This week my friend, Nicola Bourne, publishes her book "The Fabulous Woman's Guide Through Cancer". To mark its publication on the 18th November, I am doing a few posts this week about a few other fabulous women who have written about their battle with cancer.
My first interview is with Jackie Buxton who wrote "Tea and Chemo" which was published in November 2015.
Synopsis:
At the age of 45, wife and mother Jackie Buxton was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lurching between the crippling fear that the cancer had spread, and the great comfort of knowing she was one of the lucky ones who could be treated, she did what she always does when life presents her with a challenge: she wrote it down.
Jackie quickly realised that even with cancer, life was far from bad. Never known for her scientific prowess, she nonetheless became a 'bit of an expert' - at least in the field of hair loss, water retention and biscuits - and decided to use her writing to share experiences and help others recognise you don't have to be defined by your cancer.
Tea & Chemo is full of laughter, tears, honesty and hope, and offers inspirational words to everyone facing the life challenges that cancer inevitably brings.
All proceeds from the sales of Tea & Chemo will go to three incredibly important charities, whose compassionate care and professionalism make the difference to so many lives: The Haven, Breast Cancer Now and The Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre, Harrogate.
Welcome Jackie and thank you so much for coming on my blog today to talk about your book and cancer experiences. It's great to have you here.
Could you start by just telling me a little bit about yourself and your
journey into writing and becoming a published author?
I've always loved writing, even
from primary school really. Then I went into a writing-heavy career of press
and PR for charity, followed by freelance copywriting, all of which I loved.
Nonetheless, there was this little chink in my head, tapping a way. It was the
fiction writing itch that I had to scratch. On a transatlantic flight back from
my honeymoon, my new hubbie, and everybody else on the flight apart from me, was
asleep. I've never really slept on planes, I'm generally far too excited about
the trip or returning home and when it's a big posh plane like this one, too
giddy about all the films on offer.
I saw a picture of a tombstone
and article about a pauper's grave in the free newspaper and right there in
that moment, I was struck with the most vivid idea for a novel. I scribbled the
idea down on serviettes (extras provided by the equally excited stewards and
now I always carry a notebook) and I've been scribbling away ever since.
My first moment of fiction
publication came with a short story about childbirth (eeek!) in an essentially humorous
anthology of 'ordinary women's stories' and you could probably hear the shriek
of delight at the other end of the street when I heard my submission had been
selected for publication. I've had a few more short stories published, both in
anthologies and magazines, and it always feels great to know your efforts will
be read, and you pray, enjoyed, by readers. But the novel was the biggy for me.
The novel outlined on serviettes
is in a drawer somewhere but my second novel was Glass Houses and this is the
one I became particularly obsessed with. After initial rejections and further
re-writes, often taking months, I'd started to amass a tidy pile of 'near misses' but more importantly, wonderful
feedback returned with a rejection from publishers and agents. I studiously
acted on this because hey, this was free help from the experts. It was gold
dust. It's amazing how obvious the observations of new readers of your work are
– in hindsight.
Flitting about on Twitter one
day, I noticed a fairly new publisher kept popping up and this publisher seemed
to have a great ethos, not to mention lots of fans. His tweets said that Urbane
Publications welcome submissions.
Finally I found myself in the
right place at the right time because Matthew Smith, the man at the helm of
Urbane Publications, wanted to publish Glass Houses and also an idea for a
self-help/ memoir which I'd submitted on a bit of a whim. That book became Tea
& Chemo and more about that next…
What gave you the idea for
a book about your experience of cancer?
Other people! I'd blogged for a
year or so before being diagnosed with cancer in December of 2013, but didn’t
imagine I'd be blogging about my illness. No, my blog was supposed to be about
the strange, bizarre and generally amusing things that happen when you're just
going about your daily life as a human, not the dark topic of cancer.
Meanwhile, I was really struck by the wealth of well-written and very
informative information on cancer and its treatments and there was nothing
which wasn’t covered either in person or in literature from the hospital. I'm
very grateful for that. But there was something else I wanted to read and that
was the stories from the patient's mouth. But I didn't just want any stories. I
wanted the positive stories of people who'd had this thing, done it, got the
hat (wig, scarf…) to show for it and emerged the other side, battle scarred,
perhaps, but smiling nonetheless. I searched online and didn’t find what I
wanted.
Jump forward a couple of weeks and I was starting to cope with this
cancer diagnosis. I was very aware that after the initial knee crunching
appointment in which the cancer bombshell was dropped, I was one of the lucky
ones because the aim of my treatment was cure. And that's about as good as it
gets when you enter this terrifying world of cancer where there are no
definites. Buoyed by feeling so much better than when I was first diagnosed, I
wanted to shout it from the treetops. I wanted other people to know that some
normality does return fairly soon after a cancer diagnosis, that cancer is
doable and to be heartened by this.
I decided to shout this from my blog. But I would only post when I had
something positive or informative, to say. I enjoyed writing the posts, they
helped me formulate my feelings about what was really happening to me and I
received just the loveliest of feedback from readers both in comments on the
blog, on Facebook and Twitter and in emails. Some people even suggested I
should turn the blog posts into a book and I was chuffed, really chuffed that
these people even contemplated such an idea. But I found myself asking why
anyone would buy such a book when they could read the posts online. I also
couldn't imagine how anybody would want to publish a book on cancer by little
old, really not very good at science, me.
Sometimes people sew a seed don't they and you don’t realise it's taken
root until it bursts into flower. And that's what happened with me. When I saw
that Urbane Publications weren't just interested in stories but also in
non-fiction, particularly memoir and self-help – ideas only at this stage
please (even better) - I had to submit.
I knew that if I didn’t try, I'd always wonder. Thus Tea & Chemo was born.
My wonderful publisher and I quickly agreed that half of the book would be made
up of my original blog posts and the other half would be further anecdotes, as,
now a year following diagnosis, I had so much more to say.
What is the one thing you
would like people to take away from your book?
Hmmm, tricky.
Perhaps that a primary cancer diagnosis is 'not all bad'. It was nearing
Christmas 2014, my active treatments had recently finished and lots of people
said that they were sure I'd be glad to see the back of this year. I realised
that my answer always revolved around the year not being half as bad as I might
have expected and there were so many silver linings – seeing much more of my
friends and family being right up there.
Nicola Bourne talks about making some 'fabulous changes' to her life
once she had survived her battle with cancer. Did you feel anything similar?
Did you make any fabulous changes to the way you lived your life?
I certainly did feel similar. Once active treatment
of chemotherapy and radiotherapy was over and I was left alone with only a few
daily pills to fight the big fear of cancer returning, I just couldn't imagine
how cancer wouldn't come back. It
seemed too powerful for anything my little body and those pills could offer.
I've since learnt that this is really normal and when my oncologist told me
that it would take time for me to regain trust in my body, he was absolutely
right. Almost three years post diagnosis, I do feel much more confident that I
may, just may, be ok.
So, I was really keen to make as many changes as
possible to my lifestyle in an effort to take back some control in the big
fight. The trouble was, I'm a right little goody-goody when it comes to diet
and exercise. I just like healthy food and have always loved sport. I can't
help it, I'm sorry I'm such a bore. And thus, search as I might, I couldn't
find any monumental changes that I could make. I remember saying to people that
I almost wished I smoked or had a fry-up every day because then I could give it
up. Nonetheless, I've made some small but significant changes to my diet –
which I stick to, most of the time.
But there was one monumental thing, standing out in
lights, if you cared to examine my lifestyle.
Sleep – or a lack of it.
I've talked about this a lot in my blog and in Tea
& Chemo and I really feel that I abused my body for years by depriving it
of sleep. The more I read now about our bodies needing at least seven hours to
have the time to fully repair the damage we've done during the day, or to fight
the nasties which invade us all the time but a well-kept body will repel
without us ever knowing, makes perfect sense.
The trouble is, I can survive really well without
sleep and this was a great benefit to me as a writer. In the past, I'd hang
around with my husband and children until they tripped off to bed or started
nodding on the sofa, and then I'd creep up to my study and tap away on the keys
until the early hours. It was when I did my fiction writing.
I spent time with my family, spent time with my
stories. It was perfect, except in that I was regularly having only four hours
sleep.
With great conviction but a slightly heavy heart
I've had to knock that routine on the head. It's so tempting to break my rule
though, because I struggle with work-load as it is, before I even add in my own
writing, and it's so tempting to forge on through so that I start the next day
with a shorter to-do list. But I am committed to this lifestyle change, and
though my sleepy halo slips from time to time, I regularly get seven hours
sleep now, and very rarely only get four. It used to be the other way round.
Nicola also talks about the importance of feeling "fabulous" and in her book she encourages women to believe we are all fabulous, always, whatever we are facing. Do you have any fabulous advice about this?
There is
nothing fabulous about me, truly. I'm just an ordinary girl who benefited from
a wonderfully balanced upbringing. I thank my parents for teaching me that much
as we might be the centre of their
universe, we are not the centre of the
universe. 'Good' and 'bad' things happen as we live our lives and the more
difficult times can enrich us just as much as the good stuff. I have the ethos
that it's unrealistic to expect everything to be permanently hunky dory, however,
if you can learn to dance in the rain when the sun turns to storm, then you can
know real happiness, even in the darker times.
Somewhere along the line I've learnt that happiness
is not a 'thing', it's merely a matter of perception. If we try to live our
lives seeing the positive in every situation – love and companionship is what I
think of when I look back at my confrontation with cancer for example – then we
might never know 'unhappiness'. Or, at least we might empower ourselves to put
right the thing that isn't working to make us happier again. I'm not fabulous,
I'm very flawed, but I am happy and always have been, even though I've had the
knocks and curve balls we all have. I think taking control of our own
destinies, rather than allowing ourselves to become victims, is where fabulous
lives come from.
In your opinion, can you
tell me who you consider to be a fabulous woman?
So many! I
think that all my close friends and family are pretty fabulous to be honest,
but I do have one friend who has the most amazing, sunny outlook and she has
been knocked so, so many times by disability, disease, disastrous relationships
and real poverty in her life and in the lives of those close to her. The thing
is, you would never know. Even when she talks about the things that are going
on, she talks with such optimism, bravery and with the biggest smile on her
face that you could be forgiven for thinking that she didn’t have a care in the
world. She really is an inspiration of how to get the absolute best out of
every day.
If it’s possible, can you
finish by sharing your one top tip for fabulous women who maybe fighting
cancer?
You can do this! Try to see the treatment in small
chunks, rather than the big picture of beating cancer because that can seem way
too enormous, if not, impossible, particularly when you haven't had chance to
get used to this turn your life has taken. My father in law whispered to me in
my ear just before going in for my mastectomy operation: A to B, B to C, C to
D. Simple, but it worked for me.
Thank you so much Jackie. This has been a fabulous interview and you really are inspiring with your uplifting outlook. Thanks so much for answering my questions in such detail.
"Tea & Chemo" is available through Amazon and Urbane Publications.
For more information about Jackie please visit her website:
https://jackiebuxton.blogspot.co.uk
My review of "Glass Houses" can be found here:
http://bibliomaniacuk.blogspot.com/2016/11/glass-houses-jackie-buxton.html
My interview with Jackie about "Glass Houses" can be found here:
http://bibliomaniacuk.blogspot.com/2016/11/q-jackie-buxton-glass-houses.html
For more reviews and recommendations from me, you can find me on Twitter @katherinesunde3 (bibliomaniacuk)
