Armed with a slash of red-lipstick, tiara wearing ballgowns in bed & looking at life through rose-tinted glasses I’ve managed to endure the unrelenting-pain, daily vomiting & thinning hair; that hollow sense of helplessness which makes me a burden to the very people I want to support. It may not be practical vomming in a ballgown, but I have no other occasion to wear them, so why not? The key to surviving a brain tumour is living, not just in the moment but vicariously through the happiness & adventures of those one loves & immersing oneself in literature & art.

I’m grateful for my faith & I’ve survived by the loss of freedoms this bally tumour’s stripped away & focused on what it couldn’t touch; my love for my children, a pretty rose-bud tea-cup, a rose, a ring, a memory of a bluebell pathway that I once skipped along as a child, for these thoughts lead to hope & hope has been my only friend at times.

My life is very small: a bed, a vomit-bowl & a table crammed with medications & medical accoutrements, but I’m surrounded by pictures of my family & my pretty bibelots & paintings. I am blessed.

I live through my children & the bright vitality of all those I love.

It is very easy to be virtuous when your life hangs in the balance, so I do rather relish naughty gossip…sadly others shy away from sharing naughtiness with invalids. It is a great injustice.

Ultimately the triumph of my tumour’s fought in daily skirmishes with sick bowls, medications that take more than they give, EKGs, chemicals & catheters. But it’s a battlefield nevertheless, littered with sacrifices & fear like any other.

The Victory of the invalid comes in living the Glorious Life Vicarious!

Life is precious & in those dark nights of the soul, I have excavated all the treasure chests of memories buried throughout the larkier decades of my life. Mining my Mayfair past for precious memories & moments that seemed so ubiquitous & banal at the time, but as I rediscover my sons first tooth, first words, first pictures, my daughter’s first ballet lesson, a day feeding the ducks in St James’s Park all now sparkle with the radiance & glory of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond