I'm back- in a literary, photographic and sarcoma kind of way....

.......probably the last post as i don't want to get boring (i think you already are luv! says Taigh reading this over my shoulder and not missing an opportunity for an insult-thanks for that my loving teenager!) -my last proper post in December 2010, Taigh was twelve years old, we had a sense of humour then- he's 16 now, hastily trying to redo an academic year of A level work after losing a memory stick: as I work in the kitchen with a small glass of baileys, that may lead to more small glasses of baileys: it's nearly Christmas again.

They are not easy to do, these blogs, don't want to sound too crappy self obsessed, and over-jolly seems irreverent at this stage. In 2010 the wonderful surgeon Dirk Strauss and his team at The Royal Marsden had removed the phenomenal, alien like 6kilo de-diferentiated liposarcoma along with my spleen, kidney, part of my bowel and part of my pancreas...the chance that it may come back some 10-15%..we were ready to move on. I returned to work 8 months later, as an Ofsted Inspector, took an assessment which vaulted me into a complaints officer, quickly failed and was moved sideways, completing quality assurance tasks on inspectors reports. I was crippled, physically and emotionally from the effects of the operation, an un-diagnosed gluten intolerance and a compromised immune system...I was crippled trying to manage and control my rapidly disintegrating family. I had been having an affair, struggled with the dishonesty but thrived on the adrenaline- it kept me fighting and alive. My husbands already established alcohol issues became intolerable and the teenager, of course acted out. I fought with my husband about his drinking, he became mute. I fought with my son about his behaviour. He got worse. I went to New York for a few days, another adrenaline high. I arranged for my son to go to China on a school trip while I tried to manage his father's disintegration into total alcohol dependency. Rehab happened a day after the son got back, so he saw it all, as I carried his father into the car. I didn't think any of us would recover. I had therapy, grieved for my husband and my unavailable girlfriend and spent lots of time staring at the ceiling.

Five years later and we have recovered..albeit in a different format..but a calm one. This time last year I had another operation to remove the recurrent sarcoma, this time the size of a grapefruit, but attached to my stomach, diaphragm and pancreas.