Subscribe1.So, it turns out that what you need to do when something gets stuck on a Mac is CMD+CTRL+ESC. You probably already knew that. I didn’t. Hooray for the hive mind that is Twitter, and specifically, Louise Kelly.
2. Talking of Twitter, I had a lovely message from @CamdenRosie this morning, alerting me to her review of Italian Bah!. I can’t read it, but I note the smiley faces, and am glad.
3. My desk isn’t as tidy as it was.
4. I’ve written 30,000 words of the new Surrounded By Water, and it’s possibly the most absorbing and thrilling writing that I’ve ever done. Which is not to say that I don’t need a little motativation now and then, so I’ve made me a progress chart. (I had a few goes at drawing one of those thermometer things you find outside churches with holes in the roof, but they kept coming out like cartoon penises.)
5. Also, when I have a lull, I have a little Words With Friends session. I’m becoming moderately addicted even though most of the time I’m not so much playing as being trounced by Marie Phillips and Rachel Pearce. (If you play, please play with me.)
6. I am not doing very well at not having a cat. Alan says I can have another if I want to. (I understand, sisters, that I don’t need my husband’s permission to own a cat. But as he entirely lacks the pet gene, it didn’t seem fair to assume. I consider this offer of his to be an act of true love.) I’m not sure.
7. No letter from the tooth fairy yet. The toothache isn’t too bad, apart from the occasional and completely unpredictable pulse, not unlike a jawline sonic boom. Which means I can yelp, without warning, mid-sentence or even mid-word.
8. My conversational topics at the moment consist of: how the writing is going, Words With Friends, and cats. With unpredictable yelping. I’d probably avoid me for the next little while if I were you.
Re Cats. I wasn’t granting permission either. Just wanted to let you know what I felt.
I know, darling x
Here – VERY VERY ROUGHLY – is what Rosie wrote
I’ve finished reading another book on cancer (when will I stop? Huh, perhaps never…). Two words on the title in Italian: How I Defeated Cancer. As usual the translation moves away from the actual sense of the english title, in which “How I said Bah To Cancer” is instead rather like “How I sent cancer to the devil”, said with much irony.
But the title suggests more… and therefore you can lose the ironic sense intended by the author…
However the author of the book to me is very nice (I don’t know how, but it reminds me a little of Mamiga, perhaps because of the irony), she is called Stephanie Butland, and, like we Italian “friends”, if I may call us so, is a cancer blogger. Here is her blog.
http://bahtocancer.com/
The book tells the story of a breast tumour diagnosed in 2008 at the age of 37 years. She, like Widepeak, refuses the idea of a battle with cancer and she calls it instead “my dance with cancer”.
In the book a large part is dedicated to the exercises of imagination and the ways of seeing the situation from various points of view, taking as a base the “six hats” of Edward de Bono, expert writer on creative thinking.
And so the story of the illness, presented initially as “I have cancer, probably at the first stage therefore I will negotiate it as if it were one of the many episodes of my life, continuing as much as possible normal life, but I will not die.” It then unties along the route of surgery and therapy and with the apprearance of all the aspects of recovery that create difficulty and make it more arduous to survive let alone to live a normal life.
Every topic is followed by a series of “creative” advice for the direct involvement in dealing with the situation (the advice is also amusing, for example to stop the boredom of the daily sessions of radiotherapy: ask yourself who lives in (something) at the hospital and what is their life). The section that follows every subject is very interesting and it is dedicated to those who live with or near someone who has cancer and does not know how to act. I think that this advice is very wise and useful for those who find themselves disorientated by the situation and who are asking what attitude to adopt towards the illness.
Finally, and this is perhaps the most beautiful thing, there is the consideration on the fact of being ill with cancer, how it can change your life and to violently open your eyes on the fear of death, can also be an occasion to open the eyes on the many aspects of life that usually we do not see.
One thing that I liked very much is the moment in which Stephanie found herself in doubt whether to follow or leave Herceptin therapy, and the very big considerations of the positive sides numbered the fact that at least every three weeks she would have something to write about in her blog… That I can understand (smiley face)
It is a book that confronts cancer in a way that helps and is optimistic, therefore I feel like recommending it. Even if I could never succeed, like the author, in taking between my hands the chemo bag and visualizing it as a potent force, friendly and healing. The only time in which I had in my hands the bag rolled up in aluminium foil, I had to ask for Valium… I know that in this we will never be alike (smiley face)
Ps. I will surely continue to read her in her blog!
Karen, thank you for translating! And what a lovely review. Rosie’s personality comes out so strongly.