Hi everyone

Just a very quick update. It’s partly a language thing. Turns out that when the doctor said ‘weekly’ treatment, amounting to six cycles of three weeks (which with my stunning maths ability I thought meant 18 weeks, stopping just before Christmas), what she actually meant was six cycles of three weeks, each of which would see a ‘free’ week before the next cycle, meaning that the whole thing takes 24 weeks! I can’t believe I was so stupid not to guess that this is what weekly means in cancer world. So on the fourth week, I turned up only to be told I wasn’t on the list for that week. You live and learn.

I’m now quite used to the new reality, and I used my second free week to get to Wales as I’d missed out on a week of my holiday there earlier in the summer. I’m two cycles through (a third of the way) and feeling really fine apart from a bit tired. But then I do keep going to the allotment/playing with grandkids/walking, working (writing) and going to dance class etc…

More updates when I can find my glasses.

Hi everyone

Well that didn’t go as planned! I was going to be one of those people who were monitored for 5 years and then signed off, but withing 3 months the cancer had returned. Needless to say, it’s been a worrying and disappointing few months since then, but I’ve now started on 18 weeks (nearly to Christmas!) of weekly chemotherapy and I’m feeling more upbeat after the first one yesterday. So far, the side effects are not as toe-curling as last year’s, so fingers crossed for fatigue and a bit of nausea being the worst of it.

Meanwhile, I’ve been planning some challenges for this time around. Here they are in no particular order:

• Learn more poems by heart. The seven I have already learnt are a real comfort when I can’t sleep and I rarely get through more than a couple before I’m drifting off.
• Play a bit more trumpet (lots to work on there) and piano (just reprising childhood tunes for comfort)
• Start on the second edition of my Critical Stylistics book (yes, a bit of linguistics at last!). I’ve just signed a contract so I need to get cracking and it does the brain good.
• Work with Brian Walker on a ‘principles of stylistic research’ booklet. It’s much needed and we’re full of ideas…
• Plan our annual ‘Refujazz’ day (it’s February 6th!) in aid of asylum seekers in Leeds.
• Keep on top of the allotment and make a pond in the new part we’ve recently taken on. There are newts in the watering baths nearby so I have hope of some wildlife relocating to my plot!
• Get the dressing up box grandkid-ready for Christmas holidays!
• See as much of the grandkids as possible – this is number one of course.

That’s probably enough to be going on with. The murder mystery is still a twinkle in the eye as are the poems I’d like to write, so let’s see.

More soon

Lesley

P.S. I’m closing my birthday fundraiser next week (in aid of Cancer Research). If anyone wants to help get to the magic figure of £500, there’s still time! Here’s the link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/lesley-jeffries-1

Hello everyone

I am going to make this the last post about my health for a while – as things are improving and although the myositis is still making my muscles weak, I’m moving in the right direction and working on my strength and fitness with the physios. I’m running up to the first monitoring appointment post-chemo, hoping that things are still good and the dreaded cancer is ‘under control’ as it was two months back.

But the great news is that I’m going to be 70 on 23rd May! This was a milestone I completely took for granted until last June when things started to go pear-shaped (why do we equate pear-shapes with bad news?). I did toy with the idea of a party, but I’m so used to not being stressed these days that the thought of organising one (who else would do it to my specification?!) was enough to put me off.

Instead, I will be celebrating entering my 8th decade over a number of months, seeing friends and family for coffee, dinner, lunch, spa days, conference dinners, gigs – whatever I can arrange. If you want in on something along those lines, get in touch! And for the event itself, I will be with my mum (93 – I can only dream of that age!), my partner, my lovely children and glorious grandchildren, for a BBQ, weather-permitting, followed by a little holiday in Northumbria.

I am really looking forward to the next few months and we have a number of trips following the one to the NE, including our lovely part of Wales, a solar eclipse in the north of Spain and a return to my academic roots in stylistics at the PALA conference in Uppsala. So much to look forward to!

I really don’t want presents – PLEASE – but if you have any inclination to mark this birthday, I have set up a justgiving page for cancer research. Not many years ago, I would definitely not have survived ovarian cancer, but thanks to the work of cancer research uk, the chemotherapy drug that I was able to tolerate was developed. Thank goodness, as the generic chemo drug nearly killed me – twice! No pressure at all – we all have a lot of calls on our money – and no donation is too small if you want to give a little. I haven’t set a target – let’s just see what comes in as every bit will help for those facing cancer in the future. Here’s the link:

https://www.justgiving.com/page/lesley-jeffries-1?utm_source=CL&utm_medium=DT

Here’s to a wonderful future and please look after yourselves – life is beautiful and quite short!

Lesley

P.S. Linguistics will be the topic of the next post – I promise.

Hi everyone

Health update below, but in the meantime, what about that Melania statement re. Epstein?! I was looking for some up-to-date examples of textual phenomena for a chapter I am revising for a second edition (see – I must be better – I’m working!) and I looked at the transcript of the first lady’s statement. Well, it’s got everything – three-part lists; interesting naming habits (the longest noun phrase is 28 words long, in a 30 word sentence!) and at least one example of equivalence (casual correspondence / My polite reply to her email / a trivial note) which seems to be over-cooking her denials.

But what stands out above all is the 24 (at least, depending on how you count them) examples of negating in a 547 word statement. It’s a lot of negation. Beautiful negation – her own negation. Here are a few (out of context):

• I do not object to their ignorance
• I reject their mean-spirited attempts to defame my reputation. 
• I have never been friends with Epstein. 
• I never had a relationship with Epstein or his accomplice, Maxwell. 
• I am not Epstein’s victim. 
• Epstein did not introduce me to Donald Trump. 

And there are more, including morphological examples (baseless, unfounded) and semantic ones (stop, end). What Shakespeare understood and linguists have been explaining more recently is that the simple use of a negation brings into play cognitively not just the denial, but also the positive version of that denial. This affects the hearer/reader to the extent that they are grappling with the text (this didn’t happen) at the same time as having to visualise the opposite of that text (imagine it happening). This is not the same for non-negated texts. If you saw a sentence saying ‘Epstein introduced me to Donald Trump’, you would take it at face value and not concurrently imagine Epstein not introducing them. There is, therefore, a higher cognitive load with texts that negate things and when there is a whole slew (that’s a lovely word isn’t it?) of similar negations as there are here, the reader/hearer is more likely to wonder which version (positive or negative) of events actually took place.

I’ll be writing more about this for the chapter I’m revising, but if you want to read Melania’s statement itself, you can find it here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/04/first-lady-melania-trump-statement/

So – just to update you – I’m feeling pretty good on the whole and am having a lot of fun with grandchildren and seeing lots of friends as well as going to the allotment when the weather is fine. However, the new condition (dermato-myositis) which seems to have been triggered by the cancer or its treatment (no one knows) has left my proximal muscles (those close to the body) very weak, so that although I can more or less function normally, I have trouble with some very basic things (like turning over in bed!). I will be undergoing immunoglobulin infusion treatment soon, which I hope will get things back to normal quicker than the current cocktail of steroids and drugs. It’s more days (9 in total – 3 x 3 over 12 weeks) sitting with a drip in my hand, which is a bit of a pain, but if it works… Then I also have physio appointment to start rebuilding my muscles.

All in all, nearly a year on from the start of all this – I’m optimistic and more than ever grateful for the NHS and all its workers.

Hi everyone

A rather delayed update – I have finally finished chemo and together with surgery it seems to have (mostly) worked, so fingers crossed the cancer won’t return any time soon. Meantime, I’ve picked up a new autoimmune condition (Correlation or causation? No one is saying!) but it has resulted in extreme muscle weakness in my shoulders, neck and arms (and groin), leaving me pretty helpless for a while. Not great, but the doctors from rheumatology have been amazing, travelling from another hospital to see me at the cancer wing of St James’s, and I am now looking at treatment for that condition that should keep it under control and even possibly in remission. All in all I’ve had such incredible service from our wonderful medical teams and I couldn’t be more grateful to them.

So – I’m going to stop blogging about my health for a bit now – and return to other things – mainly linguistics here, though I did want to thank everyone who has supported me, through little messages (how you doing?), cups of coffee (and cake!), flowers, your personal challenges (thanks – it really helped) and other ways in which people have kept the hope alive. You’re all wonderful.

Keep those challenges going (if you want) and I will return to the ones I’ve not managed to do recently (the trumpet has been a particular issue with the new condition!) I am hoping to do lots of physio and fitness training (slowly!) in the next few months and return to running and dancing in due course.

Hi everyone

No, I haven’t had a baby – I had an operation (remember?!) But I do have a new grandson, Aidan, who is bringing joy to the family and is a bonny lad already. This is motivation enough to keep on with the recovery (as are the other three grandchildren) and I am now over 6 weeks post-surgery, with only one more round of chemo to go. All the indicators are looking good and the incredibly dramatic wound on my abdomen is now almost healed into a jaunty scar, though I still have no plans for bikinis this summer (or any summer, come to that!).

I’m on a steroid high today – crash comes tomorrow for a day or two, but I’m riding high right now. Today I have reviewed a journal article, been to the allotment for a bit of light pottering (not allowed heavy exercise for another six weeks) sent some emails and watched TV. My challenges are beginning to change as I get less tired, so I try to pick up the trumpet a few times a week as well as walking more and trying to sort out a dressing up box for the kids which is not two flights up (at Christmas they kept putting on clothes that were too long and nearly breaking their necks coming down to show us their latest outfits!) So, plenty to do – and more writing is going to be on the menu now I have the energy to sit at my desk a bit more. More on that soon. There is linguistics in the offing!

In the last couple of weeks we managed to get down to Essex to meet our grandson and last week spent time with friends in East Yorkshire who let us use their holiday let when it’s free. They look after us so well, it is very moving. I also managed to drop into the regular jazz jam session at our local arts centre, HEART, which I have been running since it opened 15 years ago! I am so grateful to friends who have kept it going in my absence and I can’t wait to get back to being able to play again. I’m persevering with Duolingo for now too (115 days) but I plan to try better ways to actually learn Italian as it’s driving me a bit mad!

I continue to hear from you about your various challenges – often with apologies – no need! This is for you, not me, though I do love it that you’re trying to do things you want to do. This whole experience has both encouraged me to do things I have been putting off and crave going back to the good things I used to like doing anyway. The big change is dropping the things I hate doing (unless they’re vital for me or someone I love). It’s liberating!

Hi and a very belated happy season’s greetings to you all – and a wonderful new year to all of us.

I intended to post before Christmas, but the upshot of the surgery was that it was a much bigger deal than I had realised (though it went fairly well) and I’ve been coping with the effects ever since. Seem to have hit a turning point now, so fingers crossed I’ll be fit for chemo next week and two more lots after that. Then we can get on with other things.

When my lovely grandson (Francesco, 3) was about two years old, and he couldn’t quite do something himself (so needed help from an adult), once that thing was achieved, he’d declare loudly “I did it!” I keep thinking the same thing about the surgery, which of course I didn’t do – but it weirdly feels like something I helped to achieve, if only by wishing it to be over and done with. Those surgeons – they are like gods aren’t they? And in my case they were all Greek, so you can imagine Greek gods… And the support and nursing staff (who without exception in my experience during my hospital stay were immigrants from other lands) are the most amazing human beings for whom nothing is too much trouble. Thank you to all of them from the bottom of my heart.

I continue to be enchanted, entertained and amused by the challenges you set yourselves and it’s not too late if you want to join in. Recently, I have had a friend trying to notch up 50 Munros (look it up – Scottish mountains) in his 50th year and another working hard on her watercolour painting, as well as doing magic painting (water only needed!) with her learning disabled sister. Lovely people, these are the things that matter – do more of them! I’ve also been moved and comforted by all the communication with people I haven’t had time to be in touch with so much in recent years – let’s keep talking.

As for my challenges, they’ve had a bit of a downturn in the last couple of weeks, but I’ll be getting back to them now I’m on the mend. My six (so far) poems by heart have been invaluable during the moments when I was unable to move in bed or read – I can run them fast (like music) or slow (to savour the writing) and it helps me to either drop off to sleep or get off the merry-go-round of negative thoughts. I only missed two days of Duolingo (Italian) during the recent procedures, so that flipping owl can do one – I think that’s pretty good on the whole. My (half-Italian) granddaughter thought it was very funny that I can say ‘My American neighbour is nice and my son is tall’ – classic language learning nonsense, but I guess it’s a start.

Well, that’s enough news for now – I’ll try to post more regularly and get back to some linguistics too before long!

Lesleyx

Hi everyone

In a week I will be going through some surgery, followed by recovery (I hope!) and more chemo. It’s all looking fairly good on the getting rid of cancer front and I’m hoping to hear that most of it has gone after the surgery. I’ll keep you posted on that!

Meantime, I’ve got 6 poems memorised to keep my mind from spiralling while I can’t do much else, and I’ll try to get another one under my belt before then. I’ll also try to keep the old Duolingo (Italian) going for the duration, though I guess there might be at least one day when I’m too out of it on morphine to engage with that annoying little owl! I have also added a new challenge to my list, which is to get back to doing the occasional park run once I am fully recovered from the treatment. I’ve managed to start running again in the last ten days and it feels great! Not very far and certainly not fast, but moving is definitely better than sitting around all the time.

Thanks again to all of you who are letting me know what your challenges are – I really enjoy making you do stuff that you’ve been too busy/lazy to do before;) There’s ever more music, poetry, languages, exercise being done and I feel proud of those achievements by proxy. Keep it up!

I managed to knock up a sheep costume for my granddaughter’s nativity this week and did some work on the allotment as well as playing a bit of trumpet (for this afternoon’s band practice). It’s been great feeling so normal after months of symptoms and limbo. Normal life – it’s such a joy!

More soon

Lesleyx

Hi everyone

More news on treatment and challenges soon, but meantime I wanted to draw your attention to the important date this Wednesday (26th November) when it will be National Linguistics Day. This celebration of everything to do with human communication is the brainchild of Rebecca Mitchell and it is growing every year. If you are a linguist, please get on board and use this day (it’s always the same date) to promote your work to the broader community. Here’s a link to the website:

https://www.linguisticshq.co.uk/national-linguistics-day

This day is getting bigger every year and with luck it might become World Linguistics Day in due course, so watch this space!

More soon – big meeting tomorrow about my treatment, so I’ll know more then. Meantime, I’m halfway through learning poem number 6 and having started running again (slowly but it felt great!)…

Lesleyx

Just as I thought I was bossing the chemo and knew what to expect, two things happened this week! First, it became clear that I am facing surgery, which up to now I’d been imagining might not happen (though it had been mentioned as a possibility). They even have a date pencilled in, so that really brought it home. However, the good news is that surgery is likely to lead to a better outcome, so we’ll hold onto that! Then, yesterday I went for the third round of chemo thinking I’d be half way through by now only to find that the reaction I had to the drugs last time was more severe this time and they had to abandon it! So, I’m anticipating a pain-free weekend after all, but disappointed not to have progressed. I’m in limbo now waiting for news of new treatment plans and appointment schedules and so everything is on hold. On the up side, I do now have a wig that is a pretty good match for my hair. Don’t need it yet, but it’s there if I do.

I think I might start really planning out that cosy crime novel I’ve been thinking about in the meantime. And I’ve made a good start on Christmas shopping (online!) with all the sitting around I’ve had to do.

More soon

Lesleyx