Panning for Poetry ~ Part I

The poems, sayings and quotations that follow have all been chosen by members of the private psychoeducational group of the Research Centre for Building Psychological Resilience in Breast Cancer.

For this feature, our members were asked to submit favourite poetry and quotations, the ones that comfort and soothe, the rainbow of words that help them get through the storm, the sunshine verse that lights their darkest day.

“

Creativity cures the chaos of the heart

~Taoist proverb

Submitted by Samantha Newbury

~

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.

~Rumi

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

I wish I could show you
When you are lonely
or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

~Havez
My Brilliant Image

Submitted by Tamsin Sargeant

~

It is important that we share our experiences with other people. Your story will heal you and your story will heal somebody else. When you tell your story, you free yourself and give other people permission to acknowledge their own story. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

Cancer is a great equaliser – it doesn’t care who you are.

– Kylie Minogue

Submitted by Caroline Frith

~

She stood in the storm

and when the wind

did not blow her way,

She adjusted her sails.

~Elizabeth Edwards

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things

~Mary Oliver

Submitted by Anita Traynor

~

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words –unknown

Submitted by Caroline Frith

~

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

~Marianne Williamson

Submitted by Caroline Frith

~

I Tripped Over Today

I tripped over today looking for tomorrow.
I didn’t see it spread out there before me.
I couldn’t see it,
I was looking past it to the future.

Eager for what tomorrow holds
I neglected today.
Eager to move forward
I tried to skip today.
Instead I tripped.
I fell flat on my face in now.

Today sat on top of me, pried my eyes open and made me see,
Made me look at the now I had crushed.
Always rushing forward I had never noticed the beauty of now.
Now it was revealed to me.

I began to mourn all that I had missed,
Until today dragged my eyes from the past back to the present.
“You’re missing the point again,” he said patiently.
There is no yesterday to mourn,
There is no tomorrow to run to.
There is only now to embrace.

Every tomorrow becomes today, so be patient.
Enjoy now and you will have no regrets for yesterday to hold.
Rest here in the arms of now and live.
Enjoy this moment and no other for this is the only one there is.

Look not ahead nor behind,
But look at yourself where you are now
And leave no more todays unattended to.
Then you will fear no tomorrow nor long for any yesterday

~Copyright 2004 Lynda Allen

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ”I will try again tomorrow”.

~Mary Anne Radmacher

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

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Enough…

Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.

~David Whyte

Submitted by Anita Traynor

~

The Man in the Arena

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

~Theodore Roosevelt

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow, so today is the right day to love, believe and mostly live – the Dalai Lama

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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Autobiography in Five Chapters

1. I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

5. I walk down another street.

~Portia Nelson

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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The Clock of Life

The clock of life is wound but once.

And no man has the power

To tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour.

Now is the only time that you own.

Live, love, toil with a will.

Place no faith in tomorrow.

For the clock may then be still.

~Robert H Smith

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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The Summer Day

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

~Mary Oliver

Submitted by Anita Traynor

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Tilicho Lake

In this high place
it is as simple as this,
leave everything you know behind.

Step toward the cold surface,
say the old prayer of rough love
and open both arms.

Those who come with empty hands
will stare into the lake astonished,
there, in the cold light
reflecting pure snow

the true shape of your own face.

~David Whyte

Submitted by Anita Traynor

~

The Invitation
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Submitted by Anita Traynor
~

When you have gone so far that you can't manage even one more step, then you've gone just half the distance you are capable of.

~Innuit saying.

Submitted by Tamsin Sergeant

~

The Journey

Above the mountains
the geese turn into
the light again

Painting their
black silhouettes
on an open sky.

Sometimes everything
has to be
inscribed across
the heavens

so you can find
the one line
already written
inside you.

Sometimes it takes
a great sky
to find that

first, bright
and indescribable
wedge of freedom
in your own heart.

Sometimes with
the bones of the black
sticks left when the fire
has gone out

someone has written
something new
in the ashes of your life.

You are not leaving.
Even as the light fades quickly now,
you are arriving.

~David Whyte

Submitted by Tamsin Sargeant

~

The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~Wendell Berry

Submitted by Tamsin Sargeant

~

Listen once in a while. It’s amazing what you can hear.

~Russell Baker

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

It Ain't what you do, It's what it does to you

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi's and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I

skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light-aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the tightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.
~Simon Armitage

Submitted by Tamsin SargeantTop of Form

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Prelude 

What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do whatever you do?

How would this change what you choose to do with your life?

What if you could be more present and open-hearted with each person you encounter working as a cashier in the corner store, a parking lot attendant or filing clerk than you could if you were striving to do something you think is more important?

How would this change how you want to spend your precious time on this earth?

What if your contribution to the world and the fulfillment of you own happiness is not dependent upon discovering a better method of prayer or technique of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book or attending the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply appreciating yourself and the world as they are right now?

How would this effect your search for spiritual development?

What if there is no need to change, no need to try and transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise?

How would this effect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature- gentle, compassionate and capable of living fully and passionately present?

How would this effect how you feel when you wake up in the morning?

What if who you essentially are right now is all that you are ever going to be?

How would this effect how you feel about your future?

What if the essence of who you are and always have been is enough?

How would this effect how you see and feel about your past?

What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?

How would this change what you think you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practises that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

How would this shape the choices you have to make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world will arise from deep within and guide you every time you simply pay attention and wait?

How would this shape your stillness, your movement, your willingness to follow this impulse, to just let go and dance?

~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Submitted by Caroline Frith

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Love after love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

~Derek Walcott

Submitted by Tamsin Sargeant

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And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.
― Haruki Murakami

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

 The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness and a deep, loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

Submitted by Caroline Frith

~

Hope

Hope is an image of goals

Planted firmly in your mind.

When looking at life before you,

Hope lines the paths you find.

Hope is a well of courage

Nestled deep within your heart.

When faltering in fear and doubt,

Hope pushes you to start.

Hope is an urge to keep going,

For limbs too tired and weak.

When apathy stills all desire,

Hope sparks the fuel you seek.

Hope is a promise of patience

As you wait for distress to wane.

When all you can do is nothing,

Hope pulls you through the pain.

Hope is a spirit that lifts you,

Should heaviness pull at your soul.

When torn apart by losses,

Hope mends to keep you whole.

~Wendy S. Harpham, M.D.

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

From the outside looking in, it’s hard to understand. From the inside looking out, it’s hard to explain. ~Unknown

Submitted by Vicky Wilkes

~

We Need to Talk about Secondary Breast Cancer ~ HuffPost Blog

What do Jo Malone, Cath Kidston, Maggie Smith, Olivia Newton-John, Jenni Murray and Kylie Minogue have in common? 

They have all been diagnosed with primary breast cancer.

We talk about ‘breast cancer’ as if it is one disease. It isn’t. There are several types of breast cancer which grow in different parts of the breast and at different rates. Some of us will be given chemotherapy, some of us won’t. Some women have mastectomies, others have lumpectomies. Many - but not all us - have radiotherapy. I felt a fraud when I didn’t have a mastectomy for a rare, aggressive breast cancer - but at least I got to keep my breast (someone really did say that by the way).

Whatever our treatment, what really matters to the 57,000 or so people diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK is that we don’t have, or develop, secondary breast cancer. Unlike primary breast cancer, which hasn’t spread beyond the breast or glands under the arm, secondary breast cancer refers to breast cancer which has spread to other parts of the body through the lymphatic or blood system. You might hear it described as ‘advanced breast cancer’, ‘metastatic’, or stage 4 breast cancer. You might also hear about so-and-so who had breast cancer and then developed liver cancer. This is inaccurate - breast cancer that has spread to the liver is not the same as liver cancer.

Do you want the good news, or the bad news?

The good news is that secondary breast cancer can be treated. The bad news is that it can’t be cured. Treatment aims to slow down the spread of disease, to relieve symptoms and give the best possible quality of life, for as long as possible.

Once the initial shock of a cancer diagnosis has receded, for most of us, the gruelling treatments, disfiguring surgery and psychological effects seem like a small price to pay for our lives. The end of ‘active’ treatment (chemotherapy and/or surgery and/or radiation) feels a bit like graduation - we get our big send-off and party. Everyone loves us because we took on cancer, because by being brave and positive we ‘beat’ cancer.

Of course we want to finish our treatment with optimism and celebrate being cancer free. If we are lucky, we pass the first year with a clear scan, then after the second we begin hoping we’ll reach the five and ten year milestones. How much attention do we give to secondary breast cancer? It’s easier to return to denial - this is our way of ‘moving on’. We wear our positivity as though it is a talisman which wards off cancer, as if it’s a well-established fact that by thinking about cancer we might activate some tiny cell into action, putting our lives in peril. We try not to think about cancer, we try to forget.  

Then we get a niggle, a pain, a scan. That old friend, Fear, knocks on the door again. Are we quite as safe as we think we are?

As a woman diagnosed with breast cancer twice, I get a knot in my stomach just typing the words, ‘secondary breast cancer.’ I admit that I’m haunted by the possibility of cancer returning. It’s the sun and moon of all my fears - as inescapable as the day and night, yet unspoken.

Around 30% of women go on to develop secondary breast cancer - these women are mothers, sisters, daughters, friends and partners. It’s the not-so-pink lining which we women with primary breast cancer can hardly bear to face. But what happens when our friends are diagnosed with secondary breast cancer?

I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer in 2015, 9 years after having been given the 'all clear.' I see women extremely saddened when the friends they have made throughout their initial treatments or through support groups are diagnosed with secondary breast cancer. Though they continue to offer support, for many, this understandably means their own anxieties surface and they begin questioning their own mortality again. Having been there myself, I know this can be hard, especially when you are gaining a sense of moving on. But, this reaction can make it difficult for those of us with secondaries to feel that we belong in the general breast cancer community where the focal discussion inclines towards treatment for primary cancer and its aftermath. The sense of maintaining a positive attitude to ‘beat’ it, can be a challenging theme for those who haven’t been so ‘fortunate’ to keep it at bay. This fear which secondaries sparks in others means we find solace in groups specifically for secondary breast cancer but this then means the whole community doesn’t really talk about it.

~ Vicky

Somewhere along the way, I’ve realised I need to face my survivor’s guilt, sadness and the fear that I too might develop secondary breast cancer. People think that positive-thinking 'beats' cancer. It doesn’t. A cure will only be found by better understanding what makes our cells grow uncontrollably and invade distant organs. We desperately need science to find out why it is that some women find out that their cancer has returned, despite extensive treatment, despite having been told they were ‘all clear.’ We can only do this if we stop hiding and start talking about secondary breast cancer. The more we talk, the more likely it is that we can support one another and the more likely it is that we can press for better and more effective treatments.   "How does breast cancer do that? How do cells escape from an original tumor and nest somewhere in the body, eluding all treatments thrown at the disease and mysteriously "wake up" and start moving around the body again fifteen years later? What gives them the ability to hide? What triggers their activation again? What makes them so resistant to treatments? Why can't they be stopped? How do we know who has had breakaway cells versus those who haven't? We don't know. Nor do we even know the exact number of people with early stage breast cancer who go on to develop secondary breast cancer".

I dedicate this blog to Vicky, Amanda, Shelly, Rachel, Uzma and anyone living with a recurrence or secondary breast cancer. Even though you won’t recognise their names, these women are no less worthy of our attention and celebration.

Tamsin Sargeant, with vital input from Vicky Wilkes

This blog was published on HuffPost UK 'The Blog' 3rd June 2016

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tamsin-sargeant/secondary-breast-cancer_b_10247000.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-women 

Can Training Cognition Enhance Psychological Wellbeing? ~ Jessica Swainston ~ *GUEST BLOG*

I was recently shocked to discover that the world health organisation has estimated that 50 million years of work, an annual global loss of £651bn, will be lost to anxious and depressive disorders between now and 2030. Although I was aware that emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression are on the increase, I found this figure particularly alarming not only for the state of the economy, but more importantly for the future psychological well-being of individuals, their families, and the society we live in. 

As it stands, current pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments have been shown to be only modestly effective in both the treatment and prevention of emotional disorder. To me, it seems critical then that more research is carried out in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms involved in these conditions. 

By achieving this, there is hope that we can develop effective interventions to not only treat emotional vulnerability, but further to build resilience against its onset and recurrence.   

So, how do we become more resilient? How do we continue to cope with the ever demanding stresses that society and life place upon us? 

It is these questions that motivated me to embark upon a PhD exploring how we can develop appropriate interventions to build resilience in vulnerable populations. Luckily, Professor Nazanin Derakshan at Birkbeck University of London, Director of the Laboratory for the study of Risk and Resilience in Mental Well-Being, and Director of the Centre for Building Psychological Resilience in Breast Cancer, is of a similar mind-set, and agreed to supervise me throughout this journey. 

For many years Derakshan has investigated the cognitive mechanisms that are involved in emotional disorder.  Derakshan is of the mind that our ability to flexibly direct where we place our attention, is the key mechanism in regulating our emotions and boosting our psychological resilience. In other words, the better we are at paying attention to our current goal (e.g. Writing this blog post), the less distracted we are at the expense of irrelevant intrusions and worrisome and ruminative thoughts that can quickly lead to cognitive and emotional fatigue (e.g. 'What if I fail my PhD?!'). We can refer to this ability as 'attentional control'. 

Backing up this claim, research has shown that people with high anxiety and depression are poor at exercising attentional control, they find it difficult to focus, concentrate, and get easily distracted. Research shows that when there are possible faulty brain connections between 'emotional' and 'cognitive' systems they can lead to problems in regulating attentional control and using it more effectively when we need it.  

If then attentional control is the key mechanism by which emotional vulnerability can be moderated, how then can this process be targeted? 

It was many years ago that I first became aware of online 'cognitive training' games in psychological science, at the time being investigated for its reversal effects on cognitive degeneration through ageing. However, it is only recently that I have discovered a line of research investigating the effects of these games on emotional disorder, led by Derakshan. Can training our attentional control through cognitive training games better our ability to stop intruding and ruminative thoughts from occupying brain space? Further, is the training applicable to other circumstances, such as improving anxious states that can interrupt sports performance? Preliminary findings show great promise.  As yet, compared to control groups, a course of adaptive attentional control training has shown to reduce anxiety, increase cognitive efficiency leading to better performance and improve sports performance under high pressure. 

I am a firm believer in always considering the potential directions and clinical relevance of new interventions for emotional disorder. So, what is the future for cognitive training in psychological health?  I think it is fair to say that a number of current psychological therapies such as mindfulness and cognitive behavioural therapy are of varied success. Yes, for many patients they have wonderful effects, however many others fail to engage at all. This may in part be due to the lack of attentional resources that severely depressed and anxious individuals possess. If one's attention is poor, how can one easily engage in a 10 week course of psychological therapy which requires focus and concentration? It can often be problematic. 

Therefore, cognitive training may be beneficial as a complimentary treatment to current therapies. If attentional control processes are improved through training, individuals will be better enabled to pay attention and gain the most value from their treatment. 

So improving our cognitive flexibility and ability to adaptively pay attention to our current goals may, in effect, help to our build resilience and protect against emotional vulnerability. This research is in its infancy and there is a long journey ahead, but I am excited by our initial findings and am keen to build developing cognitive interventions that may help alleviate and prevent emotional distress.

Jessica Swainston

PhD candidate in the Department of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University of London

Laboratory for Risk and Resilience in Psychopathology and Mental Well-Being

Centre for Building Psychological Resilience in Breast Cancer

 

Panning for Gold ~ Stories of Resilience after Breast Cancer ~ HuffPost Blog

‘Once upon a time’ - these magical words evoke childhood memories of being safely snuggled up in bed, listening enthralled to stories of faraway lands and fantastical creatures like giants and mermaids. These stories teach us that the world isn’t always safe; that life involves suffering, but that goodness is rewarded - Red-Riding Hood escapes the wolf, Cinderella the drudgery and callousness of her wicked step-mother.

  

Being diagnosed with cancer is like being catapulted into another world - the Land of Illness - unlike Mordor, the landscapes are bleached and bright, but just as dangerous. It’s a world ruled by men and women wearing white coats, speaking a foreign language, with unfamiliar rules - bad things happen to good people. Unsurprisingly, we are desperate to leave.

During my treatment for breast cancer, “I’m fine” became a stock response to the kindly-meant question, “How are you?” On a particularly bad day I might say, “Not too bad” (not too good). I was mostly frightened, exhausted and in pain. On the inside, I was far from fine, I was frozen and mute:  

I was looking at myself through a glass that could not be broken, I could not touch me, I did not know me, I did not know how to reach me. Everyone knew me as a positive and optimistic person, always smiling and strong, full of opinions and vocal. But in a paradoxical way, the fear, the agony and the pain felt somehow to my strength, I could identify with them. They seemed to lessen when I listened to them and accepted them. They are part of me, but they are surely not me.

            Naz - the Other Side of Fear

Many people return to the Land of Wellness gleaming with gratitude and triumph, but some of us find ourselves in a strange hinterland, where, like a displaced people, we no longer belong. We’ve learned that not all hurts get healed and some symptoms can’t be remedied. We return with scars and suffering from debilitating side-effects which are at best irritating, and at worst life-changing, requiring us to re-evaluate our lives:

I realised that I had to look forward, not back, and build a new life. I wasn't going to be able to return to the old one. I wasn't the same person, physically or mentally. I had already left my stressful job, so I didn't have that to go back to. I was doing a bit of training, meeting friends for lunch, spending a lot of time alone, reflecting, ruminating. Slowly I was emerging from my winter cocoon, but I was a long way from becoming a butterfly.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Annie - Annie’s Song

We need our stories about illness to have a happy ending. We want to hear women say that their new breasts are better than their old ones (I’m chuffed for you if they are), after all, it’s like getting a free boob job on the NHS isn’t it? We want to hear about so-and-so who had breast cancer and climbed Kilimanjaro, or dare I say it, won Masterchef? (Sorry. Jane is wonderful it’s just that my heart breaks for women who won’t ever hear that most magical of words - ‘remission’):

There is often the expectation that the only option in these circumstances is to always think positive......but I can give myself permission to be sad and grieve for the life I had and for my young family’s future…this is normal behaviour in the face of adversity. I am allowed to feel the way I do now and again when the waves of devastation crash over me. What I have learned is that on those days I know I can make it out the other side and pick myself up, and that as long as I do, our family unit will survive for now. Slowly, quietly, never giving up. I cannot fix this but I will carry it. 

                                   

                                                                                                 Vicky - Stage IV and Beyond...

Don’t get me wrong, these are important stories, but standing alone, they reduce the experience of women living with breast cancer to a ‘single story,’ perpetuating a myth about illness which can be just as devastating as cancer itself. Panning for Gold was launched on World Cancer Day in February 2016 to provide an inclusive platform representing the many voices of women with a breast cancer diagnosis, a space not only for sharing our stories, but for listening and, by listening, to bear witness, and begin to heal.  

Around 57,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK every year. We are all women everywhere. Our blog has featured a model, a runner, a poet, an artist, a photographer, a song, ducks, Buddhists and big pants. Some stories don’t end with the words ‘they all lived happily ever after.’ But we go on. Even when we think we can’t go on, we go on. We go on slowly. We go on quietly. And we never give up.

    Amanda – I Am Now An Artist With Cancer               Kirsty – Cancer Gave Me a Voice

Tamsin Sargeant and Vicky Wilkes

Research Centre for Building Psychological Resilience in Breast Cancer

Submissions welcomed by email: bcresilience15@gmail.com  

This blog was published on HuffPost UK 'The Blog' 19th May 2016
Link:http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tamsin-sargeant/stories-of-resilience-after-breast-cancer_b_9997488.html

Worms On Parachutes ~ Sarah-Jane

“Breast cancer has taught me to reach for the stars as everything is possible if you remain positive and believe you can achieve everything you set out to do.”

I will always remember the waiting room on that Friday morning in June 2007. It was the day the words were muttered “it’s not good news afraid, its cancer.” I know many of us will resonate with the numbness that runs through our entire body and the immediate fears that flash through our minds as the consultant delivers this news in the softest manner possible.

Cancer and breast cancer was something I naively felt would never happen to me in my adulthood. After all my childhood had been plagued with ill health. Just as I was about to sit my final school exams, a blood test followed by a biopsy from a lump in my neck revealed the shocking news to myself and my parents. I had stage 2b Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I had cancer in my neck, under my arms and both sides of my lungs. The only way to ‘cure’ me was to have 6 months of aggressive chemotherapy and 6 weeks of daily mantle field radiotherapy I remember sitting my GCSE’s two days after the end of my radiation treatment. As I write this I can still feel the heat of the school hall that afternoon. I remember sitting with my elbows pointing outwards to protect my underarms that had been burnt from this treatment and were weepy and sore. I was determined to sit my exams which had given me the focus I needed to get me through all of the treatment and would allow me to move forward with my life and bury the harrowing experience in my life which had been life threatening at such a tender age.

That’s just what I did. I moved on with life. I met my soulmate, we married and rather miraculously went on to have two beautiful daughters. I was told the implications of treatment may leave me infertile. I actually conceived naturally and really without planning!! Hence the arrival of my girls who were born 20 months apart.

Some of us just are not dealt a smooth ride in life. Something happens and we are faced with a cruel and bumpy journey. I discovered a tiny lump in my breast in the bath one evening. I hoped my worst fears wouldn’t come true but it wasn’t to be. I was diagnosed with grade 3 triple negative breast cancer. I recall being calm and phoning my friend immediately to collect my girls from school at the end of the day. They were only 7 and 5 at the time and I was 36. As I put the phone down I fell to pieces in the consulting room. I honestly thought I wouldn’t survive and I certainly wouldn’t be here to watch my children grow up and flourish. I was so scared with visions of all scenarios flashing through my mind. I took all the treatment offered to me, and I was going to do everything I could to help myself and survive. I was the patient who didn’t want to know too much. I needed comfort and reassurance from my medical team that they were there to save my life. At home I was so brave and I shielded my family from everything including my inner most thoughts. I was ‘mum’ the home still needed to run smoothly and I needed to be there for my children. Every morning throughout my treatment I would get up and put my makeup on in an attempt to try and make myself look the best I could even though I felt so rough. Behind all of that the only place I could allow myself to crumble were the consulting rooms of my local hospital when I attended for my treatment. 8 sessions of chemo and surgery. Initially a Mastectomy with immediate diep flap breast reconstruction. My choice 18 months later was to have a second mastectomy and reconstruction this time using the tissue from my bottom. But the reconstruction failed on that occasion and I made the decision to have a third attempt using my other buttock. (even bum lift hurrah!) 26 hours of surgery with the most amazing surgeon in my eyes anyway, but I know we all feel the same about our surgeons.

With my treatment coming to an end I found this enormous strength growing within me. I wanted to do something that could potentially help others at the same time as healing myself both mentally and physically. I decided to run the next London Marathon on behalf of the charity Breast Cancer Now (formerly breakthrough breast cancer) I wanted to raise funds to ensure that better treatments are constantly being developed to treat future patients to make their journey a little more bearable. I would also look after myself with the training regime and once more it gave me the focus I needed. I think it’s so important not to dwell too much on the negative things that can happen in your life. I organised fundraising events to attempt to reach my £2000 target and boy did it feel like an enormous amount of money to raise. I was blown away with people’s generosity and support to the cause that I have to believe is going to help to save thousands of lives. So as I pounded the street in all weathers the donations steadily kept coming. As I stood on the start line of the 2010 London marathon the realisation of what I was about to achieve suddenly hit me. I needed to cross the finish Line to feel worthy of raising a staggering £10,289 for the cause. That’s one challenge to have on your shoulders. Today those 26 miles remain the hardest miles of my life as I reflected on everything that I had been through. Thousands of lives are lost each year from this terrible disease but here I was running the marathon and raising thousands of pounds that would benefit others. That was the reason for my huge smile as I crossed the finish line weary and sore some hours later.

So with the marathon behind me the final part of restoring myself to my former self, the cherry on top of the cake, nipple reconstruction followed by Tattooing! The day I walked away from the hospital wards following that final stage of surgery I wailed like a baby and I was crying for different reasons than those on the day I entered the hospital to be faced with my diagnosis. When I didn’t know what lay ahead for me. This time I was leaving behind the team of people who had got me through things so graciously and had become my best friends. Nothing prepares you for that sense of loss you will feel when you say goodbye to those who save your life.

I had to do something to recognise these heroes of mine. I decided to write my memoir with proceeds going to the NHS Trust that ultimately held me together through my challenging moments and I have been overwhelmed by the positivity my book has received. A story I wanted to be inspirational to anyone facing their own journey today. I am an ordinary mum treated by my local NHS hospital a hospital I feel many people really value when it is needed the most. I’m delighted that many breast cancer patients have taken great strength from reading it.

Today nearly 9 years since my diagnosis I am in great health. I’m actually writing this sitting in the sunshine enjoying a coffee as I look out on to the Mediterranean taking a break visiting my family.

I’m now an avid supporter of Breast Cancer Now and continue to fundraise on their behalf. I really would love to see the day when nobody has to face the fear of dying of this devastating disease. I only organise simple events like afternoon teas. But by bringing people together to enjoy coffee and cake could actually save the life of someone else, after all it is perhaps what has helped to save my life.

I have set up a local group on behalf of another charity called Keeping Abreast, to support those considering breast reconstruction. It’s certainly where I feel my passion lies today and it’s important for others to see that you can come through your experience and achieve things that you would have never imagined would be possible. I know it may only seem like A very small gesture but I can’t wait for our lovely group to reach the stage that we can purchase our first bra vouchers so that patients can leave hospital with a voucher to treat themselves once they have recovered from surgery and to know that there are others thinking of them at a time when they are living a daunting experience in their life. I’m absolutely convinced my fundraising efforts won’t finish here as I think this is my way of bouncing back from my own difficult experience.

For those who would love to read Worms On Parachutes it is available from Amazon.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/1482058111/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1461261583&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=worms+on+parachutes&dpPl=1&dpID=41lx4uCGOoL&ref=plSrc

I hope you enjoy reading it.

Lots of love

Sarah-Jane Phillips

Running Against Metastatic Breast Cancer ~ Naz - HuffPost Blog

“Finally, the tears found their way to the surface, slowly but surely, I was crying. The warm thunderstorm had quietened but I didn't mind the rain. In a strange way, it was comforting.”

  

Naz’s latest blog for HuffPost…Running Against Metastatic Breast Cancer, speaks of her distress when she found out one of her friends had been given a stage 4 breast cancer diagnosis.

Please do read Naz’s emotional account here at HuffPost….

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/nazanin-derakhshan/running-against-metastatic-breast-cancer_b_9864816.html

Just run with it ~ Caroline

It’s OK to not be OK. It’s OK to ask for help and to accept help when it’s offered, without feeling like a failure. It’s OK to be angry. It’s OK to scream, cry and ask why me?

I did none of these things, at least not initially. Instead I laced up my trainers and did what I do best.  I ran. I ran on beaches, through the countryside, on the London pavements. I ran on my own, with only my thoughts for company.  Actually that should be thought……I have cancer, I have cancer, I have cancer, there wasn’t any room for anything else. 

How ironic. Me. Marathon running, non smoking, healthy eating, skinny me. People like me don’t get cancer. We live till we’re 100 and die in our sleep - at least my lifestyle choices were made with that goal in mind.

I wasn’t the first member of my family to be afflicted with the disease. 18 years previously my uncle had been diagnosed. Yes men can get breast cancer too.  He found great solace and support in the charity Breast Cancer Care, and went on to become one of their volunteers, fashion show models and committee members, a role which his wife also adopted enthusiastically when she too was diagnosed 10 years later. So when in 2007 I decided I wanted to run the London Marathon, raising money for them seemed an obvious choice. Little did I know that 7 years later I would be the one calling them for help and advice.

Fast forward to 2014. I was 36 years old, my children were 2 and 5. I had a job I enjoyed, was happily married and above all was extremely fit. Life was good. Until all of a sudden it wasn’t.

The weeks that followed my diagnosis were surreal. I didn’t look ill, I didn’t feel ill, so how was it possible I had a life threatening disease?

I am a medical professional but I didn’t know a great deal about breast cancer. A family friend had had it when I was growing up, and sadly died whilst her children were still young, so of course she immediately entered my mind, regardless of the fact that my aunt and uncle were both still alive and well many years after their treatment ended. I looked at my children and thought of not seeing them grow up, not seeing my grandchildren should my children decide to become parents one day.

I approached this chapter of my life with my usual pragmatism. I just got on with it. People use words like fight and battle but the reality is you just do as you’re told. Go here for a biopsy on this date, you’ve got a CT scan on this date, a pre op assessment on this date, surgery on this date (actually I delayed my surgery by a week so I could go to a friends wedding). You have to accept that your life is no longer your own, your life belongs to cancer, because cancer dictates your daily routine.

I continued to run every moment I got. I had been signed off work at my GPs insistence, who told me my full time job for the next year was being a patient. Sleep had become elusive due to anxiety, so I was on sleeping pills which left me feeling drugged. I spent many hours in hospital waiting rooms but couldn’t concentrate enough to read a book or a magazine. Instead I listened to Passenger on my iPod - 'Life is for living, so live it or you’re better off dead' over and over again.

As a species human beings have an awareness of death from an early age. We all know that death is inevitable, what we don’t know is when or how. Most of us don’t dwell on this fact and it wasn’t something that I really thought about until faced with my own mortality. The reality that I really might die came crashing down on my husband and me in a grotty consulting room in an east London hospital one June afternoon. We were there to get the results of my lumpectomy and sentinel lymph node biopsy. Instead of the usual 2 hour wait we were ushered straight into the room and told the bad news. Not only had the cancer spread to my lymph nodes, the margins for my lumpectomy were insufficient. This meant a number of things. I needed more surgery, I would almost certainly need chemotherapy, but there was also a risk that the cancer had spread beyond my lymph nodes and metastasised, which would deem it incurable.

I had 7 days to wait, not knowing my fate. In that time I had bone and CT scans to look for signs of spread. Despite being advised not to run for 3 months after surgery I ignored my doctors and ran anyway. I still didn’t look or feel ill, my surgery site had healed well and I needed to pound the pavements for my sanity. 

For that week I lived in a parallel universe. Life continued as normal around me, whilst I existed in my cancer bubble. Back in the hospital waiting room, my mind couldn’t comprehend the enormity of my situation. As my name was called the short walk to the consulting room felt like a marathon. Finally after what seemed like an eternity I was told the scans were negative, treatment would still aim for a cure. I was not going to die, not yet, anyway. I felt numb but quietly relieved.

5 days later I had a mastectomy and the remaining lymph nodes removed from under my left arm. Surgery was uneventful, although this time I knew my running shoes would be remaining firmly by the door for the foreseeable future.

Fortunately I had a backup plan in the form of my bicycle.

Chemo started in August and it completely floored me. In my usual blasé way I totally underestimated the effect it would have.  However I knew the effects were cumulative, so I was determined to make sure I was feeling as normal as possible before the start of the next cycle, otherwise the next 4 months were going to be a one way road to hell. And for me, the best way to feel normal is to run. 

Chemo day was a Tuesday. The amazing help from family and friends meant I could completely write off the next 5 days. No cooking, childcare or school runs meant I didn’t have to leave my bed if I didn’t feel like it. Then on day 6, Monday morning, life returned to normal.  I got up, got dressed and re entered the world, and most importantly, went running.

Initially cycling was a reasonable substitute, but I was itching to regain my running form. The first post chemo run was always incredibly hard - 4 miles of wading through treacle wearing lead lined boots. But as the days went by it got progressively easier. I still did parkrun from time to time, and I even did a 10k race between my 3^rd and 4^th cycles. The icing on the cake was winning a 5k race only 5 weeks after my last chemo cycle, and a 10k race a month later. I joked that tamoxifen was my performance enhancing drug but the reality was I was more determined than ever before.

2015 was my year to put the pieces of my life back together. Cancer may have left my body but it certainly hadn’t left my mind. I needed to figure out a way to incorporate it into my life experience in a meaningful way. Drawing a line under it, moving on, putting it behind me – these were not things I could relate to. I needed to find the new me and the new me included cancer.  Thankfully I have had brilliant psychological support every step of the way, which has taught me so many things about myself I never knew, and helped me to discover the way forward.

Towards the end of 2014 I was introduced to the concepts of mindfulness and self-compassion. I read many books on the subjects and began a regular meditation practice. Initially this involved using various apps and You Tube, but gradually I felt confident enough just to sit quietly and notice whatever was going on.  I completed two 8 week long mindfulness courses at the London Buddhist Centre, and now, over a year later, can definitely say that regular meditation has brought many benefits to my life.

I was accepted as a model for the annual Breast Cancer Care fashion show in London and also asked to give a speech to the audience telling my story. The old me would never have agreed to speak in public to more than 800 people, but not only did I do it, I loved every minute of it.

I competed in my first triathlon less than 8 months after finishing chemo, and have 2 more lined up this year. My body has continued to try and throw a spanner in the works at every opportunity, firstly in the form of an ovarian cancer scare (thankfully just a scare) and then an osteopenia diagnosis, not quite as bad as osteoporosis but on the way. 

I have become a vegetarian as there is a lot of, in my opinion, fairly conclusive evidence that our consumption of animal products is a huge part of the reason certain types of cancer are reaching almost epidemic levels in the western world.  I am also trying not to eat dairy products, but for a girl who used to joke that her 5 a day were butter, cheese, ice cream, cream and yoghurt this has not been easy.

A couple of weeks ago it was 2 years since I found my tumour. According to my oncologist the fact that I have made it this far without a recurrence means it is less likely to come back. However statistics are just numbers and have no bearing on a particular individuals chance of survival, so I will never be complacent. I know too many people who have fallen foul of statistics and are no longer with us to rest on my laurels.

Cancer no longer keeps me awake at night, although it does feature in my dreams. There is no doubt in my mind that my life is on a different trajectory than it was pre cancer. The changes may not be immediately obvious to an outsider but my perception of life has changed.  Cancer has given me opportunities I would otherwise not have had, introduced me to some amazing people, and allowed me to be the recipient of some wonderful acts of human kindness. That is not to say I am glad it has happened, but I am grateful that something good has come out of it.

My body continues to astound me by being able to comply with all I demand of it, despite everything it has been through. Our ability to recover from even the worst of trauma is a testament to human resilience, whether I am more resilient than the average person I cannot say. I was called inspirational more times than I can count whilst going through treatment, but as my friends know I don’t feel deserving of such an accolade because I really was just being myself, and trying to keep things as normal as possible for me and my family.

I live with the knowledge that it could come back at any time but I have accepted that. It doesn’t cause me anxiety, except occasionally around appointments and scan results. I don’t consciously think about it but it is always there in the back of my mind, an unwanted intruder.  And if I’m having a bad day and feel like shouting and screaming and asking why me?  I put on my running shoes and head out the door into my world.