Back in 2023 when my brain tumour was first discovered, the neurosurgeon I saw said they weren’t sure what type of tumour it was, but best guess was a non-cancerous tumour called a meningioma. The medical team all agreed that it was unusual, not showing up on the scans the way they would expect, but not growing at the rate they would normally see in cancer.

Sadly, it turned out not to be a meningioma at all, but a rare grade 3 cancerous tumour called an oligodendroglioma. They told us this a week after surgery once the results of testing were back.

It is classed as an incurable cancer, but treatment should buy me another 10-15 good years.  Without treatment, I’d have a couple of deteriorating years at best, but this type of tumour is known to respond very well to intensive radiotherapy followed by chemotherapy.  So I’ll endure the horrible side effects and try to come out of the other side with as much grace as I can muster.

The surgery was ten hours and left me with some brain damage that translates into physical disabilities.  I was completely paralysed down my left hand side initially and couldn’t even change position in the bed without assistance.  I can now walk short distances with a stick, but need a wheelchair for anything lengthy.  I’ve surrendered my driving licence until I’m through this and certified safe to drive, but on the plus side, we have a disabled parking badge which has been such a lifeline.

Radiotherapy to the brain is a delicate operation that has to be accurate to fractions of a millimetre, so you cannot move during treatment and have your head locked down to the treatment table in a custom made mask.  The mask fitting is done a couple of weeks before treatment starts, you have a scan while wearing it then the oncology team set up a completely custom programme to target the remaining bits of tumour.  They know they will get some healthy brain tissue as well, but the brain has the capacity to recover and the cancer cells shouldn’t.  Out of all the cells in the body, brain cells are just about the slowest to regenerate, so it could be a year or more before there is any obvious improvement.

My radiotherapy began in the middle of July.  33 daily sessions of radiotherapy, Mon-Fri for six and a half weeks.  This was at the cancer centre in Edinburgh (Western General) so it was a 5am start on a Monday to drive up and stay in Edinburgh 4 nights and drive back home on a Friday.  It was tough being away from home during that, but we had some truly heartwarming help from friends – looking after the cat, clearing a forest of weeds and giving the house a good clean.

The first few weeks were incredibly hard – I had not reacted well to the mask fitting and had to have a mild sedative to help me cope at first.  But I persevered and the team were incredibly kind, patient and encouraging and with their help, I got through it.  However, as well as the left sided weakness, the treatment added loss of sensation all down the right hand side of my body!  From scalding my tongue to stubbing my toes, I’m having to constantly risk assess my environment!  Whether that will improve is an unknown, but again, it will be very slow, so I just have to be patient.

I brought the mask home and originally planned to destroy it, but towards the end of treatment my feelings began to change and instead of destroying it, I am planning on transforming it into something beautiful instead.  I have some ideas involving felting and embroidery, but don’t have spare energy just now, so shall let ideas percolate until I’m ready.

We then had four weeks downtime at home and got to celebrate Adrian’s big birthday.  I managed to organise a very small gathering of special people at his favourite cafe.  He was thoroughly spoiled with cake and presents so he was a very happy bunny.

Chemotherapy started at the end of September and is every six weeks.  The cycle starts with intravenous drugs and oral tablets at hospital followed by 10 days of tablets at home.  For the first four days, they also pep you up with steroids and anti-sickness drugs and give you a list of foods to avoid as they might cause a dangerous reaction.  You won’t feel like eating anyway as everything tastes wrong and gives you heartburn and indigestion. To help you cope with this toxic cocktail, your GP will open the special laxatives minibar to help you find a counter remedy to the inevitable constipation.  It’s miserable and exhausting and feels like it will never end.

You also have a bonus packet of emergency anti-sickness pills and if you should need emergency treatment, you have a bright orange fast pass through A&E as you are at high risk of sepsis if a germ so much as flutters its eyelashes at you!

So I’m in the middle of cycle two at the moment and my next cycle should start on 22nd December just in time to take all the pleasure out of festive eating – heigh ho!  Unsurprisingly, we’re having a very quiet Christmas this year and won’t be socialising much.

Through all of this, gratitude is my life raft.  Remembering just how much I have to be thankful for keeps it all in perspective. My family have been amazing, my friends are awesome and Adrian is my absolute anchor and soulmate and he is just the best support I could ever wish for.

I’m grateful I have the full use of my hands, my most precious creative tools, and crochet has been a really good physical therapy to get things working properly.  (I recently finished this jumper and have started on another – details on Ravelry.)

I know I’m not the only one on this journey and I send all my love to you if you are affected by cancer in any way.

Glenda xxx

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My surgeon and the team’s oncologist don’t think it’s cancerous, but as many tumour patients will tell you, when it comes to brain tumours, the word “benign” can feel misleading.  Just because it isn’t malignant doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. This particular tumour is large, and it’s in a sensitive part of the brain — pressing against various things and close to the corpus callosum, which is the bridge that allows the two hemispheres to communicate.

So, I’m now preparing for major brain surgery.

My symptoms aren’t visible ones — which makes them easy to dismiss or hide. The biggest struggle has been cognitive: memory issues (especially short term), extreme fatigue, and an inability to focus for any length of time. Tasks I would once have breezed through — like building the new Indigo Twist website — became unexpectedly difficult. I’ve also been dealing with leg pain and foot numbness, which may be related, since the tumour sits near the region that controls movement in the legs.

Adrian and I are visualising a positive outcome. The medical team is hopeful, but the reality is that recovery will be slow and I may face some short-term disabilities along the way.

With all this in mind, I’ve made the difficult decision to close both my art business and the Indigo Twist dye studio for now.

The art studio — my peaceful, light-filled happy place — will still be here when I’m well enough to return. And I plan to do just that. I may not be running a business for a while, but I do intend to keep creating.

Thank you to everyone who’s supported me over the years, whether through kind words, purchases, or encouragement. I can’t tell you how much that has meant to me – you’ve helped make this creative life possible, and I’m grateful beyond words.

With love,
Glenda xxx

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Bombshell, mixed media on paper

My art has always been about healing, my art journals are my jumping off point for exploring what is going on in my head or in the world. Recently there’s been a lot of healing to do – from bereavement, from surgery (goodbye troublesome gallbladder) and from something entirely unexpected … Over the last few years, I have had episodes where I would lose my sense of smell and taste entirely. As it was definitely unrelated to Covid, it was suspected I had nasal polyps, so was referred for an MRI scan. The scan results confirmed I have polyps, but there was something a little more shocking in the results – a 4cm brain tumour deep in the centre of my brain! That’s the size of a golf ball! As I’m sure you can imagine, this news was a bit of a bombshell and as it was an incidental discovery by the ENT department, the news came with no real explanation or support. We had an anxious few weeks (fuelled by the inevitable results of too much googling) before we saw a neurosurgeon in Edinburgh.

Mindstorm, mixed media on paper

The good news:

• It is non-malignant and should not develop into cancer [edit: sadly it did turn out to be cancer]
• It is not in a location likely to affect my vision or fine motor control
• As an asymptomatic, incidental discovery, I have no symptoms that prevent me driving
• I’m now under the care of a multi-disciplinary team in Edinburgh, so if it causes problems in the future, I have a fast track to the people and treatment I need
• I discovered a wonderful charity called The Braintrust who have been super supportive, and I know I can turn to them with any questions

The bad news:

• The neurological team are not entirely sure what kind of tumour it is, but say it is probably a meningioma – a tumour on the lining of the brain (the meninges)
• At 4cm (about the size of a golf ball) it is classed as ‘large’ which means it is too big for gamma knife surgery, a type of highly focused radiotherapy, so if it causes problems in the future, it will require brain surgery
• It’s in a deep location, in an area called the falx – the crease between the two halves of the brain, most meningiomas are closer to the skull and a bit easier to operate on

What else we know:

How a tumour affects the body depends on which part of the brain it is putting pressure on and there is a long list of possible symptoms for mine that includes severe fatigue, loss of balance, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, personality changes, memory problems, muscle weakness and more. It would seem I have developed a pretty symmetrical one in a central location which is probably why I haven’t had much in the way of balance issues. They can tell that it has been there a long time – to grow to that size means I must have had it for years. A second scan three months after the first showed no perceptible changes, so I’m now on the ‘watch and wait’ plan which equates to annual scans.

The reality:

Mentally, it’s like a pandora’s box of fresh anxiety, worry and fear has been opened and it’s really hard to get those things back in the box. I have to avoid the temptation to make it the scapegoat for any health issues, but it’s impossible not to try and make connections. I had begun to notice some short-term memory issues before the diagnosis and my neurosurgeon did pick up on that as probably being connected. I thought I was getting Alzheimers like my Dad and my aunt so in some ways it’s a relief to have an alternative explanation for that. It is a different memory mechanism to Alzheimers or dementia though, so not a precursor to it. I can definitely tick the box for fatigue and tinnitus (I had to give up my new drumming hobby due to tinnitus), and I know my personality has changed – I am not the outgoing, confident person I used to be.

How it’s impacting my art

My initial creations right after the diagnosis were messy and chaotic with drips of viscous black gel creating disjointed lumpy marks. I look at these now as the ‘shock’ phase. That led on to some more expressive abstract work with tar gel, a very unpredictable medium that drips long continuous lines that are hard to control. I then added colour and gold to the paintings, transforming them into shimmering pieces that I find quite mesmerising.  The images above are scans which don’t show the metallics at all and even the camera doesn’t do justice to the transforming effect of the shimmering gold.  These are pieces you have to see with your eyes rather than through a screen.

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Some of those initial paintings have been transformed into a paper mosaic. The process was slow, precise and quite meditative to produce, reflecting both the shattering news of the diagnosis and my attempt to gather these fragments into something new and balanced, creating beauty from ugliness, order from chaos. I have plans to develop this idea further.

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The future

In the future, I expect my art will continue to mirror my journey through this unexpected chapter and my art journals will continue to be my best tool to support my mental health. My friends and family have been amazing. I’ll never forget the ‘journey bag’ my friend Linda gave me for the first trip up to Edinburgh to talk to the neurologist – a bag of treats and gifts to take my mind off things, including a coaster I was tempted to gift straight back at her, it says ‘Excellent friend. Would recommend.’ I am now aware that there are many people who have been living with non-malignant brain tumours for years with no symptoms. I also know two people who have had successful brain surgery, so I have every hope that this is just a glitch in the matrix, a test of my mental rather than physical resilience, and the alien will continue to dwell in peace in the inner recesses of my surprisingly capacious brain! I shall get on with making more art …

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One of the larger paintings in the series was ‘Breakthrough’ which for me epitomises hope – the light breaking through the darkness.

SOLD

Although this painting sold a while ago, it has become one of my most popular giclee prints and is available in two sizes as well as a greeting card. Looking back at the series now, I can see how much it reflects my emotional journey at the time. Each painting is a visual representation of a different stage of that journey, from the first glimmer of hope to the final breakthrough.

There are just four pieces remaining in the Searching for the Light series.  They are small paintings, each one is 90mm x 140mm, double mounted in a frame which is 270mm x 320mm.

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But I’m calling it done and putting it out there.  I think I have a frame that will suit this one, just need to get a mount cut to fit.  This is a view of Luce Bay, the stretch of sea I look out over every day.  This view is from a little further up the coast, where there are often cormorants holding out their wings on the rocks (or maybe shags, I can’t tell the difference).

I owe huge thanks to Ruth Clayton for getting me this far.  I thoroughly recommend her brilliant online course on seascape painting in watercolour, with a focus on rough seas.  You can find a link to it on her website teaching page.

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‘Veil of Tears’, acrylic, collage and mixed media on paper, 12cm x 18cm

I worked on several paintings at once, using acrylics and collage elements  in a purely intuitive way, not thinking much about the outcome, just freestyling and focusing on mark making and playing with colour.

‘Afloat’, acrylic, collage and mixed media on paper, 15 cm x 21 cm

After building up (and scraping back) several layers, I began to make more considered choices to nudge the paintings into some sort of pleasing overall composition.  As well as paint, I used gel medium, charcoal, inks and pencil to add texture and colour.

‘Here for you’, acrylic, collage and mixed media on paper, 15 cm x 21 cm

I always like to sit with new paintings for a while to see if they need any finishing touches.  After a few days, I looked at these with fresh eyes and I was amazed to see so much meaning in them.  They speak to me of the things I have been through in the last year, the friends and family that supported me and the loss of my Dad.

‘Farewell’ acrylic, collage and mixed media on paper, 15 cm x 21 cm

Abstract art will ultimately have different meanings for every person that sees it.  For me, making this little series of paintings has been very healing and I hope that resonates with anyone else who needs that right now.

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He had surgery to fix his hip, but he never got mobile again and with dementia and Alzheimers, he went downhill and passed away at the beginning of October just a month after his 90th birthday.

I won’t say much more about that. Anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows that grief sucks, dementia sucks big hairy ones and we all have to find our own way through it.

Adrian had just had his gallbladder drain removed and had a date for his surgery on 17th November – Dad’s funeral was scheduled for Monday 24th October, so it was all going to work out fine. Adrian would be fit enough to drive us to Kendal, we’d stay a couple of nights and head back home.

That’s not quite how it happened. The Friday before the funeral, Adrian started feeling sick and getting pain and, we headed straight off to A&E. There was a 4 hour wait to be seen, and I knew he would be going to Dumfries, so I nipped back home (that’s a one hour round trip nip) and packed him a bag.

By the time I got back his temperature was up, he was shaking and shivering and sure enough, they’d booked him the luxury taxi with the flashing blue lights and off to Dumfries he went.

I spent Saturday re-arranging all my plans, got myself booked into the delights of the Premier Inn in Dumfries and arrived at Adrian’s bedside on Sunday morning at exactly the same time as the surgical team. They had already decided emergency surgery was now the only option and as long as nothing critical came in through A&E, he would be in later that afternoon. They had the consent forms so of course they had to spell out the risks and though highly unlikely, they stayed in my head and had a field day in the four long hours I spent alone in his room waiting for him to come back from theatre.

It turned out to be a complicated operation, and he must have had a very good surgeon as they managed to avoid open surgery, though they had to enlarge one of the keyholes. Adrian said it was more like two keyholes and a letterbox.

But finally he’d had his surgery and his ‘bag of poisonous rocks’ was finally gone.

We had talked about the funeral and agreed that I needed to be there with the family, say my goodbye to my Dad and have that closure.

I am so glad I went, we gave him a good send off and though a sad occasion, it was good to be with family and friends as we celebrated the truly one-off original that Geoff Benson was.

We had also agreed that I wouldn’t go back to see Adrian in the hospital after mingling with everyone at the funeral. I didn’t want to risk passing Covid or any other germs on to him.

That turned out to be a very good decision as he had some post-op complications and was in a bad way for the next few days. And I came down with an awful cough which led to a chest infection, though thankfully not Covid. When he finally came home on the Saturday, I wore a mask for the first week when I was near him or preparing his food and managed to keep my bug to myself.

That was just over five weeks ago and Adrian is a new man. Somewhat less of a man – about 3 stone less, which is a silver lining he’s keen to make the most of. He’s now working on rebuilding his lost muscle tone and has been taking advantage of any break in the weather to have a quick walk down to the beach.

I on the other hand am still utterly exhausted by it all. Emotionally, mentally and physically drained dry. As for artistically – nope, I got nothing.

So I didn’t apply to Spring Fling.  The deadline went whooshing by while I was pacing up and down in Adrian’s hospital room so I won’t be taking part next year. But that’s actually fine, I think it’s going to take a while to recover and re-ignite the creative spark.

I’ll leave you with some 1970s silent cine camera footage of my Dad and a bunch of mates attempting to get to the summit of Ben Nevis in a car.  Dad’s the one with the traffic cone on his head, naturally!

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But I had a drawer full of work I didn’t think was good enough.  I have photos of some pieces that I painted over – these are just a couple of them:

Now I look at these two and wonder what the hell was I thinking?!  The top one is a great start and the bottom is so close to being finished. My problem back then was that I would go back to finish something, trying to preserve the bits I liked, but inevitably, I would get so fussy, it would lose the loose spontaneity that I loved in the first place.

The more I do, the better I get at overcoming that particular issue, but it’s still a challenge.  I find the last 5-10% of a painting usually takes 80-90% of the time.  I have a large seascape in that state at the moment.  I love the sky, the distant horizon and the foreground is getting there, but there’s this bit in between that I just can’t get where I want it to be.  But now I know  myself so much better and instead of having it sitting on the easel nagging me with it’s unfinished problem, it’s gone into the cupboard to rest for a while out of sight.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

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Since then, we’ve been playing doctors and nurses (not the fun kind!) after being trained by the community nurses on how to do the daily and weekly management of this life-saving bag that he’s christened St Bagnes the Bilious. Not exactly how we were planning on spending the summer!

After six weeks, he had a scan which showed the gallbladder is still completely blocked and he was put on the list for urgent surgery.

Urgent is a relative term – mid September and still waiting.  No one can tell us when it will be as the poor NHS is still in crisis, struggling to catch up with the backlog caused by Covid. It is now in the hands of the team who schedule operations and coordinate the theatre staff and surgeons.  His operation is necessary, but not immediately life threatening so he won’t be top of the list straight away.

So all of this is by way of explaining why there’s not been much art related stuff going on!  Watching someone you love in pain is a bit of an inspiration-killer!

I did however, manage to run a fantastic two day workshop, Garden Inspirations, in July.

It started with a half day sketching trip to Logan Botanic Garden to gather inspiration and source material, followed up with structured exercises and painting back in the studio with three adventurous students who all enjoyed themselves and hopefully learned a lot.

I’ve managed to do some experimental pieces, trying out new colour combinations and new materials.  Not working towards finished pieces, just enjoying the process.

I used oils and tried cold wax for the first time – an additive that makes the oils much thicker.  They’re still slippery, but the wax gets them to a touch dry stage quicker and allows for thick impasto layers.  I tried them on wood panels, a new surface for me which I rather like.  Weeks later and the thicker areas of wax are still soft, which has led to more experiments, this time with scraffito – scraping back into the wax to create marks and lines with a sharp tool.

And you’ll spot some seascapes on the table – they are a constant in my artwork which is hardly surprising when I look out on the sea every day!

This artistic dry spell will inevitably last a little longer as I’ve got a new temporary post as a recovery room nurse coming up, hopefully a very short term assignment with a well behaved patient!

And I’m cooking up a new project, so if you’re not already on my mailing list, now is a good time to subscribe – there’s a sign up box in the sidebar (or below if you’re on a mobile device) and at the bottom of the page.

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I like using them for quick sketches, aiming to capture the mood and essence of a scene. I do find it hard to stop with watercolour though and often over work it and lose the freshness of the initial sketch.  In the picture above, I added a tree that didn’t exist which was a bad idea and really highlights the value of observational drawing.  If I’d been actually looking at a tree in that location, there’s no way it would be that upright – most of our trees that close to the sea are bent by the prevailing wind into a much less symmetrical shape than that!

I’m much happier with this postcard sketch of Port Logan.  The haar (mist) came swiftly across the sea, casting a veil over the lowering sun and blurring the normally distinct pier and bell tower.  Using watercolour allowed me to capture the hazy blurred view as I remembered it.

SOLD

This is a finished painting of the river Brathay at Skelwith Bridge near Ambleside, near my Mum’s house.  I’ve used watercolour, Derwent Coloursoft pencils and pastel in this painting, so I’m back to my mixed media again.

I shall continue to explore what I can do with watercolour, especially as water is featuring in some shape or form in most of my work these days.

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