The Song of the Salamander

I wondered how my legs would cope with the walk I had planned. Certainly it was modest by most people's standards: just a few miles, but it was more than I had walked for months.Then on the news I saw footage of Jane Tomlinson's ride across America http://www.janesappeal.com/bio.htm and was completely humbled by what I saw and heard. Jane has advanced metastatic breast cancer, the disease spread is extensive. The disease was diagnosed incurable on the 31st August 2000 and Jane's ride finished on the 6th anniversary of the date. Jane’s prognosis was for her to survive six months. This woman has had four courses of chemotherapy. One course of chemotherapy has left me weak and feeble but to have to withstand a series of them is beyond what I can imagine. Jane's achievement is extraordinary and she is an inspirational individual, a beacon of hope.

Writing about my aches and pains seems trivial in comparison to what Jane Tomlinson has endured however there's no doubt my body has been affected by the drugs. How long it will take to shrug off the after effects is anyone's guess. The soles of my feet and joints ache as I get out of bed, but these sensations diminish as I move about. I feel less able to carry heavy bags of shopping from the supermarket. I could order the food on line and get it delivered but then that would rob me of the need I have to smell the fruit, feel the texture of what I am buying, check the freshness,and choose food produced as close as possible to where I live. Also my periods appeared to have stopped and while I do not miss the monthly rush of hormones I cannot help but feel a loss. Of what exactly I am not sure. On the plus side I no longer feel the need to swing for someone if they annoy me at 'the time of the month' - so overall suburbia is a safer place.

The day of my walk dawned and I made sure I completed a warm-up routine with my fellow walkers from the office. We were all walking relatively short distances apart from Arsalan who agreed to walk 11 miles to his home from work. I walked a much shorter distance ( just over three miles) to my friend Mark's house as my joints ached a bit during a few practice walks. I thought it was better to err on the side of caution. Two of Mark's children came on the walk too and it was good to be able to accompany Arsalan for part of his journey home. The other members of the team
(Emma and Liz) finished their walk in good time so overall the event was a success. To date we have raised almost £700.00 for Watford New Hope Trust. It's such a simple idea and I will see if I can repeat the exercise in the future.

September has been a busy month full of birthdays and wedding anniversaries. I do feel lucky to be able to join in as, although I have always felt confident about my recovery, I was never certain what each medical appointment would bring and how I would cope with chemotherapy. I think of Jane Tomlinson. In the not too distant future more and more people will be saved by kinder and more effective treatment for cancer. If I could have anything to do with it I would put Jane at the front of the queue. Sadly new treatments being tested at the moment such as gene therapy remain inconclusive and may not arrive soon enough to protect Jane. More's the pity.

In the meantime my life seems to be gradually retuning to normal. I am back at work part-time for the next two weeks and will move to full-time with one day a week working from home. I am lucky to have a supportive employer such as Voca: I am not under pressure to return before I feel ready and have been given time to recover and feel well. Others in my position are not so fortunate. During the day I have been finding simple tasks such as opening and answering emails, filling up cups with water to drink at my desk, having meetings and progressing with the corporate responsibility programme at work quite comforting. For a while, I can forget what has happened. Another huge benefit this year has been a closer involvement with the children and generally being at home more. I have felt more like a parent and learnt so much from other parents which will benefit the children in the future. This has been a welcome distraction from all things medical. Or so I thought. My mind appears however to have been dwelling on something which has manifested itself in a recurring dream. Usually I struggle to recall details of a dream: the content evaporates just as I wake and begin to retrace the sequence of events in my mind. But this recurring dream is different and remains a source of fascination for me.

The dream always starts the same way. Dozens of us are swimming furiously away from a hungry predator. Don't ask me how I know this, but in the dream, I am a small aquatic animal. From the colour of of my limbs and the markings on the others swimming so hard with me; it looks as if we are newts. It would have been more satisfying somehow to be reincarnated as something higher up the food chain, but, there you have it. Going back to the dream and the pursuit I am swimming as if my life depended on it and having, it seems, to work harder than the others being hunted by this larger animal. Every now and then something really shocking happens: the predator opens its mouth and snaps off someone's limb.The howls of agony pierce the water. Amazingly I am aware this has already happened to me as I can see I am missing my front left leg. I understand why keeping up with the main group of swimmers has been tough. Eventually, we lose the voracious killer. We slow down as we reach the pond weeds and stop to assess the wounds inflicted by the attacker. A number have lost one or more limbs, others, the smaller ones, are missing altogether: eaten alive by the cruel monster. What to do? No words are exchanged and instinctively we swim slowly to see Sal. Sal is the largest of our kind and came into our waters with the new rains. Sal is a salamander and it is not long before he starts to sing. In a tenor-like voice his calming song heals:

" Don't be afraid, you are out of the storm.
You will re-grow, you will re-form."

And that is how I realise I am dreaming and that it's not for real. But after the scary experience with the killer, floating gently and listening to Sal is wonderfully relaxing. Then, as if by magic, the stump on my left side begins to extend itself. Sal continues to sing and passes by each of us repeating the healing words. My joy is palpable and I begin to swim, slowly at first, around the weeds with my limb fully restored. I always wake up elated and the first thing I look at is my left arm. It looks remarkably similar to how it looked before I fell asleep. Tanned following a very hot July with an obvious paler part where my watch strap has been fastened to my wrist. The dream is not really about my arm and this is the bit where reality kicks in rather quickly. I look along my arm to my left shoulder and then across to the left side of my upper body and see an area damaged by surgery that has not re-grown. With everything else that has been going on I have not really understood a deep-rooted need to restore my appearance to how it was. More than once, I try to fall asleep, desperate to re-join Sal and the others. If only Sal had the power to heal me after I metamorphose back to my human form. I do not know how exactly I can restore my shape or whether I will have the courage to do what it takes. For the first time in almost eight months I think of my surgeon.