Today as part of my research thinking I decided to read through my 'offline private journal' which charts my cancer story in a way that includes things unsuitable for public consumption (such as lots of photos) - at ~45,000 words, it is not a quick read.  It's interesting to note that for the most part it is factual, at least after I'd got over the initial shock, but that it does chart quite honestly the times of greatest fear and some survival stats I'd forgotten about (being slightly worse than the ones that live in my head!).  It also notes the desire to undertake the research I'm now doing.

I then decided to copy the relevant blog posts since my diagnosis into a Word file so that I could re-read and electronically access them more easily.  Perhaps I should say, I started to do that - as it is painstaking work sifting through the archives and copying the posts in (roughly) chronological sequence.  So far I have copied six months worth (the most prolific period I think) and it runs to around 25,000 words.  It was quite interesting to note peaks and troughs in posting along the way.  To be fair, once I get to the end of the 'active treatment' dates the blog posts will thin out dramatically, and I will depend more on the private journal, but I expect that, between blog and journal, I have scribbled (typed) more than 100,000 words related to that part of my life.  That's pretty verbose!

As far as the research itself is going, tomorrow I will close the survey, but in the responses I have received there is plenty of good material with which to work, and I can see a fairly substantial (for which read 'lots of words') paper or two emerging.

First ripe tomato of the season now ready to harvest from my window cill (sill).  Given the way the plants are still growing, I have renamed it a triffid-berry.

Not quite sure why it has a big black splodge at the base, but it is good to have one ripe fruit anyway... and a lot more on the way.

Thank you B for the plantlings from which these triffids resulted!

Holly, "what DO you mean, I'm sitting on your research notes?  This block of paper is just the correct size for me to sit on... and I DID stop walking across the laptop keyboard..."

No, not rest and relaxation, reading and research!

This morning I have begun analysing some of the qualitative information garnered as part of my research... the total number of respondents is copable (phew) and around half of them fit the 'brief' and/or have completed most or all questions.  Just from the demographics and descriptions of conditions people have, there are enough follow-up questions/avenues for someone else to do some really useful work.  Not really sure I will have the time to do justice to what I have gathered, but definitely at least one and possibly more, useful papers waiting to be written once I've played with all the data.  It is hard to explain how happy this makes me - it is a sign that I have pretty much emerged from chemo-brain (still some memory and concentration issues, but much less) and that overall I am around 90% back to where I was BC.  Just enjoying thinking and mulling and spotting links and patterns... things I used to take for granted and now cannot.  That's good news.  For me, anyway.

And reading novels.  The Cleaner of Chartres by Sally Vickers was recommended by Jim Gordon and by someone at church who had followed Jim's suggestion. It is a gentle and easy read, feel good without mush, and enough of a plot to maintain interest... and no overly tidy ending.  As Jim said in his post 'just read it'.  I am currently two-thirds of the way through Born Under a Million Shadows by Andrea Busfield a book that popped up in my Amazon recommendations because of other purchases.  It is a, thus far, gentle story of life in contemporary Afghanistan from the perspective of a muslim boy whose mother keeps house for a collective of westerners.  Thoughtful, and easy to read, like the better known works in this genre it gives a glimspe into another 'worldview' and so opens the way to reflecting on our own.  Next up will be Kate Atkinson's Life After Life, which sounds intriguing and explores questions that I think a lot of us sometimes ask!  Of course, having the concentration to sit and read is no longer a given, so I am delighting in the opportunity my sabbatical gives me to indulge my love of fiction AND to strengthen my concentration 'mucsles'. 

This week I am starting to analyse the answers to my questionnaire on ministers with life-changing medical diagnoses, and will close the online survey at the end of the week.  If you are a minister (or know one) and would like to completed it, please feel free.  I have permission from both BUGB and BUS to conduct this project.  If online is problematic, feel free to print it off and complete longhand and I can let you have a land address on request.

Baptist type ministers can complete it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8BPSDRV

Non-Baptist type ministers here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7JLT7B3

It's the same survey, just want to be able to identify the Baptists!!

Just as I was settling down to being looking at the demographic information - really interesting in its own right - I heard the 'thud' of something large being posted through my door... a UK-wide piece of research exploring patient's experiences of autolgous breast reconstructions after radiotherapy.  Via a set of tick boxes, and a large, if not vast, survey pool, two people are investigating this.  So, I set my research aside for an hour or so, ticked a lot of boxes, added a few comments where the boxes didn't quite tally with my experience and stuffed it back into a (pre-paid) envelope to send off.  Glad to be be able to help, if only by adding some honest-and-positive input to the melting pot!