The Magick of My Little Black Book

I don’t recall the day I found out I had cancer, I think the trauma was so intense that I blanked out, lost all memory. It’s amazing what you experience, when you discover you have an inoperable walnut sized tumor growing in your brain.

I do recall waking up in the hospital disoriented, confused with an extraordinarily sore head, my hand jutting up to gently rub the shaved scalp where they had to go in and do the biopsy.

Terrified and confused, is what I was.

The hospital room was cold and had the specific smell of a hospital. Saline tanging the air, strange bells going off, people moaning in beds next to me, and me wondering why I was there and why was part of my head aching.

What a relief it was to have my husband's hand resting on my arm to calm me, the weight of his hands on my forearms. I looked over to him and pushed out a weak smile, to which he asked me “how are you doing baby?” Serious concern plastered over his face.

“I don’t know” I slurred out, my speech not being as crisp as it should. He gave me a small smile and I saw him reach down and pull out a little sparkly bag, the childside in me woke up and a grin attempted to break across my face (a struggle due to my muscles not yet working well).

I gasped with delight at the Black Moleskine book I had found within. I had always dreamed of being a writer, and now it seemed like I had a story to tell.

He watched me closely as I smelt the book, rubbing my hands slowly over it. And this is the moment I realized, I was really sick. I could see it in his eyes.

I had CNS Lymphoma with an inoperable brain tumor growing within me… and yet this Moleskine book brought me joy.

Dreams of being a writer had always been with me, since childhood, yet I had always felt a touch of imposter syndrome, feeling I never had a story to tell. But as I lay there in the hospital, an IV in my arm, chemicals pumping through my veins, every 2 weeks over 3 months in the summer of 2019, I realized this was part of my story.

I was going to write. I had to write. Writing would help me heal.

1.5 months into chemo, feeling ill and exhausted, terrified I may not make it, and yet willing myself to heal. We inherited $20,000.

With this beautiful gift, I decided I would find myself a writing coach and, as the fates would have it found her within a week.

Writing a book while going through intensive Chemo for a brain tumor is a true challenge. But nearly everyday, I would take out my Moleskine book, carefully lay it open in front of me (often on the table attached to my hospital bed) and write.

I wrote (and doodled) about everything… the hallucinations I’d had post-biopsy, about my neighbors in the room with me, the stories of the nurses lives and about my pathway to healing.

The inheritance and the Moleskine book brought me the strength to not only finish my first novel but to heal through writing.

4 month after diagnosis, my tumor had disappeared, and 1 year post chemo the tumor was still gone and my first book was finished and 3 month after that I had a publishing offer.

My experience taught me that bad things can and do happen to good people, and it’s all how you handle it. But more importantly it taught me the power of writing/journaling/doodling. The gift of expressing yourself on paper.

I was writer! Thanks to my inheritance and Moleskine book.

(The above is based on true events).