Working on The Cancer Club has been a much more challenging experience than I expected. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I had been speaking at a business event and had talked about my journey with breast cancer. A woman approached me during the break and told me that she was really envious of my ability to talk about it. She told me that she was also journeying with breast cancer but had told only one close friend. She hadn't told her family because 'they would freak out' and she had never confided in anyone at her place of work. She said that she was surprised to hear her colleagues commenting on my bravery when I had been so honest about my fear.

I decided shortly after that, that I would publish my journals in an attempt to get people talking about the realities of some of the life challenging situations many of us will experience at some point in our lives. People consider me to be brave, gutsy, a fighter, and I certainly couldn't be accused of taking breast cancer lying down. However, I have to admit that this has been one of the hardest and most painful chapters of my life. There is no right way to 'do' breast cancer, just like there's no right way to 'do' anything much. There are times I feel that I'm penalised because I do, where possible, try to get on with it. I do try to carry on with my life as much as possible. In the end though, you create a situation where people forget that you are struggling with the effects of drugs, with the emotional impacts of the surgery, the treatment and the uncertainty. Life continues to hand you more challenges, and the proverbial shit still happens.

For the past fifteen years I've worked as a coach and a facilitator of leadership development in the corporate arena. I see a lot of problems, and a lot of pain, caused by poor and inadequate communication. I've really come to believe that the quality of communication in our lives has a major positive or negative impact on us. I cannot tell you how frustrating I found some of the platitudes that flew around me when I was in the very early days of being diagnosed. There were times when you would have been forgiven for thinking I had a broken toe-nail. I truly do understand that people mean well. I honestly do. But not being heard at such a challenging time is extremely difficult.

I am brave and I am strong. But I am human and vulnerable and have been frightened and challenged by some of the events of the past four years. It's not as if I hadn't already dealt with a number of challenging events in my life.