Me and My Shadow

Almost 50 years in the making, ‘Me and My Shadow – memoirs of a cancer survivor’ is my brutally honest account of cancer survivorship through the eyes of an adolescent. But also the viewpoint of a father of a daughter, diagnosed with terminal leukaemia.

The aim is to offer hope and inspiration to anyone in society touched by a cancer diagnosis. It is also intended as an educational resource for health care professionals, who, don’t always (unless they have been touched themselves by the illness) understand the psychological burden of a cancer diagnosis – a considerable load to carry.

But moreover, it was intended as a catharsis – to eliminate those demons that lay in the deep canyons of my mind. It failed to do that, and they remain firmly planted there. Fortunately, my wife is always at hand, and ready to top up my glass with optimism, and importantly pragmatism. In life, nothing is more important than family.

However, the publication is tinged with an element of sadness, as my father is no longer around to see the fruition of my life story. He would have been so proud – but his memory will live on forever, or at least, as long as I’m around.

Today, I am humbled to be one of the longest survivors of cancer in the UK.

Yet, having started my nurse training in 1989, I enjoyed a meteoric rise to the top. I  finished my career at South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust as head of the service for haematology, and, senior haematology clinical nurse specialist – the same hospital that made my cancer diagnosis decades earlier; a strange twist of fate. So, as I reluctantly retire from my post, I have to pay tribute to each and every individual, and their families that I have had the privilege of caring for during my time as a nurse.

Every day is a poignant reminder of how fortunate I am – as we know, only too well, that not everyone survives the most feared diagnosis known to society; cancer.

Even in retirement, and to stay active, I have added another string to my bow, that of being the author of children’s fiction. My first book, ‘Strange Trips and Weird Adventures’ will be followed (in just a few weeks) by ‘Blenkinsop Blabbermouth and the Ghost of Broderick McCaffery.’ Both my third, and fourth titles; ‘The Fastest Water Pistol in Splodge City,’ and ‘The Kingdom of the Huckleberry Kingdom’ are complete and waiting in the wings. My fifth book, ‘Lunar von Buella the Mystical Mouse from Missoula’ is a third of the way complete.

So, if you are intending to purchase a copy of ‘Me and My Shadow – memoirs of a cancer survivor,’ please take from it what you can – criticise where you feel justified. It is not a prescriptive guide on how to deal with a cancer diagnosis; no such prescription exists. It is simply my experience, my coping mechanisms, and my failures (and there are many).

Not only that, but it is, what the cancer experience has made me into today – without it, I may well have fallen into the abyss of emptiness, and self-destruction.

John Walker Pattison

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