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Emma, 28th April 2011

I freewheeled down Box Hill once when I was a teenager. I had the whole of the Surrey Hills stretched out before me and I was planning to ride to the coast. Best-laid plans… About halfway down I hit a pothole, sailed over the handlebars and ended up in the ditch. My friends laughed when they realised I wasn’t badly hurt. I was unbelievably lucky. Of course, I wasn’t wearing a helmet, though I’ve given that talk to my fair share of students since I moved into training. Like they do, I thought I was immortal. Thank God for bushes. Branches broke rather than my neck.

Why am I back at Box Hill? That’s the closest I’ve ever come to what it felt like sitting in that office to hear the specialist’s verdict today on how the treatment was going – a sickening ride through the air with the prospect of a not-so-soft landing, when I thought I’d get to the coast. I’d seen my life as an eighty, or even ninety-mile ride; I’m in fact getting only twenty-nine, thirty if I hang on for a few more pain-filled months. It’s the shock of rearranging it all in my head that has really floored me. I can’t get a handle on it – I find it almost impossible to believe. This voice, this me, that’s been chatting away in my mind, will fall silent. I won’t exist.

I don’t ‘get’ death. Don’t even want to write the word. I’m still flailing in that tumble through the air, as my mind has not quite caught up with what’s happened since the pothole.

We are so bad at dealing with death as a society. I’ve been sick now for a while so I’ve got to see how most people cope. Many of my friends at work, and Michael’s colleagues too, go for all that clichéd angry stuff, telling me ‘don’t go gentle into that good night’; they like to quote Dylan Thomas when something so unfair happens, as if it helps, as if rage is a good choice. I don’t like poetry and this advice is not helping. To me that’s the fake bravery of the generals sending the squaddies over the top, safe in the bunker themselves. I’d settle right now for ‘don’t go so fucking scared and confused into your grave’ and some answers on how not to do that. This is not how I want it to happen. I want some comfort.

But you don’t get what you want. I’m hearing my poor mother now – also dead too young from this same serial killer. I’ve got some shitty genetic markers. If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. She was big on the homespun wisdom. I now appreciate that she made a better exit than I am managing, finding a kind of calm in the storm that I can’t – just can’t – reach.

Hearing the verdict in that sunny office, Michael gave a sob then gathered himself. He held my hand, stroking my wrist, trying to comfort, but what could he do? This is a journey I make alone. I floated in a not-really-there daze as Dr Jackson gave me the options of pain meds, support groups and leaflets, like she was a travel agent and I was a client going on some bloody holiday.

How do you get a grip on what is a death sentence? Don’t tell me we’re all living under one; mine’s come early, too early. I’m not done with life yet, only just started. I have all this regret and nowhere to direct it. I am so—

I am angry after all. Raging against my own dark.

That was last week. I sound like a harpy. I’d rip out the page but Michael told me not to. Warts and all, he says. I love you, warts and all. I don’t have warts, thank God, but what about bald and sick? That too – more than ever, he says.

I’ve been too pissed off to write anything since. I worry someone will read these notes after I’m gone, so I don’t want to show my worst side here. Let that go with me. I want the courageous one to be remembered. Laugh in the face of a foe I can’t beat. Metastasised Me. I can’t control the timing of my exit but I can influence my legacy.

You know what I did today? Of course you don’t, because you’re an imaginary audience in the future. I persuaded Michael to get a cat – a kitten, really. This house has felt so bleak recently that I wanted us all to have something to make us laugh. When Michael agreed – he’d do anything for me, my poor love – Biff swung into action and got one from the rescue home. Predictably, Katy loved it at once even though it sank its claws in – tiny, not really hurtful spikes, so it was OK. I found I could still feel light-hearted when I watched the two of them playing. Michael is yet to be convinced that introducing a cat into our lives is a good idea but I’m leaving him with such a burden, he needs something to lift him out of his depression. Something to live for. Colette can be it.