventually after some PROPER care and tests, it is decided that I have a viral infection and NOT a bacterial one so anti biotics are a waste of time. How come my GP didn't know that?????
The afternoon got definitely much better with gifts from my daughter and family in New York and even a text from my son in London
Over the years this day has been fraught on more than one occasion though; in 2004 I was admitted to hospital to start a radical therapy called radio-immunotherapy, in which a radio active isotope is infused into the blood stream to deliver deadly radiation locally to the cancer tumours. This was an interesting treatment, as amongst other things, my pee became radio active for a short while!!!!
Just two years later in 2006, again on my birthday, I was struck down with terrible pain and was admitted to hospital to be told that the remission of two years was finished and that the cancer, Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, had returned in an aggressive form. This meant the start of about 6 months of ever stronger chemotherapy culminating in a stem cell transplant in April 2007
Happily, I am now feeling fine after a nice hospital lunch (really!) and reassurance that this will soon be gone.. so will be out to enjoy a nice pub meal tonight. Beats cooking anyway!

Interview on BBC Radio Northampton

Last week I was interviewed on BBC Radio Northampton to discuss my journey from the cancer ward and intensive care unit, to the publishing of my first book of photographs and subsequent exhibitions. Presenter, John Griff, was excellent and very clear on his understanding of how the world looks after a major illness like cancer, and was a great person to be interviewed by. I managed to grab a couple of nice informal photographs of him too, and look forward to meeting John and his producer,Julia,again one day

First thoughts

As this is my first blog entry I will keep it simple - hello! I will be updating frequently with news about my recovery from cancer and my entryinto the photographic world, my books, my gallery and my occasional radio appearances!