It's All About Others

A memoir of an everyday woman who one day discovers a lump in her body. Or is she ‘everyday’? She’s always believed she was a product of good genes – but are they really that good? When diagnosed with secondary metastatic breast cancer at age 57, she begins to keep a diary. Despite the odds, she recovers and continues with her life - until invasive cancer is diagnosed again six years later, this time in the other breast. Wondering if she will now survive a second onslaught of the disease and its ensuing treatment, she resurrects her diary and begins to fill in the gaps in it with her life history. If she doesn’t survive this second bout, it will be an informative legacy for her children and grandchildren. Throughout her cancer treatment she documents, as a diary extract in the present tense, her feelings about the disease; its debilitating medical treatment; and the attitudes of those close to her during her illnesses. At the same time, she details the historic background of the person who survived these, and various other, medical episodes in her life, interspersed between the present tense chapters. She tells how she has always put other people first and has been well aware of how others were less fortunate than her – until now, when she realises that it is her own desires and wishes that should be paramount. Survival is not necessarily under our control and maybe, therefore, we should all learn to love the present and leave the future to others.