Welcome to my blog

Hello Folks,

My name’s Angela. If you’ve found your way here I am guessing you are either a) a relative b) a friend c) also dealing with your own diagnosis. Either way hello/welcome/I’m sorry. It’s a shock.

I’m a 51 year old mother of three kids, a wife, a sister, a daughter. Professionally I’m a professor and head of inclusion working for a creative technology lab and a former TV executive. I have a lovely life inWest London. I like to describe myself as an artist, academic and activist these days but I’m not sure my of these are totally accurate.

Right now I feel like a statistic, one of millions knocked for six by a secondary, non curable, cancer diagnosis. So all of the above descriptions with the exception of family feel slightly redundant. But I am still here, treading water the other side of the mirror world and wondering what comes next. If you’re in that situation too I’m glad you’re here. Maybe we could go on this journey together?

I had primary breast cancer six years ago and at the end of January 2025 I found out it was back. Stage 4 in my lungs, lymph nodes and bones. Too late to operate. Awaiting a full diagnosis and treatment to start. I’m what they call ‘asymptomatic’ walking around looking relatively normal (if tired) and with all the aches and pains common to women of my age. It was a total shock. It is a total shock. I still don’t know if it’s lung or secondary breast, if I am coming or going.

As I start this blog my diagnosis was just over a week ago. My mother’s birthday. She died from her secondaries but lasted 12 years once it metastasised to her bones and we were lucky enough to have her with us till she was 74. She got to meet and get to know her grandchildren and they were old enough to remember her. I got my primary cancer the same age as her, the same month, same side. Her cancer also came back 7 years later. Perhaps it is simply written in our genes.

I’m still reeling from the news and sharing it slowly with the people I love and who love me, and a bunch of other people in my life who need to know. Everyone reacts differently and managing their emotional responses has been a job in itself the past fortnight. ‘All responses are valid’ I say but it is traumatic and draining to tell people and know I am causing them pain.

I intend to keep going as long as I can. To be still and quiet. To make noise. To meditate. To rage. To dance. To scream. To wait patiently. To live gloriously in this time where I have the unique privilege of sensing every moment differently. Colours, smells, smiles, laughter, sunshine. Suddenly it all glitters and every damn beautiful thing breaks me. But some days it’s just black. It’s hard to talk about what’s in your heart all the time. It seems almost an offence to polite society to say you are mainly thinking about dark things that we don’t generally talk about. I now understand why my mother used to get busy organising her photographs/wardrobe/knicker drawer when she received news. It was preferable to long discussions about the inevitable.

I hope the audience for this blog will grow and that it will reach someone else as they stumble out the other side of ‘WHAT?!!!’. Like me you may be trying to processing the complex emotions of hearing a stranger telling you that you are going to kick the bucket a little sooner than you expected,

I don’t know what it’s like to live with secondary cancer yet. I’ve only just been hit with the truck of I’M AFRAID IT’S BAD NEWS and I’M SO SORRY. So totally different to my first diagnosis where I was told I’d be fine and it was a small ordinary diagnosis. They even told me 93% of women never get it again. But then, I’ve always beaten the odds. I’m learning to take my first steps into this shadow place. So similar to the world I was walking around in a few weeks ago but much much weirder. People look at you differently. You become a source of wonder and horror and pity. But if you’ll stay with me maybe we can make it something glorious.