2020: That was the year that was
Mo Fanning looks back at 2020 – a year of reading, writing and anything but the bloody pandemic. Take a moment to join him.
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Cancer
Grief: A visit to the museum
My mother died in February. At the time, the virus that now traps us in our homes was little more than a rumble. Second or third story on the news, rendered insignificant by reports of heavy rain or Boris Johnson’s latest infidelity. We were lucky in many ways. We had the funeral she planned, she
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I’m sorry you’ve lost your mother: they make it sound like I’ve left her in another room
My mother has passed away. At 1.30 this morning, I woke. My husband, too. He trailed downstairs to her temporary bedroom, and I listened for the rattle of laboured breathing. Seconds later, he appeared and asked me to stay calm. Storm Dennis is due in her part of the country any time now, already raindrops ricochet
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Testicular cancer: Few dinner parties pass without me tossing my scrotum into the conversation
Last year, around 2,300 British men were told they had testicular cancer. That’s more than six every day. The number of cases diagnosed has doubled since the mid-1970s with 70 men dying each year from the disease. 1 in 250 men will get testicular cancer. With those numbers, it’s only a matter of time before
Happy cancer-versary to me
Exactly one year ago, a well-spoken doctor snapped rubber gloves, handed me a tissue and explained how she’d been without power since early morning. It’s a nightmare making porridge when you’ve only a camping stove and a billycan, apparently. She also said I had cancer. Determined to give this bombshell time to process, I focussed
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That was the year that was
Around about this time last year, I decided to scratch a personal itch – and that does indeed sound like something best discussed with a doctor. 2018 was to be different. It would be my year of saying yes. I reckoned without my Valentine’s Day discovery. Chances are, I’m not the first to find something untoward
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Cop a feel for Christmas
If you haven’t done your monthly inspection, start now. Don’t kid yourself that testicular cancer only hits younger men. There’s another statistical spike around the age of 50.
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Chemo brain and writing
I’m supposed to be editing. Or as I like to call it deleting six months hard work to write a totally different story. Call it chemo-brain or call it the fact I realised just a tiny bit too late I’d written the wrong story, but ‘The Toast of Brighton’ is going down to the wire
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This is the bit where I start to feel better, right?
Mo Fanning – over-sharing cancer bore – talks about the treatment stage of testicular cancer – the chemotherapy and scans stage – and the unexpected steroid boost.
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A life-changing event
Were I to list all the places where cancer might change my life, it’s unlikely I’d include Warrington. It’s even less likely I’d plan for this revolution to occur in a charmless Premier Inn. It was Valentines Day, and by agreement, I was miles away from my significant other. I’d left a Waitrose fish pie
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