LUMP

With lockdown loosening Pen gets a visit from one of her oldest and closest friends. Its emotional, magical and medicinal all at the same time - a bit like a dram but in human form, the form of Ali! Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios Special thanks to Incredi...

This week Pen's ruminating on what to say when people keep on insisting on asking her how she is. "David’s niece came to visit the other week and instead of asking me how I was she told me how she’d passed David as she came up the track.  They’d stopped and wound down their respective car windows, ‘how’s Pen?’ she’d asked, ‘hard to kill’ came David’s reply.   It was perfect and I sn...

Pen becomes concerned about the impact her own moodiness is starting to have on those around her, particularly her daughter, B, but how does Pen bottle and hide all the anger and frustration she's feeling. How does she find a way back to feeling more like her old self or is that impossible? Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster r...

"What are you most looking forward to?", the question stumps me.  I pause midway through de-seeding a pepper, rooting around for an answer but every time I cast ahead into the future I draw a blank.  Even trying to slot events and possibilities into my mental calendar makes me flinch and I’m puzzled by it.  Later that evening, driving with David to a favourite fishing spot on the lo...

Time to talk about what it's like to live with someone living with cancer. This episode, Pen chats to her good friend, the chef, food writer and brilliant baker, Kirsten 'KJ' Gilmour from KJ's Bothy Bakery in Grantown on Spey. Telling the LUMP story has made Pen reflect that so much of her focus, when she was diagnosed, was about her and how she felt about having cancer. But what about the people...

With cycling still very much out of the picture, Pen goes in search of a new physical pursuit to help her combat the consequences of surgery... "The wild swimming planted itself in my life quite by surprise.  One evening sitting by the loch the desire the wade in was overwhelming.  I could feel my body leaning into the idea of icy water soothing the angry tangled muscles on my back and b...

As Pen continues to inch forward through her recovery she realises that 'strength' isn't necessary a useful characteristic when it comes to listening to your body... "A perpetual mantra that has accompanied me this past few weeks has been everyone telling me how strong I am.  That seems to be how people see me, strong, and people define strength as the ability to push yourself..." and when Pe...

"I’m becoming increasingly aware of my tendency to weep.  I try to pin down what the problem is.  We live in the most extraordinary place, surrounded by a landscape which fills me up in every way.  This is our dream.  We live in paradise and I’m surrounded by people I love who love me back.  What’s wrong with me?" Pen starts to try and figure out while she's still feeling...

"I had intended to stop writing once I left hospital, figured this story had reached its natural and neat end, but increasingly I’ve realised each day throws up new struggled and frustrations and maybe I need to write in order to file all these mismatched and complicated feelings away somewhere.  So here I am again, filing..." Pen starts to come to terms with the massive changes cancer surger...

"2 week’s after my surgery and we’re due to move house on Friday.  We have nothing packed and the removal firm have just called to cancel on us because last night Scotland went into lockdown and Covid-19 has moved from background noise to centre stage...I keep having moments when I drift off only to suddenly snap-to and the memory of my diagnosis and everything which has subsequently happened...

So the surgery is over and the cancer is gone, it's all plain sailing now, right? Wrong! Pen picks her way through the post-surgery pain and trauma only to discover that while she's been in hospital the world has dramatically changed... Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning...

In this Lump Extra Pen talks to Dr Liz O'Riordan and its all a bit poacher turned gamekeeper because Liz was a breast surgeon.  Then in 2015, at the age of 40, she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself and, a bit further down the line, was forced to retire because of it.  Since then she has made it her mission to write and talk about her experiences in a bid to help others and to open...

"I walk to the operating theatre.  Is that odd?  In my mind I always think surgery has to involve being delivered on a bed but no, I pop on my fit-flops and walk with Dora, a student nurse, round from the ward to the Vanguard Operating Theatre...We go through star trek style sliding doors and I’m greeted by at least half a dozen people, all in scrubs, through another door I glimpse even...

"Even if no one knows I have cancer from the outside I sense more and more it is eating me up from within, not just the tissue of my left breast but nibbling away at who I am, its consuming the content of my life.  Each day is now shaped by cancer, each conversation curves itself back around the subject, each message on social media is about how I am.  And I feel guilty for giving in to...

The brutal reality of what lies ahead is starting to sink in and Pennie's feeling the panic... "I feel like I’m in a slow motion car crash and I can’t unbuckle my belt to step out.  Everyone I know, all the people I love, with the best of intentions, are bunched together pushing the car at the wall, egging it on and although I’m leaning back, straining in my seat, pumping the break with my fo...

"I’ve come to a fork in the road.  Both paths that now lie ahead are gnarly, gruelling, painful and psychologically demanding, both are hard on the body but from where I stand one path seems infinitely shorter than the other, infinitely more appealing.  They both end up at the same place, with me alive and living and loving long into the future. If I don’t step forward then I die, sooner...

Cancer brings with it many positives, one of them being some amazing connections and friends, but Pennie finds it difficult to weigh up the idea that she may never be able to push cancer to the back of her mind when so many of her and her closest friends have cancer in common. Following on from the themes of the This Tribe episode, Pennie gathers friends Rebecca, Amanda and Alison from the Incredi...

"None of my cancer tribe will tell me ‘you’ll be fine’ or constantly share stories of people they know who’ve come through it.  My cancer tribe just know.  Know what it is to see your life flash before your eyes; know what it is to see the pain you put everyone else through; know the exquisite agony of waiting on results and the sense that you’re careering out of control; know what it’s...

"It’s been sitting in the background for weeks, a soft drone or buzz, like tinnitus but now it’s getting louder and its starting to provide the soundtrack to each day – chemo". Pennie pauses to reflect on the imminent test results from the lymph node biopsy which will indicate whether she'll need chemotherapy. "Chemo. Just writing the word forces bile up my throat.  I’m trying to work out why...

The cancer conveyor belt is moving along again and Pennie finds herself back at the hospital undergoing a general anaesthetic so she can have some lymph nodes removed to check whether her cancer has spread. Its yet another procedure which feels full of fear but as she recovers in the ward after waking up, Pennie discovers some welcome relief from all the worrying in the form of 'Maureen', 85 years...

What's the value in sharing all this stuff? This ep Pennie swaps stories and experiences with Ali, Rohaise and Shireen about Ali's mega fundraiser for the Highland Hospice , Catwalk for a Cause, an annual event which mixes highly emotive and punch-packing story telling with strutting your stuff on the catwalk. It sounds like a bonkers mix and it probably is, but it works. In the wake of her cancer...

No one wins a prize for having the most shitty cancer prognosis, as she listens to other people's stories, Pennie realises that she wants to lose this particular pissing contest, hands down... Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer.  Utterly human...

With surgery looming Pennie battles to find the right time, place and way to tell her daughter, B, about her cancer. Pen's desperate to control how the information gets to B but time is running out... Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer.  Utter...

A short n sweet ep for you this week - Pennie reflects on the weight of carrying cancer. Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer.  Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battl...

With mastectomy now a certainty the question of a breast reconstruction arises. Is it vanity to want to feel more 'complete'? Pennie wrestles with some difficult decisions ... Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer.  Utterly human and compelling,...