Laurie White’s Blog

Sooooo.

I’ve found I have a lot to say about a lot of things and Charlie has had enough of having to listen to me rant. So let’s scream into the void instead and post here.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what my experience of being a woman in teach over the last almost 50 years has been and thought I’d start with that, but no. I have far more immediate ranting to do.

A pretty, pretty princess has cancer. Poor thing.

And I do mean to express some sympathy. But she’s acting like she’s the first one and what’s most important is her space and time and privacy.

Ummm, no.

There is a price to be paid for marrying into royalty and part of that is giving up a whole bunch of privacy. I went to a couple of markets this week and no one took well-planned “candid” videos of me there, since I married a figurative prince, not a literal one.

You could be saving lots and lots of people. You could be helping to stop demonizing cancer and getting others who suffer from it (yeah, sorry girl, you’re not the only one) to be honest and enabling their friends to help them.

I was at breakfast with friends shortly after my diagnosis (that I shared the night I got it). They were wonderful and supportive and part of what made my treatment and recovery much better than it could have been. One of them was amazed at the reaction I got. She’d had cancer years before but told no one. No wonder she didn’t benefit from their support. (Sad/happy coda: she ended up with cancer again shortly after me, but we were all there for her this time.)

Give up some privacy, save some lives? Seems like a fair trade to me. Actually, it seems like I’d be coming out on top. But then, Lady Godiva has always been my favorite historic Briton.