Tag Archives: NHS
Jade Goody & the mythology of redemption: the spectre of cancer in the media
Jade Goody–the Big Brother reality television “star”-cum-cancer martyr–died the day before I started my own chemotherapy. I remember standing on the platform at the Royal Oak train station, waiting to go to the hospital for my first chemo treatment, looking … Continue reading
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19 March 2009: Pre-treatment
Three days of relative normalcy before I’m due to begin chemo. I know they’ll skip by almost thoughtlessly, and in the weeks and months to come I’ll long for that sense of health. Yesterday the NHS treated me to a … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
12 February 2009: Waiting
Lately I’ve been terrified by the thought that I could die and no one would know for days. It’s the worst thing I can imagine–not death, but the emptiness, the absence in my life which would make my death so … Continue reading
Filed under treatment journal
28 January 2009: There is a lump in my breast and it increasingly defines me
I began this blog post treatment, but I kept a written journal during the worst of it. In an attempt to begin to synthesize the experience and give some sense of chronology, I’ve decided to begin writing up bits of that … Continue reading
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the prime minister’s human shield of cancer patients
Every so often Gordon Brown sticks his head out of his hole with a promise between his teeth like a peanut. “On cancer, Mr Brown said that the waiting time for women for the results of cervical screening tests would be cut … Continue reading
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I survived the NHS
I think I need to get this printed on a T-shirt and wear it around Western Pennsylvania. One of the things I am most dreading about my imminent return to the US is having to face the omnipresent Republican propaganda which, … Continue reading
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