I woke up in Margate — I was 60, my first day of being 60. It didn’t feel like 60, it didn’t feel new, I just knew I was 60. I felt quiet and a little bit sombre, like I should be very still and not move, maybe curl up on the floor and pray a bit.
Three years ago today I was recovering from my biopsy, I’d had part of the tumour removed from my bladder and the news wasn’t good, in fact it was horrific. If I didn’t have immediate radical surgery, I only had six months to live. So waking up and being 60 should have actually felt amazing as I never expected to get this far.
My life now is all about recovery, all about making my world better, but some days it’s hard. Certain days have huge expectations, like my birthday. I had arranged a very simple celebration, what I called an unapologetic birthday, a picnic on the beach — but from the moment I woke up I felt anxious and my OCD was kicking in. I knew that even though I’d invited everyone I’d still forgotten some.
I wanted everyone to be there, I wanted the sun to shine and to show my friends, the people I love, that I was still very much alive, that I wasn’t in pain, that the cancer hadn’t got me.
I explained to my doctor that I want to feel well and that I want to feel normal. He said it can’t be because in essence it’s like I’ve been in an air crash and even though I’ve got up and walked away the trauma and the effects can last forever. Missing body parts never come back.
Occasionally I forget about the urostomy bag strapped onto me and occasionally I feel at one with it
Sometimes I look in the mirror naked, I see my age and I see a bag attached to my body. Sometimes it’s empty, sometimes its full of piss but regardless I know that I can’t live without this appendage strapped onto me.
Occasionally I forget about it and occasionally I feel at one with it — I know that if I didn’t have the urostomy bag my recovery would be a lot faster mentally and physically. I’m not shy about my bag, I don’t keep it a secret, but it’s definitely taken part of my life away — all the time I have to feel grateful, I have to feel happy, I have to embrace my life and this in itself is very hard, especially when most days I’m in a certain amount of physical pain.
I seek and desire to do the things that make me happy. My picnic was supposed to resemble something from a beautiful renaissance painting. I imagined plaid blankets and parasols, an array of delicately sliced cucumber sandwiches and sparkling teas. I imagined no wind, the sand to be flat and smooth at all times, some kind of relaxing piano music in the background, if any. A beautiful calm summer’s day, a mixture of eclectic friends enjoying each other’s company and a quiet evening swim under the meridians of the red, yellow and orange Turner sky. A beautiful giant sun, a bloody golden red plunging itself into the horizon. A magical Margate moment. It wasn’t like that, it was more like a Chas and Dave golden oldies beach party, with more wind and sand than you could ever imagine, but it was pioneering, loving, British eccentric and insanely British when the rain poured down.
My highlight was swimming in the North Sea with 25 of my closest friends and picnicking with at least 200. I’m still living, I’m still laughing, I’m still kicking, I’m still swimming and I’m not drowning.
