Author Archives: lesleyjeffries

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 withContinue reading “I did it!”

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 gotContinue reading “Knives out!”

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 youContinue reading “National Linguistics Day!”

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 thatContinue reading “All change”

Hi everyone I’m just gearing up for chemo round three, so I thought I’d update this blog before I go underground for a few days! I’m delighted to say that you continue to impress me with your challenges – including, recently, someone who made it up Helvellyn in the Lake District and someone who isContinue reading “Health update – and some linguistics!”

What’s really interesting (strange choice of word?) about the experiences I’m going through is what it does to your perceptions of the world. As my hair thins (not losing it completely so far), I feel a strong connection with the trees as their leaves turn gold and fall to the ground in what has soContinue reading “Good times”

Although I might be trying to avoid over used metaphors for cancer I could not resist this one! The second round of chemo was a marathon rather than a boxing match as I had a bad reaction to the meds and they had to spread them out over six hours rather than three so theContinue reading “Seconds out!”

It’s funny how your world contracts when you’re going through something like this. It’s only a few months since I was jumping off boats to swim with turtles in the Galapagos (already feeling there was something amiss) and now I’m incredibly excited to be getting on a train to London to see a couple ofContinue reading “Small pleasures”

Hi everyone. So, I won’t be adding to this in the first few days after each treatment, because I now know what my reactions to the drugs are like and it’s been a bit tough. But a week on, I can function again so I’ll try to tell you how the challenges are going. TheContinue reading “A week after 1st chemo”

Well the first day of chemo yesterday was long but relatively bearable, even with the cool cap that might just save some of my hair! I am so happy that so many of you have told me of your challenges – there are a lot of languages being learned (Russian, German, Armenian, Spanish for starters)Continue reading “Challenges – update”