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Yet before I was diagnosed with cancer myself I remember making just the sort of stupid remarks to afflicted friends that Hutton helpfully suggests are best avoided, such as ‘Cancer is a word not a sentence’; ‘“Look on it as a gift” (What did you get for Christmas?)’; ‘Is it terminal?’; ‘“It’s not surprising. You’ve always had such stressful jobs/relationships/life experiences” (Delete as appropriate)’; ‘“I know how you’re feeling” (You don’t)’; and, perhaps most irritatingly of all, ‘“I know everything’s going to be fine”(You don’t)’.
The great strength of this anthology is that it gives clear and supremely practical guidance to the family and friends of PWC (People with Cancer), who long to do something to help but don’t know how to go about it. Hutton, herself a health writer who had previously been proud of being ‘the healthiest woman on the block’, had to learn to set aside her ‘super-competent, I-can-handle-it-myself-thank-you-very-much persona’ and say, ‘Well, do you think you could pos- sibly …?’
The examples include listening (rather than advising), presenting yourself as the housework/laundry/garden/chauffeur fairy, becoming a clinic companion, planning treats, setting up a supper rota (Hutton was soon blessed with 18 ‘Colander Girls’ who took it in turns to cook her family’s evening meal in north London), and dealing with paperwork, such as grants, sick pay, etc.
Having been a sceptic about ‘alternative’ medicine (‘a short step away from believing in little green men from Mars’), Hutton discovered that things look very different from the other side of a Stage IV cancer diagnosis. Her discussion and analysis of the alternatives to the conventional medical orthodoxy (nicknamed ‘slash, poison and burn’ by extreme homeos) is intelligent and instructive, though she is wary of clinics ‘that showed much more interest in the expiry date on my credit card than in extending any possibly expiry date of my own’.
Sadly, Deborah Hutton died earlier this month, aged 49. Her royalties from the book are going to Macmillan Cancer Relief. Every one of the millions who live with or around one of Britain’s 270,000 new cancer patients each year should buy it and thereby learn the truth of the declaration by Maggie Keswick Jencks, inspirational founder of the Maggie’s Centres, ‘All that matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying.’
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