Have you had to adjust your diet?

Yes, I’m now confirmed diabetic and I have adjusted my diet. I mean luckily I didn’t have a, much of a sweet tooth before. But I’ve cut out the majority of refined sugars. I don’t eat sweets or biscuits or cakes or anything like that that contain sugar. So I’ve completely cut it out of, out of my diet. And that hasn’t been too difficult for me to deal with. I think if my husband tried to do that, he’s got a bit of an addiction for chocolate digestives, so if he tried to do it, it would be a nightmare. But for me it was quite easy.

Have you changed your lifestyle a lot, partly because of your diabetes?

The diabetes, initially with the diet definitely. I mean that was an overnight thing. I found that I was unable to digest red meat terribly well, and I gradually got that out of my diet. And then I gradually just decided I wasn’t going to eat meat full stop. Because it’s a lot easier when you’re invited to a dinner party and, you know, people always ask you, Is there anything you can’t eat? And I think, Right, well, I’ve got a whole list. So I didn’t want to be one of these really annoying people that, Oh, goodness me, she’s really fussy. So I just, it’s easier to just sort of cut it out. So that’s what I’ve done. So I eat fish and, and seafood and mostly vegetables. But I think that’s a pretty healthy diet anyway.

How long did it take you to get back to work again? How long were you not doing anything at all?

It was almost exactly a year. Because I had my surgery, 2007 in September and I started the PhD in October 2008. So it was a year.

What about the sexual side or your relationship? Would you be able to talk about that? Has there been any impact?

Yes, there has. I think it’s come to a standstill. Funnily enough, I’ve been thinking about that and thinking, I think part of that, well it’s definitely me, is because there’s like the fear of, I don’t know. Because this sort of alien thing is inside me, it’s like I don’t want to have any impact on it. It’s funny, it’s like going completely off it. But lifting things, it’s like I don’t want to put any pressure, any strain on it in, I don’t know [laughs] whether it’s got any impact on it or not.

We have a very close physical relationship but at the moment sexually it is at a standstill. But I have been thinking, funnily enough, since we’ve sort of settled in here and thinking, Well, you know, things are going on OK, I’m sure it’s not going to have any impact. So, I’m sure, I mean, it will come back into being and I don’t’ have a problem with that. But we’re, we’re very tactile, and very cuddly and we still sit and hold hands on the sofa, which is something we’ve always done. So, so that closeness is there and, and I know that that side of our life will come back and, when, certainly as we’ve settled down into a routine of including cancer in, into our lives then I think that, you know, that’ll come back into our lives too. It doesn’t detract from our relationship because it is so close but it, it’s always an, an added benefit because it, you know, it, it’s a giving and sharing. So, yes, that will come back.

Say something about your photographs.

Oh, yes. The thing I have done, which has been the most enormous pleasure, is over the years I’ve always kept photograph albums. And I now must have about thirty enormous books of photos. And I’ve spent a lot of time recently just going through them, looking at them and enjoying the times that I’ve, that; they remind me of times which have been very good, not all of them very good, but all the sorts of things we’ve done as a family and as friends. And I think they’re a fantastic memento. And I think the family will find it, I think, I’ve always said, If we had a fire in our house, the one thing I’d want to keep are the photo albums Of course now I’ve got lots of them on sticks, but there’s nothing like looking at them in books. it’s not the same as having them on a computer, going through them. There’s something about turning over the pages and seeing those photos and laughing about the times that one, certain things happened, and realising how different everybody looked then, how much younger we all looked, how much older we all look now. But they have given me more pleasure I think than anything else of the sort of things that I have.

You talk in your book a lot about mortality and death and dying, and Epicurus saying that the most important thing is for us to try and overcome our fear of death; do you think you have overcome your fear of death through all of this? Or do you think that would be impossible?

Ah, what Epicurus and what the Romans discovered, which was later sort of picked up by Freud and others, is that no matter how much of a scientific materialist you are, and however much you recognise that there is no, after death, that it is absolutely ashes to ashes, that there is no part of you that survives afterwards, that there is no constituent, there is nothing, you cannot possibly talk about m after death because there is no, there is no m, however much you work that out, and however strongly you are persuaded on it, and Epicurus in the days when there was a lot less science about than there is now, had a little mantra, he used to get his disciples to chant out, and there was one of the greatest, the most beautiful poems in Latin that Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, there’s a lengthy epic poem on this very theme as to, as to why there was nothing other than the material world. So you know this is Richard Dawkins two thousand years ago, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I think others, that however much you may persuade yourself that is the truth, that it’s somehow part of the human condition to ignore this truth at certain points, or for that truth to be overwhelmed by other factors. I still think that Epicurus was right. That actually that working to remove the fear of death is an extremely important part of living, of living a happy life and you know a contented, a contented life and a good life.

I think he knew in his heart that actually it was not, the reasons why you had to keep on at the teaching was because you can never completely remove the fear. But that the attempt to remove it and consider removing it important was a very great good in itself.

And everybody had advice, but I thought, No, I’m just going to lead a normal life. Not pretend it hasn’t happened, because it has happened. But it’s, it’s actually a very, if you have a shot across the bows, I just decided to live, as probably all of us should lead, life as if, you know, each day might be one’s last and make the best of what one, one had, is how I saw it. And I still, and I still carry that with me now. But I don’t think it was here before this event. I thought it actually brought things much more sharply into focus about what was important and what was, some things you could do nothing about and other things were less important. But that’s just me.

How is life now?

My life is like it was before I had the operation. No different whatsoever. it’s just that I’m not going to work until I’m ready you know. And if I have to live on what I live on, if you know I can’t go back to work then I accept I can’t go back to work. I’m finding enough to do, you know, but I miss a number of colleagues at work, and I haven’t been out so many Friday nights for my usual drink which is only a pint and orange juice, because I always drive anyhow. So I drink very little.

Can you eat? Can you eat more or less what you want?

I eat everything, everything. Every mortal thing you can put in front of me I eat. All bar broad beans, I don’t like broad beans.

And from then I really haven’t done anything. I haven’t been back, I’ve had an MRI scan, and I haven’t been back to the hospital. I haven’t, I’ve perhaps been back to the doctor once just to see how things were, but I haven’t been back to anybody, and I have been fine. And I just carry on with life as normal, I say to myself, What I don’t know doesn’t harm me and I just carry on, and the doctor, when I went to the doctor originally for the original, what’s the word I’m trying to say? When I first saw him, can I put it that way? And he then said to me, Well, he said, there is a lump or a tumour there. And no way can we operate on that. It is too much enclosed with other

Blood vessels and things?

Thank you. Other blood vessels, yes that’s right, various things round.

And he said, I think the best thing is you’ve still got a good quality of life, let’s just leave it and just see how you go. He said, If we start trying to do chemo or radio you’ll get sickness, most likely. You’ll be very tired and, he said, at the moment you’re keeping very well, just let it be. And that’s what I have done. And I have let it be, I’ve carried on with life as normal, I perhaps get a little bit more breathless admittedly, but apart from that I really haven’t got a lot of difference. And I just keep on going and everybody says how well you look. And I just do the things, I, I walk up into the town. I have quite a bit of social life with the church, go to various activities and as yet, I’m just carrying on in the normal way. So really not a lot has happened to me since.

In my, in myself, as far as my attitude and my reaction to all this is I’ve always been a positive person and I remain so. In fact more so because I’ve made this conscious decision that I’m going to get as much out of life now as I possibly can, given that I don’t know how much longer of that life I’ve got left. And I may have been sleepwalking a bit in the past, prior to diagnosis, but since, but post diagnosis I’m determined to do as much as I can, although I am restricted to some extent by my energy levels, because some days I make plans to do things and then I have to cancel them because I just don’t have the, I just don’t have the stamina to carry them out. So that’s where we are right now at this moment. So it’s a year later now. it’s now a year since I, since I started having problems and around about eight months since the actual diagnosis was confirmed.

And the, the idea of retiring, I wouldn’t even call it retirement really. it’s not retirement from life, it’s just extricating myself from the madness that is daily office life and the world of emails and [laugh] being, being told that something is wanted yesterday, and all the stresses that that involves.

As an example, I have for a number, a number of years had this idea in my head of joining the National Trust, which I think a lot of retired people tend to do, and I haven’t had the time to do it before, but I’ve, I’m now determined to join the National Trust and then I can go and visit all their properties, of which they’ve got 300 or something in the country.

And I may say that my lifestyle is, and will be, considerably enhanced by the fact that I’ve now got a Motability car; the mobility element of my Disabled Living Allowance I swapped for a brand new car. And for those people who don’t know, I get insurance, tax, servicing, breakdowns all covered. All I do is the government takes back about £49 a week, which is the mobility element of my DLA, and in return I’ve got this brand new car, and all it costs me is petrol. This is going to be my passport to a future life, whatever the future holds, because I’m now much more mobile obviously. I can get to and from places much more easily and the National Trust being one example, and my plan is to maybe find somewhere to stay overnight if it’s far enough away, so I can stay in a nice hotel, go and visit National Trust property and I will not be comfortable with being idle, because I never have been. I’ll have to find something to do, and I’ve also put my name down to volunteer with the National Trust as well, driving their electric buggies to and from, which I need a full driving licence, which I’ve got.

And for me personally, as I’ve spent 30 years out of the last 33 years caring for and being concerned about other people, I cannot switch that off entirely, but I’ve now got to the stage where I, I don’t feel guilty now about worrying about myself. I’m more concerned about me than I, than I used to be. And I think there’s nothing wrong with that because my time has come.

There is a psychological aspect to the illness. And that is being reconciled to being terminally ill. I feel I’m quite reconciled to this condition. And I think there are two reasons for that, firstly because I have a strong Christian faith, and both my wife and I have that. And we have a very supportive local church, and that helps me because I don’t have an intellectual fear of death. I personally feel there’s something beyond. And I have a firm assurance in my own mind that I will go to a better place. That helps psychologically. I have a fear of the process of dying; I’m not looking forward to dying at all, but having a Christian faith helps.

The other reason why it’s perhaps easier to live with the condition, my terminal diagnosis, is because at the moment I’m quite well. There’s nothing that much wrong with me. I’m enjoying life. In some senses life’s quite easy because I’m not having to go out to work every day so I’m enjoying life, life’s quite relaxed and I suppose from that point of view day to day, it’s not, not so bad.

Yes, I’m enjoying life. I now savour small things quite a lot, the simple things like we feed the birds out in the garden and I get pleasure out of that. And I’ve said about enjoying riding my motor bike when I get the chance and so on, so yes you can, you can enjoy again simple pleasures in life and the fact that I can eat delights me, I enjoy that. Yes, you do savour those little things.