Pass Me My Trumpet Please...

....I'd like to give it an old blow.

Last week was a busy one. 

On Sunday, my daughter and I participated in the Cork Women's Mini Marathon.

For those of you who don't know (which included me up to ten days ago), this event is possibly the best example of a misnomer that you're likely to come across.

It has as many similarities with a marathon as a Mars Bar does with the red planet. It's just got the same name. But we had a fantastic day and walked the four miles at a slightly-faster-than-a-stroll pace, which meant we came in mid-table. And we were delighted with ourselves.

On Wednesday, I became a published author. 

I wrote a little piece for the Medical Independent about, guess what, me having cancer and all. 

That old chestnut. You'd think I'd get over it. 

On Thursday, we made some of the finest cupcakes ever to be sold at a school cake sale.

On Friday, we attended the Mercy Stars awards run by the Mercy Hospital Foundation, and I won a golden star!

Event Organiser of the Year

That's me with Jerry Flynn, the chairman of the Board of the Foundation, and my lovely husband Derek. I'll let you figure out who's who. 

On Saturday, I went to the Irish Cancer Society's Living Well Conference, and met some fellow advanced-level cancerheads. I was struck by how easy it is for people to get the wrong end of the stick, through no fault of their own. Nearly everyone who spoke about having secondary cancer was confused by what it meant - are they dying? When? How can they be, when they feel so well?

For me, after many years of dealing with cancer, it is easy to see that sometimes it's a fecking divil and rips through people, and sometimes it's just a minor inconvenience. And I know that there is no way of knowing where you stand with it. It seems that many patient are lulled into a false sense of security by concepts of "all-clear" and the five year rule (follow-up usually stops after five years as the likelihood of recurrence then is low. Low though. Not zero.)

We got good advice about diet, and cancer trial participation, and how to pester your oncology team over and over if you want to get anything done. 

I felt a little bit on the periphery though, like I didn't really belong, straddling the patient-doctor divide like someone caught climbing over a fence. And I don't have breast cancer, so I am definitely an outsider.

On Sunday, I went bag-packing in Tesco for a friend's favourite charity, Moving Mountains, which is an NGO that supports health and education initiatives in Kenya. 

I had done this bag-packing thing before, a long time ago, before I went to Kenya myself with the Surgeon Noonan Society. I remember being bored and hungover and wishing I was in the pub. 

This time, though, I found it fascinating. We were in a city centre shop, and the diversity was incredible. I would guess that at least ten different nationalities passed through the tills in the two hours I was there. Being incorrigibly nosy, I got to check out what everyone was buying on a Sunday evening. 

Quite a lot of alcohol, it has to be said. But interesting stuff, like Sambuca, and Jagermeister (on a Sunday??), and good old vodka. 

One couple bought 8 cans of Heineken and all the ingredients for a birthday cake, including TWO cans of whippy cream.....

Another woman bought two slabs of beer and four bottles of bleach. Hmmm. I had to stop myself from interfering there. 

One poor boy was asking his mum for coins for the sweet machine behind us. She started getting change out of her purse. He was mildly surprised, but delighted. She then proceeded to dump the coins into my little bucket. I am not sure I have ever seen such abject disappointment on a child's face.

So, there we are now. 

Amn't I great?