The House Guest

The past couple of weeks have been something of a blur for me, mostly revolving around a medical issue which I found out about on the publication day of my latest book, The Woman on the Beach. More on that later, and I’ll also be announcing the winner of a signed copy of The Orphanage by Lizzie Page. However, I thought I’d start with one of the highlights of the last fortnight, a visit from my daughter’s cat, Milo.

Originally, Sophie had asked if we could have her puppy, Baxter for the weekend while she went to the wedding of one of her old school friends in Gloucestershire. Having initially agreed, we had to change our minds as my operation date was brought forward by a week and Baxter is rather boisterous. Fortunately, Sophie managed to make other plans for him, and we were happy to have Milo to stay as he is very placid. As you can see from the photo, he really missed his mummy!!! I actually found it very comforting to have Milo to stroke having arrived home from hospital the previous evening.

Following the cataract surgery I had in May, my vision hadn’t improved as it should have, resulting in a whole host of different tests and expert opinions to try and find out what the problem was. It was eventually discovered, after an MRI scan of my brain, that I had a fairly sizeable growth on my pituitary gland which was pressing against my optic nerves and was most probably the cause of my visual impairment. Lots of people have micro adenomas which they are unaware of and cause them no problems, but once the growth becomes larger than a centimetre it is called a macro adenoma and can become troublesome. Mine couldn’t be shrunk with drugs leaving surgery as the only option.

I’m not going to lie, despite having quite a few medical problems over the years, this one freaked me out a bit. Maybe it was the thought of the neurosurgeon fiddling around inside my brain, although he did say at the outset, ‘If you’re going to have a brain tumour, this is definitely the best one to have!’ Given a choice, I would rather not have had one at all but at least I knew I was in the care of possibly the top specialist in this type of surgery in the country.

I kept looking at this plaque on the wall of my downstairs loo trying to feel the positivity that I normally do when faced with adversity, but I must admit I was struggling. It was only when I told a few friends what was going on, a couple of days before the operation that I finally accepted that I had no choice, and that my best chance of recovery was to have a positive mindset. In fact, a simple message from my long-time friend at QVC, Debbie Flint seemed to put things more into perspective. She said, ‘You are Tigger. You will bounce back better than ever, just as you always do.’ I’d been feeling more like Eeyore if truth be told but that seemed to flick a positivity switch and my ‘tiggerishnous’ (I think I may have invented a new word) has now returned.

I took another of the little motivational plaques from the wall of our downstairs loo to the hospital with me – I’ll bet him indoors never noticed it was gone! To cut a long story short, the operation went well, and the recovery so far has been easier than I’d been led to believe it might be. It’ll be a few weeks before I’m back up and running but thanks to the wonders of modern science the operation was a lot less invasive than it would have been a few years ago… I’m very lucky!

And people have been so kind. These gorgeous flowers were from my friend Jemma Forte, a fellow author and TV presenter. And these beautiful cheerful yellow roses were from Sally, my neighbour from a few doors down.

I love yellow it is such a happy colour, which is why I choose it for our new sofas that I meant to feature on my last blog but forgot… I guess I had rather a lot on my mind!

Throughout the seven weeks from discovery to surgery, the one positive thing I had to focus on was the response to The Woman on the Beach. She has now had more Amazon ratings/reviews than any of my previous books, reaching a nice round 700 exactly eight weeks after publication.

I thought I’d share the most recent reviews which really have helped put the smile back on my face. It may be a while until I start writing the next book, but comments like these have certainly given me the will to get back to it as soon as I feel ready.

So, having promised myself that this was going to be a short blog, I’ll eventually get to the bit you’re all most interested in… the competition winner. Unsurprisingly, everyone answered correctly that the name of the musical was Annie, but there can only be one randomly selected winner. Congratulations to Darryl Marley.

There is no Between the Lines on my next blog as we will still be in October, but there will be a giveaway which just might include a signed copy of The Woman on the Beach… watch this space.

Much love

Julia xx