The New Normal Episode 1 The Suspicious Consultant
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 2979
I love Gerona Airport. It is small and perfectly formed with decent eating options, and direct flights from Glasgow, even if the last shuttle bus into the city centre sneaked away twenty minutes before the aforementioned flight from Glasgow landed.
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The New Normal Episode 2 An Almond-Sized Intruder
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 2225
The day for biopsy results came. It was mild and sunny in Perthshire so I carried my bike down the two flights of stairs and cycled uphill through the city to the hospital.
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The New Normal Episode 3 The Missing Fortnight And The Day Of The Almond's Removal
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 2357
Which left exactly seventeen days to live through.
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The New Normal Episode 4 The Joy Of Anaesthetic (including the best sleep you never had.)
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1839
Slowly, reluctantly, I battled my way out of the unnaturally deep and glorious sleep that is a general anaesthetic.
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The New Normal Episode 5 Small Town Post-Operative Blues
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 2031
Everyone loves an operation. There are hospital anecdotes and scars and dressings and legitimate afternoon naps.
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The New Normal Episode 6 Waiting For Chemo ( and other dramas)
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1936
I am waiting for my chemotherapy to start. There are five more sleeps until Friday.
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The New Normal Episode 7 Club Med 2016
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1853
The heart is roughly the size of a clenched fist, if I remember my life-saving lessons back in secondary school in Tain.
The New Normal Episode 8 Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1905
HAIR. My hair was fuzzy black when I was born and stuck upwards like a bush-baby.
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The New Normal Episode 9 ('Ooh A Pink Cake! Don't Mind If I do!' aka The Angry Aeriated Rant)
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1800
'Grief! Why are people baking bloody Victoria Sponges and cupcakes to pay for a MacMillan nurse? Aaaargh!
The New Normal Episode 10 Side Effects And The Phone Call From Adele.
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1792
Chemotherapy and good side effects are not usually discussed in the same sentence but one unexpected outcome of an elephantine infusion of toxic and unpronounceable drugs has been that after fifteen years without it I have regained my sense of smell!
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The New Normal Episode 11 Excuse My Dust
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1796
A wise woman has asked me if I am frightened. I think for a few moments and say 'Yes, I am frightened.' She asks me what I fear.
The New Normal Episode 12 Where Our Hero Is Floored By A Sledgehammer
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1700
Och, and it was all going so well! Three chemo sessions called FEC successfully under my belt, some tiredness, temporary steroid-based insomnia, but only in the few days after each treatment.
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The New Normal Episode 13 – Fighting Talk – The Official Language Of The State Of Cancer
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1678
Armour on, weapons primed, bullets at the ready, let battle commence, because cancer is aggressive and sometimes deadly and there is a fight to be fought.
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The New Normal Episode 14 – 24-Hours In Side-Effect Land
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1835
0800: Wake up and realise that I am half blind. Put on specs. Now only quarter blind. Right eye is glued shut and red and puffy and dribbly. Yeugh.
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The New Normal Episode 15 - Cheese Scone, An Eviction Threat And An 11th Hour Reprieve
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1822
You could not make it up. Already I was writing the headline. 'Cancer victim in midst of chemotherapy served eviction notice two weeks before Christmas.'
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The New Normal Episode 16 The Final Overview
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1918
In social work we used to do '6-month Reviews' where we cast our eyes back at where we had come from and where we seemed to have landed up. (Other definitions are available!)
The New Normal Episode 17 An Occasional Update – From Pizzagate To Peace
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- Written by Alison Napier
- Category: New Normal
- Hits: 1392
A useful tool in social work (and indeed in life) is to be able to hold an assortment of different versions of reality in your head at the same time. And that is what is going on here in New Normal land at the moment.
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