Out of the Chrysalis - A Change In Mind

Stands of fate

2015-04-01T11:43:00.000+01:00

I am fascinated by the history of my family, the strands of lineage branching off to so many lands, so many experiences of living and loving and dying.

I am fascinated by the strength of those ancestors, the immense courage in them, their endurance of times of terror, famine, war.

It is their will to survive that draws me to their stories, the fabric of their lives.

What was it that drove Eadie Burn from the fields of Ireland to the shores of Scotland?

What hunger sent Danny Murphy from his home in Galway to the dark iron ore mines of southern Scotland?

How did my father find the inner resources to survive the long Siberian winter when so many died?

What strands of fate drew together the descendants of starving Irish and war exiled Poles to Scotland.

Out of the maelstrom of their history, their lives, I was born.

A Stepek Family Christmas Memory

2014-12-26T21:22:00.000+00:00

Christmas locked away behind the big white door. Hidden from hungry impatiently devouring eyes.

So many bright, shining narrow little eyes glowing in the early morning gloom like a pack of cartoon rats, ready to rip apart brightly coloured, oh so carefully wrapped, packages. Digging down with busy teeth and scurrying claws, to the sweet bits beneath the outer layers.

Messy little creatures, scratching against the big white door. probing for weak spots.

She comes at last, the Provider, Keeper of all good things. She complains laughingly about our squeaking, squealing, squabbling noise.

He comes, The Authority, he who must be obeyed. The scrabbling, scratching, squeaking ends in abrupt trembling silence.

He swipes Jimmy Rat on the head for the sin of shoulder charging the venerable Georgian door, our entrance to Heaven.

Then he too laughs and the magic key appears in his hand. Oh so slowly, so quicksand, time sucking slow, they key turns in the lock. Click, click, click. Oh the rapid beating of those little rodent hearts, the standing still of breath, the paralysis of time.

The door opens as though a great vacuum has sucked us in. We are in Nirvana.

Running to presents piled around the sparkling beacon of the massive Christmas tree, we are indeed in our own Elysium.

A moment in which we measure our parents' love by the height of our present stack. All is equally measured by the loving wisdom of our Mother.

Collective expiration of deep contented sighs as the ten little rats, beady eyes shining with festive joy, commence their anarchic mayhem,

Happy Christmas one and all.

A prayer for my words

2014-08-24T15:03:00.000+01:00

Long after I leave this world, it is my words as well as my actions that will in some way be remembered. Words have far greater power than we give credit to. If there is magic in this world, it lies in our communication with others. Words have an impact that will remain and continue to impact as long as humans walk this earth. Once said, once written they are indelible. Whoever hears or reads our words is in some way forever changed and they in turn create changes in those around them. So it goes on until we humans pass forever from this earth. Words are powerful, make yours a force for love, words that add and do not subtract from the well being of our people and the treatment of our other life forms. You cannot truly honour one without the other.

I ask that my words flow out to heal the world.

words filled with love, the balm that soothes the rough raw places of the troubled soul.

The gentle rain that cools the anxious fevered mind.

The softest breeze that blows away the troubled thought.

The hug that embraces the weary, lonely heart.

Full circle

2014-07-21T11:04:00.001+01:00

In the stillness of this Sacred Circle, I see with the eyes of the other,

I hear with your ears and feel with your hearts.

In the silence of this Circle, there is an ending to I and You.

There is a becoming of We and Us.

Here is the sweet and powerful blending of spirit

Parts made whole.

We are complete in one another and the circle is joined.

We are one.

The dancers in the moonlight.

The singers of the eternal song.

We call life into being,

We are creation.

Days of Grace

2014-07-08T16:44:00.000+01:00

For our beloved son, Jan Michael

You are my days of grace,
Redemption of my love,
In you I find eternity,
My pearl beyond all price.

Long loved and longed for
Out of deep soul yearning
Conscious conception
From dreams made real.

You are my days of grace,
My life fulfilled in you,
Now in love, I set you free,
A light beyond my life.

My love made flesh,
Upon this earth,
My sweet eternity,
My son, my gift, my light.

I am indelible

2014-07-04T15:59:00.000+01:00

I was contemplating what it is to live forever, to leave an indelible trace behind when my body finally surrenders and I let go. I retain an open mind about whether there is anything beyond this life but I am certain that what we do while we walk this world, the interactions with others, leaves an eternal trace of who we are. I seek to make mine a loving touch, an echo of what we can be if we chose the light and not the dark. Let that be my immortality.

I will not disappear
And leave no trace.
I am not deleted
From your files,
Nor exiled forever
To a distant land.

I am indelible,
A tattoo under your skin
No laser can remove.
Every contact,
Brush of mind or skin
Leaves resonance.
Rippling waves
Forever spreading
Encompass worlds.

I am forever,
No footprint on the sand
I cannot be washed away.

Shadowlands

2014-04-28T14:02:00.000+01:00

This was written following the deaths of both my parents within four weeks of one another about 18 months ago. I have what is designated as terminal cancer and at the time of their deaths it looked as though I would soon follow them and prior to their deaths, that in all likelihood I would precede them. I am grateful that they did not have to endure watching their child slip away into the shadows. It was hard enough for them to watch me suffering and fear my death.

Yet here I remain, stronger than I have ever been in the last six years of this roller coaster ride of cancer. Go figure. I still walk in the shadows but there is now more light than for a very long time.

Alone upon the empty shore,
The tide has taken you
But never from my soul,
But never from my heart.

I walk the shadowlands,
Between the light and dark,
Where you have lead
I may now follow.
Help me to be strong.

2014-04-28T13:56:00.000+01:00

My beloved mother would have been 86 on the 26th April. I visited her and my father's grave on Saturday to mark it and to celebrate the gift her life was and continues to be to me. I am so sad. I sang her happy birthday and remembered her love, her beauty of soul. The grief has softened but lingers like a shadow. I love you, my precious one. xxx

I stood by your grave today

And said goodbye again

Yet still I felt you in my heart

In every trace of memory.

And I am glad that you are gone

Suffering and pain at and end.

We could not lift it from you

It was never in our gift.

In your life you gave us all

A mother to the very end

The dearest heart, the kindest soul

Love like that can never die.

I stood by your grave today,

And could not find the tears

You are lost to me in body

But your spirit haunts me still.

Another Spring

2014-02-26T22:05:00.001+00:00

Lord, let there be more springs,
Sun warmed air and sharp, clean scents.
Birds aerial dancing, mating rituals,
Building nests to hold new life.

Bees make me smile,
Fuzzy honey stumbling flight,
Furry bodies unknowing,
The technical impossibility of flight.

I breathe in peace, I breathe in life,
Each precious breath a quiet content,
Affirming life goes on.

The weaving of light

2014-02-26T22:03:00.000+00:00

Words tumble from the air,
My hands reach out to hold,
To weave a weft of light,
And love and laughter,
Patterns bright with joy.

To go beyond

2014-02-17T23:11:00.000+00:00

To go beyond
Interior landscape
Unfamiliar formation
Jagged, barren emotion
Shared with only those
Who journeyed before.
A shadowland straddling
Life and death,
Bereft, stripped bare,
Naked and yet clothed
In the sack cloth and ashes
Of suffering.

I do not want to leave,
My story half-told,
Many unknown twists and turns,
So much beauty to be lived.

I miss you, Mum.

2014-02-10T12:10:00.002+00:00

I miss you, Mum,
And yet,
Would not have you back,
The pain shadowed wraith,
Moving into death.

I miss you Mum,
Your soft and gentle voice,
The way you held me close,
Safe in your embrace,
Daring death to take you, not me.

I miss you, Mum,
Who never missed a concert,
Play or recitation,
As though I was the only one,
Not lost amongst the ten.

I miss your quiet beauty,
The radiance of your face,
Never knowing your allure,
The heads you turned.

I miss the music of your voice,
The rich emotions pouring out,
Wrapping all who heard
Cocooned in loving comfort.

I miss your hand in mine,
As I waited to hear,
If I would live or die,
On that hideous day.

I miss you and I love you,
I carry you inside my heart,
You who taught me how to love,
Beloved mother, forever mine.

Broken Wings

2014-02-08T22:56:00.002+00:00

Broken winged
The eagle lies
Trapped within a form
Intended for free flight.

Broken winged
The soul rises
On eternal wings
Soaring to infinity.

My broken wings
Are of the body
And like the eagle,
My soul flies free.

In loving memory of my friend Stephen.

2014-02-08T00:36:00.000+00:00

Stephen was the grand dramatic passion of my life, the blood on fire, heart slashed open, operatic aria of a relationship. It was brief, passionate, young, tender and its ending was devastating to an inexperienced and open hearted twenty year old. We went our separate ways and in time I found my deep and gentle love, the man I knew almost instantly would be my forever love. Twenty five years on and we are still together.

I often thought of Stephen, occasionally hearing from mutual friends what his latest life and love adventures were. Eventually I heard he had married and moved to Australia. We both had a son and there our paths diverged. My marriage stayed steady in the storms of life but his ended with his wife's chronic alcoholism and neglect of their child. He was given full custody and raised the boy on his own.

It is a strange synchronicity but some thirty years later literally days after I took part in a Huna based ritual of cutting residual connections to people from my past, which included Stephen, I received an email from him. He had been thinking about me and suddenly had the impulse to look for me on the web. This was the start of a deep and loving friendship, a joyful meeting of minds which was my great privilege to experience. Stephen was not a conventional man. In many ways he was a hedonist but he was also a warm, loving, highly intelligent man. I treasure our correspondence and the memory of his birthday flowers and his calls to sing me Happy Birthday. We could talk about anything and I will always be grateful to whatever fate brought us together.

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, he was steadfast in his support and encouragement. We talked of the deep and meaningful things in life. We avoided nothing. We had planned a visit because he wanted to meet my family. Then out of the blue the message from him was that he had cancer too and was about to undertake a gruelling and risky chemotherapy assault as the cancer was advanced. He would not be back in touch but his new wife would let me know if he did not make it. She did not have to tell me. I simply knew. Our paths had crossed for the last time and he was gone leaving me a richness of memories of a dear and loving friend.

I wrote the following just after I confirmed that what I sensed had been reality.

Suddenly there is a huge full stop in my life. Stephen is dead and I cannot cry. It is as though all connection with him was terminated by his passing. Perhaps I am simply too numb. I can no longer reach in and feel sorrow or pain.

Perhaps, it is simply that in the face of so much death and dying, I have moved from resistance to acceptance.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds" ( Shakespeare)

He is dead. I cannot hear him, see him, touch him. There will be no more calls from Australia. There will be no more serenades. I will not record the next chapter of Wind in the Willows for him.

Stephen is gone and part of my heart has gone with him.

Predator

2014-02-03T09:16:00.002+00:00

Written on the 2nd January, as I contemplated the internal process of the cancer which lurks in my body, held in check by potent drugs and sometimes I sense by sheer stubborn, will power. It is a challenge to contemplate how the beauty of the body at a cellular level can turn rogue and sow the seeds of ultimate destruction. I find it both fascinating and horrifying that something so intrinsically perfect as the division and replication of our cells can wreak such havoc. I talk to my cancer cells from time to time and imagine explaining to them that there is no escape for them. In the destruction of their host lies death for them, so why not do the logical thing and self destruct in the interest of the integrity of the whole body. I even have this silly little ditty which I recite which consists of the repetition of the word, apoptosis which means cell death. Funny the things you find yourself doing when cancer enters your life. Cruel but amusing when you tilt your mind to one side and chose to see it from a different angle.

A cell mutates,
Slips by the sentinels,
No rhyme nor reason,
Determines if this rogue
Lives or dies.

Stealth destroyer,
Camoflage protects,
Error replicates.
Hunger growing
To consume.

Predator cell,
Prime directive
To survive,
Whatever the cost,
Blindly suicidal,
Killing your host.

Another year passes

2014-02-02T12:26:00.000+00:00

I wrote this on the first of January. It is quite simply some rambling thoughts on the nature of reality and being alive past my sell by date.

Another year passes,
Arbitrary marking of time.
No full stops.
No endings.
Time and Life,
Artificial constructs,
Nebulous reality,
A complex confection.
How much is choice?

Another year passes,
Health and Love,
Punctuation marks,
Delineating life,
Refusing definition,
The herding of cats.
Each day passes,
Am I still alive?
I think, therefore I am?

Honi soit qui mal y pense-reflections on the Holocaust.

2014-01-27T23:52:00.000+00:00

I have always been taken by this ancient motto which translates as evil be to him who evil thinks. Deliberate evil inflicted on the scale of the Holocaust is what we tend to think of but there is a deeper and more dangerous evil in our society. It is the small daily evil of malicious thought and malicious words which go unchallenged by those of us who see it for what it truly is. How often do we read or hear comments which have underlying and unquestioned prejudice. It is these almost casual intolerances and slights which lead to the large scale horrors of the Holocaust and other atrocities of persecution. When evil goes unchallenged, it seeds and grows in poisoned soil. The whispers become invective. The lies become accepted as true. The tale grows in the unquestioned telling.

First we have to question our own thoughts and think through whether our gut reaction of anger and resentment is based on fact or reality. We need to understand that the behaviour of one or some of a group, religion, nation is not the behaviour or characteristics of all. Then we must challenge and keep on challenging others to examine their own thought processes. We were designed to think analytically, to reflect on the patterns of our own thinking. Yet we are also creatures who process the world around us through the emotional brain with all the unconscious programming of others' words and actions from early childhood. We absorb like sponges what is around us and form much of our behaviour through the emotional filters of such experiences which we internalise as our own views. We must make conscious that which is unconscious, unthinking and irrational if we are to, change it.

Honi soit qui mal y pense -the evil that we think rebounds back upon all of us.

We allow the ugliness of the Holocaust when we fail to challenge our own thoughts and feelings.

We enable the Holocaust when we fail to challenge such thoughts and feelings in others.

Please do not walk by on the other side. Stop, think, speak out.

Do not accept the unacceptable.

I have seen evil so close by,
Toxic words slithering forth,
Fangs glistening poison,
Ready to strike,
Hearts and minds.

I have heard vindictive thoughts
Spew from a void of bottomless hate,
Under the guise of reason or love,
Venom flowing in every word.

Nurturing the body

2014-01-25T11:12:00.000+00:00

So many of us struggle with our body image as did I for some fifty years. It was not until I made peace with my body that I was able to abandon diets, start to love myself as I was, that I began successful and sustained weight loss. Ten years ago I had the great privilege of joining a group of international writers under the auspices of the magnificent Julie Jordan Scott. We would meet on teleconference once a week and write to prompts, very intelligently and creatively by Julie. When she asked us to write to a quote which referred to praising the geography of our bodies. The following came pouring out. I believe it was a pivotal point in my journey towards peace with myself.

I praise my own geography, at last.

Each rolling contour, hill and valley,
Each scar upon the white stretched landscape,
Each familiar line marked deep with memory,
Laughter, sadness, joy.
Each softly pliant mound of flesh,
Silent repository of pleasures past,
Promise of pleasures yet to come.

I praise my own geography at last,
a terrain once hostile,
Familiar, beloved, home.

Some ghosts from the past.

2014-01-22T20:54:00.000+00:00

I found the following musings from around 12 years ago in a life before cancer and which reflect my struggle with my weight. This had been a life long battle from very early childhood. It sucked so much spontaneity and joy from my life but it gave me a deep insight into mental suffering, the challenge of low self-esteem and the power of resilience to overcome.

It seems as though my body has something to say...

Once upon a time my belly rumbled,
Complaining in volcanic anger,
Feed me. Feed me now.

Spitting acid fountain flames of rage,
Against this self held other, alien,
Stranger, separate.
Feed me love. Feed me love.

And if you cannot feed me love,
Then feed me food.
Feed me so my cells may swell and burst,
Stuffed with fatty residues
Of what might and should and could have been.

Feed me so I may no longer feel.
Feed me until the numbness comes,
And I am deaf and dumb and blind
To the starvation of my heart.

Once upon a time, my belly rumbled
Burning in unquenchable fire
A hunger that could not be fed.

Like all good fairy tales,
My belly longs to say,
"It ended happy ever after
For now we are one,
In love with who and what we are,
Body mind and soul
Replete, complete and loved."

This is not a fairy tale.

When I am gone.

2013-09-03T22:29:00.000+01:00

When you face your mortality every day, the mind turns to challenging and painful thoughts. I saw a momentary glimpse of unfathomably deep sadness on my dearest husband's face. This is the dark fear it brought creeping to the surface mind.

Will you sit and look at photographs of me
Still life memories of our life together?
Will your shoulders shake with repressed grief,
Will tears burst through and have their way?

How will it be for you when I am gone,
Stripped of my presence, my touch, my love?
Who will comfort you when the shadow overwhelms,
Who will find those errant keys ,chameleon glasses?
Who will laugh at your absent minded ways,
And love you for each one, never in spite?

I do not fear my passing from this world
I fear the depth of pain I leave behind
Yet I must walk my path, accepting of my fate,
Leaving you all that I am, even beyond the grave.

Return to the Chrysalis

2013-07-02T00:03:00.000+01:00

"As you know, you found me at a time when my subconscious was screaming at me to change, and I did not know how to begin. With your gentle and loving guidance, profound yet peaceful transformations have begun in my life. I count you as one of the few souls I know and would recognize anywhere. You're just beautiful."

Just over ten years ago, I started a newsletter titled, "Out of the Chrysalis". It marked the beginning of my journey into the most beautiful and fulfilling stage of my life. I spread my new found wings and flew into the world where my heart and soul belonged, being a catalyst for positive change in others. Every day became filled with the passion of my lifetime, to make a difference in the world through each individual who came to me for help. In the words of Joseph Campbell, I followed my bliss. I learned and I grew from every life that I had the honour to touch in some small way.

Five years ago, I recognised that there was something seriously wrong with my body and set off on a nightmare voyage to discover what it was. Eventually I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma and survived an eight hour operation to remove the kidney and its tumour which stretched all the way along the vena cava into my heart. I hovered on the edge of death and by some grace survived. One year ago, I was once again facing my mortality when three tumours were found on my spine and on the muscle running alongside. Renal cell carcinoma is incurable when it reaches this stage but precious time is bought by newly developed drugs which cut off the blood supply to the tumours. These drugs are not effective for bone tumours.

Most of the last year was spent in a state of serious illness, the reaction to the first drug prescribed put me in hospital for three weeks, flat on my back, so weak I could not raise my head from the pillows, barely able to speak and in need of support for all the most basic of needs. It taught me a lot about the love and dedication of others and also about my own inner strength. I will write more of this later.

I was much too ill to be able to do the work I love. Most of the time, I could hardly raise the energy to speak let alone be there, fully present, for others. I missed this so much.There is nothing of sacrifice about my helping others, it is my life blood and without it, my life lacks meaning. Call me a compulsive helper. Other people have a fetish for cleaning and tidying up; mine is for clearing emotional debris. I have a compulsion to help others live more fully.I can't help it. It too is incurable.

Yesterday,I made my mind up to start living that compulsion again, to bring what I have learned over the 61 years of my life,back out into the world. I have always loved to write, to express my thoughts feelings and experiences in the written word. Words have always seemed magical to me. They weave spells; they heal; they enter the mind and create the seeds of change. Whatever life is left to me, as long as I can think clearly and use a keyboard, I dedicate to bringing those magical words into the lives of those who may need them.

The quote above came from a wonderful woman whose life I was privileged to enter, to journey with her through a period of profound transformation. I came across it on my computer today as I reviewed old files. It reminded me of who I am, of my calling.

Watch this space. The butterfly wings are ready for flight.

The Challenge of Choice

2011-01-01T23:42:00.001+00:00

I wrote this a few years ago. It seemed appropriate to print it again today.

It is not just at New Year that we can wipe the slate of the old year clean and chose to start again. Although we can chose to make this the start point for our new choices or the time to jettison some old ones, we know that there is nothing intrinsically magical about the New Year Bells. The world does not come to an abrupt halt at midnight of the outgoing year and the laws of time are not suspended to allow us to erase the past in order to give us a clean sheet for the future. We can do this at any time. It is our choice.

We are gifted with creative imagination and with this we can chose in each and any moment to put time on pause, to visualise a glistening blank canvas waiting for us to paint whatever we wish upon it. We can chose to create our lives anew in every moment of each new day and choice is the key to transformational change.

The complexity of who we are is in part a product of our past experience but we are not our past experiences. Failure yesterday does not mean failure today just as it does not mean that I am a failure, just that in one discrete part of my life I did not achieve what I set out to do. Should yesterday have been shrouded in sorrow for me for whatever reason it does not mean that I cannot chose happiness for myself today. Every thought that we have, every choice we make, every experience we process, creates a new version of who we are.

Sometimes we freeze frame our perception of ourselves so that we chose to remain a picture of our past selves but even then the reality is that we have changed - we are now someone else holding on to a snapshot in time of who we were yesterday.

We chose to hold ourselves back in the past. We “wallow in misery” ; “we are lost in grief”; “we slide into depression”. Yes, it is hard to make alternative choices in the face of real emotional and physical challenge but that is what makes the human spirit such an enigma - we always have choice unless we have certain psychiatric conditions.

Sometimes it is not us who freeze frame ourselves but our closest loved ones and those whose opinion of us touches us most. They hold our image in the past and refuse to accept the evidence of all their senses, that we are not today who we were yesterday. Once again it is our choice whether to permit the reflection we see in their eyes to be who we perceive ourselves to be, to hold ourselves back, to be less than we know ourselves to be. We always have choice. We can be who we have become or we can subjugate our true expression to the transient needs of others.

This is especially the case for those who begin to tentatively step out of the chrysalis of change, shrugging off our old caterpillar shape to spread our wings as a butterfly. We still long for the security of the cabbage patch but there is no nectar of creativity to be found there to feed our dreams. We need to move on or something very precious will die within us. Sometimes our loved ones seek to hold us back out of fear of being left behind, or out of jealousy of our transformation and sometimes they do not see our newly developed wings and fear that being incapable of flight we will hurt ourselves. What we do with their perception of us is once again our choice. We can gently help them to shift their perspective to see who we truly are or we can conform to their old image of who we once were. There is always choice and with choice comes consequence. We can be who we are or we can be less.

When we wake up in the morning, we can curse the darkness or we can switch on a light. We can be bad tempered or we can smile. We can dwell on all that is wrong in the world or we can bless each and every gift we have been given, every wonderful person in our lives; we can rejoice that we have been given another day to paint glorious pictures on that blank canvas.

Even in the midst of grief, we have choices. We can bury ourselves with our dead or we can live our lives gloriously, fully, vibrantly in honour of the love that we have for them. I see so many people who channel their pain

into creating something that makes the world a better place, not to take the pain away but to transmute it into a gift of loving service. Several years ago, a young girl was horrifically murdered in my home town. Her parents were

devastated but they chose to honour her memory by setting up an organisation to help parents through the same situation.

Several years ago an 18 year old boy from my son’s school was studying in Israel during the gap year before taking up a place at medical school in London. Joni was killed in a suicide bombing and in the midst of their anger and grief his parents made a magnificent choice. They honoured Joni’s life by allowing his death to save the life of a young Palestinian girl who needed a kidney transplant. They also went on to create a prize in his memory for community service here in Scotland where he grew up. Choice is sometimes all that we have to bring light into the darkest places of our lives.

So my friends, what choices will you make today?

Will you let light and love into your lives?

Will you put aside the past and allow the richness of the
present?

Will you chose to smile at a stranger?

Will you chose to be the being of light you truly are?

Will you chose to exercise the gift of choice today?

“Create each day anew.” Morihei Ueshiba - Founder of the
Martial Art of Aikido from The Art of Peace

To every man there openeth
A way, and ways, and a way.
And the high soul climbs the high way,
And the low soul gropes the low.
And in between, on the misty flats,
The rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A high way and a low,
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.

John Oxenham

We are our choices. - Jean-Paul Sarte
(1905-1980), philosopher, writer, and critic

Angel by Paul Halley, Sarah Moir Violin, Halley Quartet

2010-11-09T13:05:00.000+00:00

James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer: the UK's leading specialist kidney cancer charity

2010-11-05T06:43:00.000+00:00

James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer: the UK's leading specialist kidney cancer charity

Kidney Cancer - the silent killer. The beginning

2010-11-05T01:12:00.001+00:00

Health is a gift; it is not a given.

A year ago I was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma, the most common and most deadly of kidney cancers.

The journey to that horrifying diagnosis had taken 15 months. . I had assumed that the intermittent vaginal bleeding, joint and soft tissue pain, slight nausea in the mornings and tiredness were all symptoms of a late menopause. It was not until the end of July 2008 that I was finally made to take notice that something was seriously wrong with my body. The thought that it might be cancer had never entered into my mind until that night.

My mother had just suffered a stroke and was home beginning what was to be a full recovery. I was spending the night at her house to keep an eye on her when I woke in the middle of the night soaked to the skin with sweat. My body ached all over and worst of all was the relentless pain in my lower back, as though someone was trying to drill a hole in the base of my spine. When I went to the toilet, I discovered that I was bleeding.

I used a combination of breathing techniques, Reiki and EFT (emotional freedom therapy) to bring the pain and the fear under control, changed my bedding and night dress, and slipped back into sleep. The following morning I made an appointment with my doctor.

A cervical smear showed that there was nothing wrong with my cervix; blood tests indicated anaemia and raised inflammatory markers; tests for ovarian cancer were also negative. I was referred to a gynaecologist and endured two biopsies of the lining of my womb; the first did not have enough tissue and they lost the results of my second for almost six weeks before they finally showed up again. I was referred for ultrasound to check for any gynaecological abnormalities and other than a slight thickening in the womb lining, nothing was wrong.

Had I known then what I now know about kidney cancer, I would have asked for them to scan my kidneys too. That would have shown the problem immediately. However, once more assumptions created delay in dealing with the real cause of my symptoms. Not once was it suggested that my kidney might have been responsible for the bleed. They had ruled out menopausal periods as the source as blood tests showed my hormonal levels to be that of a post-menopausal woman. I had been through the change of life without even noticing it. The bleeding was considered to be the effects of a hormonal imbalance, nothing to be worried about.

The gynaecologist was very kind but having ruled out all of the problems under her specialisation, sent me away with her contact details and the promise to see me if I continued to bleed. I was so relieved to know that I did not have any of the gynaecological cancers that I did not even ask if there might be any other cause. It had taken from August to late January to reach this point in the journey.

I will continue with the next stage tomorrow but I want to raise the following red flags which might just save your life or the life of someone you love.

Never ignore bleeding however slight.

Never assume that anaemia is benign. Too many woman accept it as part of being female and due to losing blood every month.

If you start to bleed again after cessation of periods, even if it has been less than the usual year we use as a sign that menopause is over, do not assume that it is gynaecological.

Insist that all possible causes are ruled out.

If your inflammatory markers are high (CRP and ESR), do not allow any delay in investigation of the causes, particularly if you have other symptoms. If they rule out one set of causes such as gynaecological, ask what needs to be looked at next.

Do not expect your general practitioner to refer you on automatically to another specialist.

Do not expect your general practitioner to call you back in to discuss what else might be explored to explain your symptoms. You need to be the one who makes sure this happens.

Ask for your kidney function to be tested.

If you have high blood pressure, also ask for your kidney function to be tested. The three medications I required for high blood pressure prior to my operation are now no longer required.

Be prepared to be a persistent but polite pest if there is a delay in getting consultant appointment, tests etc. If your records go missing, create merry hell until they are found.

Without being paranoid, we must all be our own experts about our bodies. There is an abundance of helpful information on the internet. Use it.

Do not rest until you have your answer. Your life depends on it.