The first post

"Stop all the clocks..." Anyone else remember that scene from Four Weddings and a Funeral where John Hannah reads WH Auden's powerful expression of grief, perfectly describing that moment when you feel that your life has changed irrevocably and that nothing will ever be the same again?

My current "Stop" moment came around 5.45 pm on 30 August 2012. That was when the consultant finished drawing his diagram of what he'd found in my large bowel the previous Thursday and, with a circular flourish of his pen around the top of the mushroom shape he'd drawn, said, "And the biopsy showed some cancerous cells in the top here."

When I told people about the diagnosis, a couple suggested that I blog about it. Initially I thought not: privacy, it's a bit of a grim subject, not sure what others will think, blah blah. But then I thought that this would be a good way to capture some of what's happening, maybe make some sense of it and maybe other people would like to read it too.  Or maybe not... So, this is my diary of what happened/is happening to me, my experience of bowel cancer and quite possibly some other ramblings along the way.