A story tucked away towards the back of Thursday’s Courier leapt out at me for a couple of reasons.
It was the one about Blairmore Farm, at Fowlis Wester, near Crieff, hosting a retreat for people living with secondary breast cancer.
The gathering, organised by a Scottish charity Make 2nds Count, gave patients a safe space to enjoy yoga, crafts and farm activities.
Perhaps most importantly, it also gave them a place to share their experiences with one another.
And it stood out because my mum was born at Blairmore Farm in 1944, and lived there until her marriage to my dad.
Before Ailsa Clark and her family turned my grandpa’s old sheds into gorgeous luxury holiday cottages, it was the setting for our family’s Christmas housefuls and semi-feral summers.
One of my earliest memories is of walking under Tilly, one of the farm’s Clydesdale horses, and my cousins and I still go there in our dreams.
There’s love and joy in every brick and blade of grass at Blairmore.
I said there were two reasons though. And the second is that cancer came for my family last year.
Mum’s last months spent living with cancer
My lovely mum was diagnosed with the disease shortly before her death last October. But really, she died twice.
The first time was on June 14 2022 when she learned the radiotherapy treatment that she’d sailed through in daily sessions at Ninewells had failed to stop the spread of her cancer, and that there were no more treatment options open to her.
Mum’s light went out that day. And those of us who loved her tried our best to comfort her, to listen, to tiptoe round the topic as we jollied her along. But what did we know?
The only people who might have understood the lonely terror she was feeling were people who had been put in a similar position.
People who knew what it was like to live with an incurable cancer. People like the group of patients who were “treated like royalty” at Blairmore, thanks to donations to a charity that recognises the need for that support.
Mum was given six months. She made it to just after her and dad’s 58th wedding anniversary.
For me, those three and a half months were a helpless clash of wishing every day could last forever, and not wanting to prolong the agony of a brave wee woman who was hurting and afraid.
Living with cancer can feel like a lonely road
I’ve been approaching the anniversary of June 14, this coming Wednesday, with a sort of numb trepidation. But it did my heart good to see Blairmore is still a place of love and joy. I like to think Mum would have approved too.
Tansy Main, who attended the Make 2nds Count retreat there, told us: “This diagnosis has felt very lonely at times – even though there is lots of support out there online. But… I have felt a real sense of love and camaraderie the last couple of days.”
Claire O’Donnell, support co-ordinator for the charity, said: “As a patient myself, living with this diagnosis, I am only too familiar with the power that a caring and supportive community can give us.”
Cancer is a rotten business – for patients and the people standing feebly on the sidelines. But there are many organisations doing wonderful work towards finding a cure and improving outcomes in all kinds of ways.
Mum was never one for big groups, or being fussed over, but Maggie’s Dundee helped us quietly and gently. For these women, it is Make 2nds Count and Blairmore Farm who are coming through with practical and emotional support.
I hope you never need their help – as a patient or a helpless observer. But if you do, I hope you ask for it.
And I hope you find a reminder that you are not alone.
Because life is short. But love and joy are what make it worth living. And they belong as much towards the end of life as they do at the beginning.
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