Lump: a story about breast cancer.
3.5 years ago, when I first got diagnosed with breast cancer my impulse was to try and pin down some of the emotional turmoil I was going through. I ended up reaching for a pen (ok a keyboard) and I started to write. Once I started, I couldn’t stop, and the words poured out. Angry, scared, shocked, confused but most of all I guess, they were honest. I just wanted to talk to myself and my partner, David, about the blunt reality of what that cancer diagnosis felt like from the inside. Many, many thousands of words later we discussed making the private more public in the hope that it might help others so, quietly, somewhat covertly, I put it up as a blog, kind of hoping it would never be found. It was found and the comments from its many readers found a mixed response in me. I was delighted that my words seemed to hit the mark for so many people whilst at the same time being profoundly sad that so many others were going through similar emotional turbulence for whatever reason in their lives. I may not have intentionally written for anyone else, but it seemed I had anyway.
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Now, 2 years down the line, we’ve decided to turn the blog into a podcast. Writing for the spoken word has always been my natural habitat so it does seem the obvious next step but how would it feel to step back in time, not just to re-read all those emotional outpourings but actually give them a voice, my voice? Would it open up too many wounds? It has been emotional and sad but at the same time, there’s nothing quite like stepping into your old footprints to realise just how far you’ve walked since you made them. I was a bit anxious about the recordings too, concerned how I’d cope with doing them on my own or if I’d need a hand to hold. In the end I decided to just go it alone and in practise it hasn’t perhaps been quite as bad as I thought it might, although with hindsight it would have been a kindness to Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed studios in Inverness to actually tell them what I was going to be talking about before we started recording! Over the course of several hours together and many shared tears, they’ve become firm friends and I’ve now added them to the legion of amazing people cancer has brought me into contact with.
Among them, although our friendship started before cancer formed an unfortunate overlap between us, is Ali McRitchie, Salon Director of The Head Gardener in Inverness. When we took a gentle walk together, discussing Ali’s own recent cancer recovery and I told her of our plan to create LUMP, a podcast from the blog, she immediately offered her sponsorship and support. With Ali on board suddenly LUMP felt real and most importantly, the right thing to do. I’d been nervous of our teaming up with a sponsor, concerned about finding the right fit for something at times so dark and difficult but Ali ‘gets’ every word I’ve written. The ethos at the salon is one which directly aligns with my own and Ali’s relentless fundraising and support for cancer charities, married with her first-hand knowledge of the challenges of diagnosis, felt like the perfect fit.
So now, all that’s left to do is to launch LUMP and push it out into the big wide world. The plan is to have the first 4 episodes drop on Friday 11th August then we’ll publish a fresh episode every Friday morning across the year ahead. The accompanying original blog will be re-published here. While I’ve been itching to noodle with them, on the most part I’ve stayed true to the original words I chose. They were how I felt at the time, so I’ve tried to stay true. That also means what you’ll hear and read is unapologetically sweary.
So, please do subscribe, comment, rate it, review it and share it with anyone and everyone who you know who has ever been touched by cancer.
Pen June 2023 x
PEN’S NOTES ON EVERY EPISODE HERE ↓
Ep.9: Telling B
The ‘Random Walk’ is a game I play with B. We head out to the front of the house and toss a coin. Heads go left, tails go right. At every subsequent road junction we toss again. Go left, go right? Go left, go right? In this way we meander through the centre of the city, sometimes looping back round on ourselves, frequently diving down streets we’d never usually choose to investigate, access roads and back alleys full of bins and wild flowers, paths leading to mysterious cul-de-sacs of oddly architectured 70s houses we never knew were there.