When a website is just not enough…
Somebody told me this week that they thought that I’m quite a low-key kind of dude, avoiding unnecessary attention at all costs. It’s true. I do like to fly under the radar and not make a fuss, keeping myself to myself. Making a big song and dance out of things just isn’t what I do. I mean, apart from the blog and website, the Facebook page, the Twitter and Instagram accounts…I’m virtually anonymous.
As a colleague reminded me, though, I haven’t even got a podcast!
But it was at that moment I had a thought…
Podcasts have been huge for a while, obviously. They’re easy to make and as you don’t need complicated kit and equipment to put something together it means that anybody can produce one. You have podcasts made by scientists, journalists, people who are experts in their field. Celebrities from the world of TV, film, music, comedy and sport are podcasting too; especially during the pandemic when they were an ideal way of connecting to the fans during the lockdown.
For every podcast by a Richard Herring, Louis Theroux, Adam Buxton or Professor Brian Cox, there are another hundred by people who want to share their thoughts on Doctor Who or Harry Potter, or brass rubbings. No subject is off limits and there’s no quality control. Unlike TV and radio, you don’t have to worry about viewing figures or listener numbers, the only person who can cancel you is yourself. You are your own showrunner. And whether you get three listeners or three million, it doesn’t matter. If you release a podcast, you can call yourself a podcaster.
When I found out today that I could link the blogs on our website to a podcast, I thought that I may as well tick something else off the list. Why not? And when I found out that the software converts our written blogs into audio… I was even more convinced that I should give it a go.
In what I am optimistically calling episode one, I will tell you a bit about what has been going on with me for the last few years and the reason why I created A Goldstitch Christmas in 2021. And, in this first episode, the voice you shall be hearing will not be mine; it will be the dulcet tones of the US version of me. The Steve Carrell to my Ricky Gervais.
So, with that in mind, welcome to The Goldstitch Podcast.
Back in 2018 I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. I’d had no symptoms to speak of, but after passing out for the second time in eight months one Saturday morning I was forced by my wife, Heather, to get checked out at hospital. After an ECG and a blood test I was sent home and told to see my GP the following week.
My appointment with the doctor didn’t go quite as I expected, his immediate concern as he asked me about what had happened was evident. The bloods that had been taken at the hospital had shown a worrying level of anaemia, haemaglobin levels being at half of what they should’ve been. He immediately arranged for a number of tests and scans. Something was obviously wrong.
Over the course of the next few weeks, I was poked and prodded, probed and scanned. I forged intimate relationships with medical professionals who inserted things into me without even buying me a drink first. After all of the indignity I endured with a room full of people watching as my bottom was being interfered with, I was then given the news that they had discovered a tumour in my bowel. If I had plans for the next few months, I was going to have to change them.
After first being diagnosed in the February, and further CT and MRI scans carried out in the weeks afterwards, surgery was booked for April. I was to have a laparoscopic right-sided hemi-colectomy. Essentially it meant that the section of my bowel, that was currently home to the tumour and the affected lymph nodes, was removed and the plumbing was then reconnected. The surgery went well, but we would have an anxious wait to see whether any further treatment would be required.
A few weeks later, after the bits that they’d removed had been analysed, it was decided that I’d need a few rounds of chemotherapy to mop up any rogue cells. Better to be safe than sorry.
Between June and September of that year I had four cycles of chemo, but luckily, I was able to ride it out with very little in the way of side effects. There was no sickness or hair loss, I just felt a little tired. And, if anything, I put weight on. I realised, and I was grateful, that I had been very lucky.
As I watched every match of the World Cup, and reveled in the conditions of the best summer that we’d had in years, I felt like a bit of a fraud. I knew that I had been lucky, and seeing how ill some of the others on the treatment wards were, I felt very fortunate indeed.
I thought that, rather than feeling sorry for myself, my time could be better spent trying to raise some money to donate to a couple of cancer charities, so I set up a Just Giving page as well as a World Cup sweepstake. Friends and family helped us to raise £400 in just a few weeks which we donated to Bowel Cancer UK and a charity called Help Harry Help Others which supports cancer sufferers in the Midlands.
When my last cycle of chemo had ended, and I was given the all clear, life went back to some sort of normality.
I would be lying if I said that there weren’t occasions when I dwell on things unnecessarily, I have a tendency to overthink at times and can be my own worst enemy. But, during this stage of my life I felt a sense of calm descend over me. Maybe it was that everything was out of my control? There was nothing that I could do to change the situation that I was in. I was relying on the medical expertise of the doctors and nurses, medical science and a whole lot of good fortune.
Apart from being a brave little soldier, which I’m really good at by the way, there was nothing more that I could do.
Over the course of the next couple of years I had blood tests, scans and colonoscopies as part of my screening. All was going well until 2021 when the results of a CT scan caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Lymph nodes around bowel were enlarged and investigations were needed to find out why.
There was a colonoscopy, another CT and then a PET-CT scan, all came back inconclusive. I’d been exposed to so much radiation over recent years that I was fairly certain that I would either turn into a superhero or grow another limb!
My recent blood test results had all seemed fine and I had no real symptoms of there being a problem so the last thing that could be done to get to the bottom of this lymph node conundrum was to take a biopsy, so surgery was booked for the end of August.
Within weeks of the biopsy being taken, the results were in. And the news wasn’t the best – the cancer had returned.
First time around, there was the initial feeling of shock and fear, with the weird feeling of peace that followed. This time, that odd sense of calm was almost immediate.
Since 2018, the spectre of the big C has sat in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to rear its ugly head. Mostly, I managed to keep it in the dark, getting on with life and moving on. But, I’d be lying to you if I said that I was able to ignore it completely. There’s a certain amount of paranoia that comes along with having been through cancer before; every twinge or pain gives you a momentary spike of anxiety.
After all the tests and scans and poking and probing, I had a feeling that I knew what the outcome would be. And I was more prepared for bad news, I suppose.
My oncologist appointment brought back memories of those days back in 2018, although, this time around everybody was wearing masks and all of the sympathy and empathy shown was in the eyebrows.
As the cancer had returned to the lymph nodes in my bowel it meant that surgery wasn’t an option, and as there was no tumour to shrink, chemotherapy wasn’t going to hit the spot either. A new treatment had become available to the NHS since the pandemic had begun though, medication that worked well with my type of cancer.
Immunotherapy works by stimulating the immune system to produce cancer fighting cells, helping the bodies healthy cells identify and attack cancer cells. It’s clever stuff. Every three weeks, for two years, I will have an infusion of the medication. And after that, the cell memory will do the job itself to a certain extent. Medical science is pretty impressive, don’t you think?
My thoughts turned to how we might be able to turn a crappy situation into a positive and, like last time, we decided to try and raise little bit of money.
As Christmas is my favourite time of year, my idea was to raise some cash and put together some food hampers and donate them to a local food bank. We set up a Just Giving page and created, A Goldstitch Christmas.
We called our fundraising, A Goldstitch Christmas, as it sounded like the title of a Hallmark Channel holiday film. And, as we all know, Hallmark Christmas films are some of the best and cheesiest Christmas films ever made. I thought that it was a catchy little name.
We had hoped to match what we raised in 2018, if we could. It would be a nice amount that would enable us to put together a decent shopping list that would help make Christmas a little easier for people needing a little support. We hear about the need for foodbanks in the press, but until I started to look at it more closely, I didn’t realise just how much people relied on them for help. And, I also didn’t realise just how many local organisations, charities and individuals play a role in providing that help too.
The fundraising went better than I ever could have hoped for and with the support of my family and friends, as well as a number of local companies we managed to raise more than £3000 in cash and donations.
We managed to buy thousands of items of food, chocolates, toys, games and books.
We put together 50 Christmas hampers, hundreds of selection boxes, chocolates and gift bags.
We took chocolates, toys, games and books into the children’s ward at the Royal Cornwall Hospital and a hamper full of festive goodies and fruit for the staff of the cancer treatment wards at the hospital too. And we were also able to donate some cash to a local charity that supports homeless people across Cornwall. The donations that we received from family and friends, and from local businesses, helped to reach out to hundreds of people. Hopefully bringing some much needed Christmas cheer to people, at what can be a difficult time of year.
To feel the love from all of the donations, support and messages that I received has helped me in many ways and I want to thank everybody for making a difficult year end on such a high note.
This year we hope to be able to do something similar and our fundraising will be starting again shortly. There are a few things that we are hoping to arrange in the near future, so don’t forget to follow us on social media for all of the latest news, which can also be found on the website – http://www.agoldstitchchristmas.com.
If you have found this post as a podcast, thanks for listening. Who knows what the future may bring, but if this suddenly goes viral, we may even go for an episode two. Mix up the content a little? This could be the start of a whole new career as an influencer. Tic Toc awaits! This could be my route to an appearance on Richard Osman’s House of Games too! Exciting times ahead!
But there are two things that I’ve already gained from this. Number one, I can say that I have released a podcast. And, two, I have always wondered what I would sound like with an American accent. Pretty smooth, if you ask me.