But when I go shopping, I now go shopping and I go to a certain supermarket who’ve got a good range of organic foods. And I go and I buy all the veg organic, as much as I can, and all the fruit. I buy tea and coffee. I’ve bought milk organic and as I say, I don’t eat pre made foods, you know, full of all these Es, chlorines and etc, etc. And I mean, I think that’s just trying to keep a healthier diet anyway. I mean, whether it will actually help the cancer, who knows, but it may keep me healthy which, you know, if you can keep your body as healthy as possible, and then you’ve got this handicap, it’s got to be better, hasn’t it, you know, than going out there and drinking and smoking and, you know, eating lots of, you know, ready made meals, that’s not going to give you much of a chance, is it?

I thought I probably ate fairly healthily but I do try and eat as much organic stuff as I can. A lot of people said to me at the time you ought to be eating this,’ and you ought to be eating that. But I found it quite a bit of a minefield really. I think going through chemotherapy is quite hard enough and for some people they find it quite easy to modify their diet and their lifestyle while they’re having chemotherapy, but I just found it hard enough going through the treatment without making major modifications. And I think for some people the time for modification is after they’ve finished the treatment. But it can be quite difficult, you know, one paper says you should eat lots of vitamin C because it stops cancer, and then another research paper comes out and says Oh well Vitamin C causes cancer,’ and you just don’t know where to, which is right and which is wrong, so it can be very confusing.

Well I have to be, since the last blockage that I had, the, they recommend that I have a low fibre diet, and this is opposite to everything that I’d been eating before; I tried to eat healthily with high fibre and lots of fruit and vegetables. And I am, I don’t usually eat meat but since I’m on this low fibre diet then I have eaten a little bit of meat and I don’t eat the amount of fruit and vegetables that I did.

It’s difficult because sometimes I want to eat them and I have to peel everything and I’m supposed to sort of cook the vegetables till they’re soft but I don’t always. So I probably don’t keep to it as much as I should but like I make bread and I can’t eat wholemeal bread now, I have to have white bread, so theres all those sorts of things. And it’s a bit embarrassing if you’re in a restaurant and you get something like potatoes and you’re sitting there peeling them off, peeling your new potatoes, it just looks very strange. But so I do that.

Well I was always a very active person and I would say as a result I have probably become even more active because I get such a buzz from being active. Before I had cancer I would have played hockey, squash, as I was growing up, going to aerobics, and I always walked the dogs. After cancer I took up running, I took part in a few women’s runs, the ‘Run for Life for the charity, running at that stage just three miles, increased that then to take part in the relays for the marathon in [town] running six miles. I took part in a women’s run again for charity in London, and took part this year again in the marathon, not the whole thing now, just the six miles, five or six miles. I started to walk more than before and I think for a while I became nearly addicted to exercise. I found that it made me feel so good and again I felt that it was doing me so much good physically and psychologically that I find that now a very important part of my life.

I do find I tire very easily. I couldn’t spend a whole day shopping or anything like that because I would suffer for it. When I’m tired I just decide ‘right okay, I’m going to bed this afternoon’ and I go to bed and I just spend a couple of hours in my bed or 3 hours in my bed, whatever it takes. Or I find I’m not physically able to do the things I used to do, you know, I don’t have the same strength. But then I think, well, you know, you just got to go with what you have, so, I do find that quite hard to, I mean it’s not a big disability, but it is, I find it hard when I used to, I mean I was a sporty person when I was younger, but I couldn’t do any of that now.

I think I realised I needed a bit of a break actually from, because I’d tried to work through a lot of the time I was having treatment, I don’t think that was a good idea at all. But theres an intense pressure on you to do really well and to cope really well, and if you say you’re going to not work there was, it’s difficult to describe but you feel very guilty if you’re not, you know, working as hard as possible, especially in the NHS, people think, you know, this is all a cop-out that, you know, you’re not working while you’re having treatment. But I really feel that it would have been beneficial if I’d just taken six months out while I was having treatment.

It was difficult, there were a lot of problems in the surgery I was working at at the time, and you don’t want to put people under more problems because you’re ill, so. But after a while I just decided that I needed a bit of a break. And I took six months out.

So you’ve changed your lifestyle as a result of having the cancer diagnosed?

Yes, and the fact that I have more free time now that I’ve retired during the treatment, and I have always worked, couldn’t see me just sitting home doing nothing. I do quite a lot of voluntary work. I’ve just been appointed as Assistant County Organiser for the National Gardens Scheme, and I started up a garden club in the village last year, and I work for the National Trust, and oh one or 2 other bits and pieces that I do. I can’t say that I sat down and thought I’ve got to change my life, it didn’t work like that. It sort of by osmosis it crept up from behind and oh yes, I’ll do that and I’ll do this.

It just makes you look at life differently and unfortunately we didn’t, well I say unfortunately, I wouldn’t have given up caring for my mother, I had her at home for five years and she was five years in a home and I visited her at least once, twice a day because it was on the, it was round the corner, so she really did take over my life then but I had ten years with my mum, a lovely lady, and I think she spoilt me because she was ninety-six and everyone said ‘oh your mother’s lived this life, you’ve got longevity and you’ll live forever’ and I just assumed I’m going to live for a long time.

So I’m going on Saturday, were starting off going round the world, going to all the places and seeing friends and family, all the places my kids have already been to that we haven’t and weve sponsored, so were going off to do that, coming back and I actually arrive back I think on my birthday in August, and we shall stay up with the family for a couple of days, come back and I’ve got an appointment to see the oncologist Monday after we come back, and take it from there, ready I suppose for the next lot of chemo and go on from there.

Yes, I mean theres been fairly drastic implications for my family because I decided to move back here because this is where I grew up and I realised I would lose my mobility with having no kidneys. And I really couldn’t face being stuck in Canada away from my family and the place I feel is home. So when I moved back here my husband and 2 sons initially moved back with me but my husband was unable to find work here.

Hes in his late 50s, he has a history degree but no vocational qualifications and hed worked in a brewery most of his life and there was just nothing for him over here so hes had to move back there in order not to lose his job over there. Because financially he needs to be working, we have 2 children at university now and so it’s very, very hard for the 2 of us living apart. I mean the time we have together is wonderful and we talk every day on the phone but I think were going to have to get one of those little picture mobile phones (laughing) so that we can see each other every day, as well.