Well I’m near the end, and I, just ain’t got the time….
28 Jan 2011 2 Comments
in breast cancer, IITT, RAF, Small business, teamwhyattbeatscancer, Training
A fine line, from a fine song by Blind Faith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUW1SGF7bR8&feature=player_embedded
Seems apt. Both song and artist!!
Chemo number 5 looms next week. The penultimate treatment. And in some ways I am dreading it.
The dread comes from the knowledge of how difficult these treatments are becoming. My poor little veins cower in fear each time, which involves much excavating with very large needles. This is not only painful, but makes me feel a bit sick too. Further up the vein, once treatment starts, the veins are fighting back, involving excruciatingly painful spasms of the valves. Which also make me feel a bit sick.
I guess it’s just payback for not having had any nausea at all during the treatments so far.
But mostly, I am now just impatient for this whole chemo parlarky to be over. I can see a life without chemo in it for the first time, and I am ready for it.
My treatment is on Friday, a day later than normal, as TDB, Mum & I are in that London on 3rd February as I have been shortlisted for Freelance Trainer of the Year at the Institute of IT Training Awards. Oooer. We are going the awards ceremony, via a champagne reception at the Dorchester. I have yet to resolve my clothing dilemma…..
As a Plus One of an RAF Officer, I am not short of posh frocks suitable for a black tie dinner. I have quite a selection of uber glam frockage.
However, they are all designed for women with two boobs. Not one and a half. They are also not designed for women who generally wear two thermal vests, a long sleeve top, a fleece and a gilet with the heating on at 24 degrees. Not forgetting the attractive beanie cap.
Even my fake fur evening jackets are short sleeved. And I really don’t think that wearing my puffa jacket over the top is quite the done thing.
So I have a challenge on my hands over the weekend. Along with trying to work out how to get the false eyelashes on (complete with diamante) that TDB got for me. I shall report back.
So a big week for #teamwhyattbeatscancer.
Keep your fingers crossed for a suitable outfit choice, and for a good result on Thursday. Stay tuned for the results.
Chemo Treatment No1 – tick. Five to go…
12 Nov 2010 4 Comments
in breast cancer, RAF, teamwhyattbeatscancer
I had a wonderful conversation with my two young nieces last night – well, I sat and listed to Niece No1 as she talked at me about what she is up to at school etc. She and Niece No2 have both been at school today dressed as Wonder Woman. Obviously. Much discussion went on about capes, headbands and magic wrist cuffs (who would have thought WW was so fashion forward?).
I mention this as I have had the theme tune to WW running through my head all day. Actually a pretty good soundtrack to taking on Chemo 1, ‘The Beginning’.
I started preparing for Chemo 1 yesterday by getting my hydration up to speed. One instance of the lovely staff nurse excavating my left arm for a decent vein on Monday was enough. Apparently I was really quite dehydrated. I can’t think why…… 
So, I took on the advised 3 litres (yes, 3 – count ‘em) of water yesterday, spent most of it in the loo, but had shiny, full fat veins at bedtime. Result.
Marie Curie 2 had advised things may run a little late, so TDB and I fortified selves with bacon butties before heading off to voluntarily have my body injected with ‘poison’. Odd place to be in your head. Still, needs must, so off we went, with the now customary pink wardrobe sported by both of us each time we head off to the boob rot clinic.
Yes. We were early. Again. Sigh.
I’d had 2 pints of water and cup of tea. My veins were up for it. Sadly a valve got in the way first time around (YYYYAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH), but we were in, up and running for the second attempt (still YAAARRGGHH, but with less letters so you know that’s a good thing).
Now in my head, I had a vision of being strapped up to drips and things and left to it. But no. My particular chemo means the drugs are administered by the Very Lovely Staff Nurse who sits and pumps grot in your arm. She had a student with her today to observe too. This meant that TDB went into ‘make small talk mode’, and started asking lots of questions of aforesaid stude about her studies etc. The very lovely Staff Nurse (TVLSN) started to get a bit nervous. I despatched TDB on a coffee run.
We kick off with anti sickness drugs via drip – these would, apparently, make me feel a bit prickly ‘down there’. It didn’t. Instead it tickled like hell, which led to fits of giggling. Next up, steroids, also anti sickness, but also to give a bit of a boost etc and keep self on even keel. These would, apparently, make my mouth feel funny, eyes feel like they were out on stalks, nose itchy and possibly watery eyes. Just like the end of a Ladies Guest Night.
It did.
Third up on the tag team drug mat was the first chemo drug. Cue WW music as it’s red. Visions of red caped cancer bashers flooding into my veins was actually pretty good. Fourth and last up, second chemo drug, the transparent stealth fighter. Go get ‘em kids.
And how do I feel?
To be honest, I have felt a bit ‘Purple Haze’ all afternoon. The world has gone on around me but has felt like it’s 20 feet away and happening to someone else. Decisions have been difficult. Thankfully they haven’t involved anything more difficult than ‘shall I have another biscuit with that cup of tea’. I am very tired, and feel like I could sleep for a week. My arm hurts a bit, and my eyes still feel a bit stary.
Still, one down – five to go.
With WW drugs on the case, I have super powers on the side of #teamwhyattbeatscancer. My nieces would approve.
What’s the french for ‘wowee’??
08 Nov 2010 8 Comments
in breast cancer, RAF, teamwhyattbeatscancer
Regular readers of my humble little blog know that I have experienced three significant life changing events this year.
My father passing away in February.
My cancer diagnosis in August.
Turning 40 last week.
The Dearly Beloved (TDB) has been an utter star throughout, and a while ago, whilst our heads were bursting with cancer doom, told me I was being taken away somewhere for my birthday as a bit of a ‘cheering up’ thing to look forward to. I didn’t know where, and at that stage, didn’t really care either.
Fast forward a few months.
Significant birthday arrives just over three weeks after my mastectomy, and roughly 10 days after TDB has surgery on his elbow. Feeling a bit low, and keeping the pain killing drug industry going, we arranged to have dinner at the Aldwark Arms on my birthday with a few chums here at RAF Linton. Eleven of them (including my Mum) descended on the restaurant, and were firmly, but politely, encouraged to go home sometime around midnight. I had a fantastic time, was given some lovely presents, and was very excited to tell everyone that my present from TDB was dinner in Paris on the Saturday night!
Paris, and the Saturday night part are very special to TDB and I. We got engaged in Paris on the 7/11/92, so to go back and celebrate my birthday and our wedding anniversary was a lovely treat, I got hugely over excited about it, and was up with the lark on Saturday morning.
It was a glorious day. The sun shone, we zipped along to Leeds Bradford Airport and headed off to a romantic break in Paris, staying at The Officers Club. Yay!
We arrived at CDG Airport in the pouring rain. Boo. To find the SNCF/RER trains not running into Paris due to engineering works. Double Boo. Much faffing ensued.
We got to the club at about 4pm, and I required an immediate blood sugar improvement or the entire thing was going to end in tears. So we dumped our bags and went to the cafe next door for ‘le snack’.
I was a happy girl. TDB was chatting away with me about stuff, including some work related opportunities coming up next week, and what we would do on the Sunday in Paris.
We went back to our room, I had a long soak in the deepest bath in the world, we were ready to hit the town at about 6.30pm.
We had aperitif at the bistro opposite the club, and hit the Metro about 7.20pm to make our way to the restaurant. I was so excited, I didn’t even mind walking the last bit in the rain.
How wonderful. A lovely dinner with my hubby in Paris.
As we got to the restaurant, he took my hand, gave me a kiss and ushered me through the door, whispering ‘Happy Birthday Sweetheart’ as I turned into the room.
AND SAW A TABLE FULL OF MY DEAREST FRIENDS IN THE WORLD ALL THERE TOO.
Hidden behind menus, this duplicitous lot had been in on the scam for months and months!!
I gasped. I shrieked. I jumped up and down like a 4 year old. I squeezed 6 people far harder than my poor mangled right boob really wanted me too, and my cheeks ached from laughing and smiling so hard.
I also had a little cry.
Unbeknownst to me, TDB had deployed several diversions in the afternoon as we had been within feet of all 6 of them at some point or another! On our way out for ‘le snack’ I passed ‘Tom & Barbara’ without noticing, although ‘Barbara’ was frantically plotting a snog in the lift with ‘Tom’ to hide their faces if I’d turned around. Apparently. Well Paris does do odd things to you.
Whilst sat having ‘le snack’, ‘Marie Curie the Second’ had walked past the window – only a deft change of topic by TDB had fixed my attention on him, and not out of the window. I now also knew why he had been so reluctant on having a window seat.
Frantic FaceBook message deletion had been carried out by the ‘Pharma Princess’ to hide all evidence of messages regarding her trip to Paris and child care preparations for the weekend.
All of which I was utterly, blissfully, trustingly oblivious to.
In my life, the way TDB and I live it, I meet a lot of people. Lots of them become chums. Very few become friends. We are very luck to have added another ten to that number here at RAF Linton.
Out of those few, only a very small, very special number of people become an intrinsic part of your life. The ones you think about all the time, not always consciously.
The ones who you know, who know you, sometimes better than you think you know yourself.
Who’ve run with you through airports, watched our husbands do stupid things in helicopters whilst bursting with pride at the same time, danced our way through summer balls, taken over the bar, broken in other people’s 18 year old children to the delights of tequila, suffered the boredom of cocktail parties and the cheesiness of christmas draws, been my neighbours, worried ourselves stupid through countless deployments, celebrated their impending parenthoods, drank with you until dawn, shopped with you until you dropped, laughed with you until you were nearly sick, wobbled off down the road after long, boozy dinner parties, stood outside various bars with you, have talked bollocks and a lot of sense, and held your hand as you cried for your Dad, just that once, on what we all thought was the worst day of my life.
And there they were. Just for me.
I couldn’t have had a better present. I couldn’t have a better husband. I couldn’t have a better set of friends.
I love you all for being there. I love TDB for doing it. And I THANK YOU.
I shall, however, never trust any of you ever again *wink*
Mastectomy – the sequel
01 Nov 2010 6 Comments
in breast cancer, RAF
Well. Last Thursday saw me head off to York Hospital again to find out what was going on after the boob rot had been removed via the mastectomy. The Dearly Beloved was in hospital himself, having chunks of his elbow removed, so it was the first time I had gone solo since the diagnosis back in August.
I was early again. By the time all this is over I may just have worked out how long it actually does take to get to the hospital.
Mind you, I was early as I was driving myself. Oh yeah. Independence! Liberty! Driving like Miss Daisy! Every bump in the bloody road felt like a crater, first gear was a definite challenge, and as for getting in and out of the car…..
Still, once I had perfected the contortions required to get in, close door and apply seatbelt, I was off!
No I wasn’t. Couldn’t get the handbrake off. Had to use both hands whilst swearing loudly and cursing all surgeons.
Now I was off. Slowly. And still ended up having 25 minutes to spare, which when each hour costs you nearly £2 to park at York Hospital means this is getting expensive.
I saw my wonderful, lovely, empathetic surgeon first, who is delighted with the results – and so she should be. I am out and proud with my mangled boobage, which has been constructed so well I am not even using a prosthesis at the moment. Check me out. The wounds are healing well, but the first inflation of the boob constructor didn’t happen due to a bit of swelling, so more on that next time……
The histology of the tissue removed showed some microscopic traces of cancerous cells, so the mastectomy was definitely the right way to go to get all those suckers out. Now for the chemo plan.
I had the dressings removed – YYYYAAAARRRRRRRROOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCH, and then made my way across the corridor to the chemo unit to meet my consultant for my 3.10pm appointment.
At 3.45 I was getting a little anxious – I’d been weighed & measured (in full view of the entire waiting room, I really shouldn’t have had all those doughnuts in the US), and was ready to go, and conscious of wanting to find out if TDB was ok. At 3.48, I was taken to the consulting room. At 3.50 the hospital had a power cut.
All the lights out. All the fire doors closed and locked. Me, on my tod, stuck in a consulting room. Sigh.
At 4.15pm, once I had contemplated how I would survive overnight marooned in the consulting room, the power came back on and the consultant arrived. Nice chap. I like him a lot. GSOH and all that. I had to go through the usual history questions to fill him in on how I met the criteria of ‘person who feels quite well, but just has cancer’. He had the grace to point out that I will shortly be ‘person who feels like shit, has no hair, and is trying to make sure she doesn’t get more cancer’. So, we were singing off the same hymn sheet.
Chemo starts after I turn 40 this week. I did put my foot down about having chemo for the first time on my birthday, even if Thursday is Breast Cancer Day at York Hospital, there are limits.
They are planning 6 treatments, 3 weeks apart, although the timescales do depend on how well I recover between treatments. Hair loss begins pretty much immediately, and is pretty sudden – and the loss of all body hair was indeed confirmed by the lovely consultant, accompanied by sniggering from me.
My nails will become brittle and ridged, so the nail varnish of the week will become a necessity (currently sporting No 7′s Rouge, very goth).
I have to avoid people with germs. Mostly. And keep to good food hygiene behaviours to avoid being felled by some ghastly gastro germ whilst my poor immune system is basically given a thorough kicking.
I have to avoid unpasteurised cheese and pate.
At which point I rather crumbled.
Dear chums and fellow gastronomes will understand the horror this instilled. The consultant took pity and did say the odd chunk of glorious Colston Bassett could pass my lips over crimbo, but it looks like the usual Xmas eve foie gras indulgence is a no-go this year. Sob.
So – comedy wigs for the Christmas Draw in December now look a necessity. I have my NHS wig fitting soon. I shall report back on that how that goes, and am practising tying scarves around my head. Currently haven’t moved on from the ‘Jack Sparrow’ look, but it’s early days.
Next time around I get fitted for a prosthetic booby and get ‘blown up’ for the first time. Should be interesting.
How did I get here again?
28 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in RAF, Small business, Training Tags: IITT, RAF, Secretary, Training
I’ll be the first to admit that my burning ambition as a little girl was not to be an Independent Training Provider. In fact, I think my first burning ambition was to be Nurse Nancy from the Twinkle comic. I then swiftly moved onto Prima Ballerina, then I wanted to be the next Ginny Holgate, and finally decided that I really wanted to be an Air Traffic Controller in the RAF.
Needless to say, none of those options worked out.
Faced with the rather pathetic little pile of smouldering ashes that were my initial dreams, I spent a very happy year running my family’s delicatessen in Louth. Sadly we were about 15 years ahead of our time, and getting the good people of east Lincolnshire to buy anything other than mild cheddar was not easy. Furz of Louth closed its doors circa 1991.
So then what?
By this time I had met The Dearly Beloved, so my priorities were to find a career that allowed weekends off, holidays and preferably the ability to slope off early occasionally on a Friday.
Secretarial college beckoned. Off I went, and after 12 weeks of ‘a a a, space, etc’ I was a fully fledged, all RSA certified up secretary.
As The Dearly Beloved and I trundled further down the path towards getting married, this seemed completely perfect. An easily transportable career that didn’t scare the natives too much (this was a little while ago now, and being a secretary was ‘suitable’ for an officers wife, in the same way as being a nurse/teacher. Nice and unthreatening for the chaps).
Years pass. We get married. We go to Northern Ireland and I sell car insurance for a living. We come back, and I get a ‘proper’ job at the FE College in Oxford. We go to Northern Ireland again. I end up working as a PA – result! Except my boss had some anger management issues, which normally involved taking it out on me. At this stage, I started to wonder what it was all about. I spent most of my time showing the other office staff how to do stuff on the new fangled computers. Every day. Repetitively. And this was not part of the job description.
When we moved back to Essex, I took the plunge and found a full time training job in Colchester. It was an epiphany. The firm were great, keen to develop me, and I took full advantage of their support to get qualified and become a certification junkie. Finally I had found a job that challenged me, had quantifiable results, a professional body behind it and an element of stability in the shifting sands that are living with the military.
I was on my way. Things could only get better, surely?
Next time – ‘How not to let the bastards get you down’
Working from home – the reality.
15 Mar 2010 2 Comments
in Bespoke learning solutions, Home, RAF, Technology, Training
Everyone I know who doesn’t do this usually says to me ‘Oh you lucky thing’, or ‘Oh, yes ‘working’ from home’, with a heavy dollop of sarcasm attached to the word working. Or I get the knowing look that means ‘yeah right, you spend your entire day shopping on the internet’.
The key word here is ‘working’, and then the assumptions that people make when you tell them you do this from somewhere other than a traditional office.
In this technological age there are very few reasons why working from home cannot be an effective and efficient way to run a business or carry out your role.
Rapidly improving wireless technology and broadband are putting paid to turning your laptop on half an hour before you need to do anything, or having to have bulky great printers cluttering up the place. Scanners can now be so small you can fit them in your briefcase, along with similarly sized projectors. Just visithttp://www.takeware.co.uk/ReceiptAngel/ and have a look to see what I mean.
There are environmental positives to working from home – not least of which not adding to the daily grind of traffic, in my case blocking up the A19 & A64 around York.
Working from home is hard work in ways that some people don’t appreciate. It is very difficult to absent yourself competely from the domestic trivia that surrounds you, the piles of washing/dirty crockery/ironing/grocery shopping or whatever that form 70% of my other job, being Mrs Whyatt.
It is also difficult to switch off. But I try hard to find a balance between wanting to grow my business and having a relationship with my husband, even if I do want to check email at 11pm at night.
There are other down sides. Like the sense of isolation that can creep up on you unexpectedly, or the frustrations that come from having lots to do, and sometimes nobody to talk over how you are going to do it. However, I have found being part of Twitter invaluable in this. Not only can I keep in touch with existing colleagues, who keep my spirits up and offer advice and guidance, but I create new relationships through this platform too.
In my case, there are many personal positives for choosing to run my business from a home office as opposed to a more traditional option.
My unique challenges when working from home are my ‘staff’ (two elderly lady cats and a year old golden retriever), and the fact that I live just by the end of the runway at an RAF flying training base. Both of which make conference calls in particular especially tricky.
I have to plan my time accordingly and attempt to only call clients when the flying programme is taking a break – but then find myself removing a grumpy cat from my keyboard, or a filthy chewed item of what was clean laundry from the dog in the middle of the call anyway. On one memorable occasion, when delivering an online webcast for the Institute of IT Training recently, one of the cats tried to jump on my lap, missed, and drove her claws squarely into my bottom. Not quite in the script.
Apart from that (!) I find basing myself at home incredibly beneficial to my state of mind and productivity.
I am able to keep my costs down significantly and can pass that benefit onto my clients.
I can focus on a task and give it all my attention – brilliant when planning or carrying out routine tasks.
Great technology allows me to do pretty much everything that I would in a ‘normal’ office, and being close to York means I can get around the UK via public transport pretty quickly.
So if my only distractions are of the purring, panting and pilot variety, I think I am doing pretty well, and feel overall, my unique challenges ultimately enhance my workplace by making me work effectively and efficiently to cope with them.
Onward and upward and all that.
04 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in Home, Housing, RAF, Training
Right. So, here we are at the end of another eventful couple of weeks.
Let’s start with the good stuff. My company, Lightning Training Limited www.lightningtraining.com, gained accredited training provider status with the Institute of IT Training this week.
WHOOP!
Which is great, and has given me a)lots to think about and b)lots to do.
The naff part of the week is the raging behemoth that is the RAF casting it’s runes about our future.
We now have about 6 months left here at RAF Linton, and are currently reeling from a recent conversation with hubster’s poster talking about sending him to do a ground tour in Wiltshire.
WAAAHHHHH!
Not what we wanted. Still, many a slip twixt cup and lip. We’ll wait and see what happens.
Until then, Team Whyatt have regrouped, rearmed and ready for whatever does happen. Wiltshire, Hampshire, whatever – we get on with it and cope as we always do.
So – onward and upward. What other direction is there?!
Home is where the heart is
10 Jan 2010 1 Comment
in Home, Housing, RAF Tags: Home, Military Housing, RAF
Hmm. Another frustrating read of the Sunday Times Homes supplement. Home envy – it’s a disease.
I grew up in military accommodation until I was about 5 (ish) when my Mum & Dad got their first house in Johnstone near Haverfordwest (Dad was flying Hunters at Brawdy).
We then moved to Binbrook, and spent the first few months at 1 Salisbury Avenue before moving into the village to 3 Manor Drive (along with half of RAF Binbrook – or so it seemed).
Several years later, I married an RAF pilot. And moved into quarters. Well, actually, we first moved into a portacabin – which was like living in a Wendy house for 4 months. We figured, first off, that having not lived together before we got married, anything was a bonus – and we were right. We had no expectations, and the portacabin certainly lived up to them. Heady times followed as we moved into our first proper house in Salmond Drive. Little were we to know we’d be posted to live next door a few years later.
Military housing. It’s, overall, actually pretty good. As long as you don’t mind the following:
Endless sodding magnolia paint and nineteen layers of white gloss. Aaargh.
Crap kitchens with workspace the equivalent size of a postage stamp. Oh, and cabinets that don’t shut properly and odd spaces for things that make no sense (single cupboard by the back door for example.)
Crap bathrooms. Up until a few years ago, showers were a novelty. We now have them, but they are pants, and generally as effective as standing under a spitting camel. With a dry throat.
Art installations otherwise known as alarming cracks in the plaster work/strange plumbing combinations/added odd bits of building.
Boilers which don’t.
Cookers that are not big enough for any of the roasting tins you have and that you have to put on 3 days before you want to cook anything.
Carpet that is either antique, with all the accompanying stains, or ‘new’ and in some revolting colourway that is just vile. I am currently living with an attractive raspberry pink.
Anything that goes wrong can only be put right by reporting everything in triplicate. And only if you are a man/serving officer. I had to resort to taking my two sewage covered dogs into the office at our previous posting to get them to accept there was a sewage leak in our garden. We were there 6 years and they never did fix it. It was a figment of my imagination apparently.
But the really special part of living in quarters is the fact you can’t do anything. Well, not officially. So you can be really daring and apply a paint that is not magnolia (gasp), but that’s about it. Bar a few shelves. And in The Chosen One’s case, a few holes to wire up the Bose surround sound/uber television combo in every downstairs room.
And remember – all of this has to be put back the way it was when you moved in when you move out.
Which is such a sodding nonsense. You pick up the keys to your new quarter, and the first thing that happens (generally) is that a team of removal men start tromping round it. It is usually raining. So the ‘clean’ house (which it NEVER is) is very dirty, very quickly.
So I suffer from house envy. A lot. Chums who have made their way out of the tunnels to escape to their own homes cause me to silently gnash my teeth. They have range cookers. That work. In kitchens which they can change to suit their needs.
They have gardens.
They have plans for improvements. And can do them.
Still.
Home IS where the heart is. I’m am happier nowhere else. Our ‘things’ make it our home – no matter what the bricks and mortar make up. It’s a place of refuge and solace, much merriment and hangovers, great dinner parties and comfort. I love to share it with those who are close to me. It soothes me, and provides the respite The Chosen One requires to get out there and do his job – and the sanctuary he returns to from places hot and sandy.
But I still can’t help sighing over the supplements.
