Get Booked – Laura Price, Single Bald Female 241022

Welcome to another episode of Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station with your host Hazel Butterfield. I absolutely absolutely love doing this show. Get Booked is all about talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books related, and all the joy, enlightenment, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. On today's show, we're going to be talking to the author, journalist, podcaster and foodie Laura Price about her debut novel Single Bald Female. The book was released on the 14th of April of this year in hardcover and on Kindle, and the paperback's going to be released next year on the 19th of January. Single bald female Jessica Jackson has hit all the milestones for turning 30.: the career, the loving boyfriend, and a cosy London flat they share with their cat. But a shock diagnosis of breast cancer turns Jess's world upside down, and her contented life implodes with it. Around her, her friends' lives continue to follow the script, with the big white weddings and the baby scans. And with her own future so uncertain, the only thing Jess is sure of is that she's been left behind. In the midst of it all, she meets Annabelle, an enigmatic 27-year-old with incurable cancer. But while Annabelle may not have long left, she understands much more about living than anyone Jess has ever met, and she's determined to show Jess how to make every day count. And well, aside from bawling my way through it, I absolutely loved it. A work of fiction inspired by the author's real experience of being diagnosed at the way too young age of 29 with breast cancer. The camaraderie of chemo club, navigating other people's uncomfortableness, how it changes your life plan, how you look at life, and how your friends become a circle of those who are ill or may probably die soon. It would be trite to say life-affirming, but in a world where we're too busy to focus on the now, Single Bold Female helps us place the present more prominently, while, dare I say, schools us entertainingly on being less annoying to our friends with cancer. Please do go and check out Laura at lauraprice.com. The aim here at Get Booked is is to open discussions and offer support via the incredible writing community out there. And come and join us, get involved. And if you want to catch up on previous shows, you can at womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked and on our SoundCloud. You can also check out the latest books I've been reading at hazelbutterfield.com. Right, it is time to welcome Laura to the show. I'm so happy to have you on the show and discuss not only the book, Single Bold Female, and so much more. Being a huge book fan yourself and a foodie— such a great combo in my eyes— let's kick off with you. At the beginning, I described you as an author, journalist, podcaster, and a foodie, but there is so much more. You obviously like to keep busy, Laura. Oh, I really do. I'm, I'm, I'm exceptionally busy, especially also reading all those books. Like, reading takes a lot of time, and I really love it, but you I was just always trying to get through a massive pile of books. Yeah, the, the TBRs. But do you, like myself, do you sit there reading the books and saying, this is work, I have to do this, this is not me just having time off? I do a little bit, yeah. I also really enjoy it, and I do, I do, I have taught myself to speed read if I'm not enjoying a book. Yes, I've done something vaguely similar as well, because occasionally you kind of know you need to read something but it's not always as much of a page-turner. Yeah. As you thought it may be. And slightly off-air, I was saying that, you know, I quite often have to do a lot of traipsing around for football with my kids, and although I whinge about it, it means that I get to sit in a car for a couple of hours at a time and just read. And I quite like it. Yeah. I have to say, my top tip is Audible speeding up the play of a of a book, because if you're, if you're not enjoying it, I will put mine to 1.5 speed and then just, or sometimes I'll even go higher than that and you've just got the, the read, the narrator just going blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub. But I can still say that I've read that book. Do you ever feel that sometimes it has an effect on your, how you're chatting and you end up talking a little bit at a higher tempo? I don't think so, because usually when I'm listening to an audiobook, it's when I'm spending loads of time by myself, so I don't, I don't then start speaking after it, really. I did, um, I did a show recently with Judy May Murphy, who is a poet, and we were talking about how she embarked on reading all the classics since the first day of lockdown just to get through it. And even if she just read a page a day. And I've never read, uh, Pride and Prejudice. I said, I really feel like I should do it, being, you know, a book fan. And she said, yeah, cool, but get it on Audible and speed it up. Yeah, I like that. There's so many different ways that you can get into books, whether, you know, I think especially in lockdown there's been a lot more people going back to reading because they had the time and realized the mental health benefits and also just the escape and how much better your brain feels for spending an hour reading instead of Candy Crush. Oh, for sure. Yeah, and instead of Instagram. Yes, because Instagram makes us feel so much better about ourselves. So let's jump straight in with Single Bold Female. Um, congratulations, it's absolutely fantastic. A bit of a reminder to all of our listeners that it was released in hardcover and Kindle 14th of April, and it's coming out in paperback on the 19th of January of next year. Uh, fantastic book, it's getting some really good reviews. You must be so happy. Yeah, it's had amazing reviews. I, I was, um, as a debut author, I told myself at the beginning that I was not going to read any reviews because I think I saw some stuff on Goodreads where you can see reviews before it comes out, and I was like, oh, I don't think I can handle that. Like, I would— you would— there would be a review where someone said loads of good things, but they might have said one little bad thing, and then, um, or one little minor criticism, and I'd be like, oh, I don't know. And that would make me think about it. So I said, I'm not going to read any reviews. And then my partner was reading them for me, and he would tell me when there was a good one, and he would read it out or screenshot it for me. And after a while, I was like, Do you know what? All the reviews are good, so I'm okay. I can read them. So now I actually do go on and look at the reviews, but sort of with caution and when I'm feeling okay that day. I wouldn't do it when I was feeling particularly fragile. Yeah, it's about understanding our mindset in that present moment. I think we're such bizarre creatures because we can have 100 people saying nice things to us and then one person says something rubbish or not as positive and we, we're crushed. Absolutely. Yeah. The, it's like the weighting of criticism is so much heavier than the weighting of positive feedback. Um, but I heard, I think it was Dolly Alderton said years ago that if you are feeling down on yourself or you've read a bad review of your own book or a criticism of your own work, go to the page online of a book that you really, really love, or an author you really, really love, and, and have a look through their reviews and read a 1-star review of their book that you would give 5 stars, and you'll see that it's just such a subjective thing, and nobody ever gets fully 5 stars from everyone, and there's no single book in the world that everyone loves. Well, that's because we're all, we're all different. Um, that's such a great tip. I remember I wrote a blog post once about why it bothers us so much when someone says something negative to us, because it's, it's incredibly easy to just be nice, but it takes a lot more effort to go out of your way to say something negative to somebody. And I think that's why it affects us, because somebody's gone out of their way to do it. Yeah, I suppose so. But then in the world of reviews, and when you're putting a product out in the world, you're inviting feedback, both good and bad, because you're trying to help other people decide whether they like that book or whether they like that slow cooker or whatever. So when you put yourself out there in the world with either a blog or music or a book or a TV show or whatever it is you're doing in the public eye, unfortunately you invite that criticism and feedback on yourself, on your person. And we do tend to take these things personally, even though my book is not— a criticism of my book is not necessarily a criticism of me as a person, but you can't help taking it that way because our work is so creative and so personal. But, um, yeah, unfortunately it's what comes with doing a public product. And also I think especially when it's a debut, because So you get to a stage— I've spoken to authors when they're like 4th, 5th book in and they're just, it's like water off a duck's back. They've kind of honed their talent and their technique and they're just so used to it. And also if you get to the stage where you're releasing 4 or 5 books, you're like, "Mm, enough people like it, I'm good." Yeah, it really depends on the person. So I think, you know, some people can be 10 books in, 20 books in, and they still really feel wounded by criticism. So I think it just depends. I don't have a thick skin, unfortunately. I have a thick skin depending on the minutes of the day. Hmm. It really can change. Um, but yeah, sometimes— I mean, this is the power of affirmations, which I used to think a couple of years ago was very woo-woo, but you know, we need to speak more positive— positively to ourselves, and it can rewire our brains and what we're capable of and capable of receiving. But yeah, and so Single Bald Female, it is inspired by your real life, but not based on your life. Exactly. Yeah. So it's about a woman called Jess who is a magazine journalist. She's 31. She's in a very happy relationship, living in a flat with the cat, with her partner Johnny. And she basically breaks up with Johnny and gets diagnosed with breast cancer at the same time., and it's about what happens after that. It's about the experience she has, the friends, the new friends she makes along the way, how it changes the way she feels about work, the way she feels about herself, her confidence. Um, she's also grieving the loss of her mother, and it's about, um, there's a storyline about baking and how she used to bake with her mother and how she's kind of given up baking. So it's really about this whole experience that she, she goes through after this double whammy of breakup and breast cancer. And I did— when you said that she split up with her partner, I remember reading that book, reading that part of the book, and I was just thinking, that's such a bold move. And I found it really inspiring and actually quite uplifting that she had the strength to not just go 'Oh, I've got to face something. I need somebody by my side,' regardless of whether it's the right or wrong relationship. I found that really empowering. Yeah, well, I think— I mean, I don't want to give too many spoilers away as to what happens with that relationship as well, but I think that in real life, being— going through something like cancer, you either want to be in a really, really good relationship or you want to be on your own. There is nothing worse than going through something awful like cancer or whatever it may be in the wrong relationship, because then you've got— I'm going to say again, the double whammy of the burden of this bad relationship as well as what you're going through with cancer treatment. So yeah, that would be my advice to anyone diagnosed with a very serious illness, would be if you think you're in the wrong relationship, try and go it alone instead. You need your energy for yourself rather than dealing with Somebody Else. Now, um, this Single Ball Female is— it's bittersweet, and it's got, it's got quite a few comedic elements regardless of, of the topic. Um, and obviously it is fictional, but there's certain scenarios that possibly that you went through that, that inspired certain elements of Single Ball Female. Um, there's And I found so, so much of it really powerful in that, I guess, you come across people in Chemo Club and they're such fast-moving relationships, aren't they? Because you just understand each other and the whole, the whole friendship is kind of sped up because there's a living in the now kind of element to it. Yeah. So I think one of the main The main thing I see in reviews and in people who give me positive feedback about the book is that they really love the friendship that starts between Jess and someone she meets in the hospital called Annabelle. I don't want to say too much about that relationship, but they're two people who've got breast cancer. And in Jess's normal life, she's got her friends who are all kind of settling down and getting married and having kids and smashing it in their careers. And Jess feels like her life has stalled and she's kind of been left behind. And she meets this friend in the hospital who just gets it. And when you have such a major life transition like that, you need someone else who understands you. And, you know, you find your relationships and friendships changing as you change. So, yeah. And also, just to explain the inspiration in my life. So I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 29 years old, 10 years ago. I went through all the cancer treatment, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery, hormone treatment. And then 10 years later, just this summer just gone, I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer, which is when it spreads and becomes incurable. So I have run the full gamut of cancer treatment and I'm very much in it at the moment. But I wrote this book in the interim period when I was well and when I was cancer-free. And, um, I just wanted to reflect some of the stuff that, um, that you might go through. And the humor, as you mentioned, is really important because I, I don't think anyone really wants to read a book where it makes you cry from start to finish. You know, we need, we need humor to pepper these very difficult, um, storylines about cancer and about grief and about relationship breakdowns. Um, so I tried to do that as much as possible, but it's not my life, it's It's inspired by my life because I kind of used the cancer diagnosis and the cancer treatment as sort of a basis to form this storyline and create these characters like Jess and Annabelle, who are very much fictional. Yeah, I think it's a great way, though, to get points across to people in a fictional way with a bit of lighthearted— well, not lightheartedness, that's the wrong word— more a bit of comedy. It helps people to digest information while still getting some really important points across about, you know, how to be there for somebody, a family member or a friend who has cancer. There's a lot of information in there. I tell you something though, this is— do you know when you keep tabs open on your iPad about things that you want to remember to go back to? And I have various ones open at the moment and Do you know when you spent— you said before that Jess felt that her life had been a little bit stalled and Annabel went through a process of taking her, spending a day doing all these incredible things just to show, you know, you're alive, live it and have some great times. I've got these tabs open to go to the Ropewalk on Maltby Street and to go to all these different places. And like, you know, I do outdoor swimming and I've never once done the one up in Hampstead Heath. And I've got all these tabs open to remind me that actually that's a list I'd quite like to tick off. Oh, that's so lovely that things that happen in my book would inspire you to do them in real life. Like, yeah, I mean, that is ultimately what the book is all about. It's about living your life and following your dreams now instead of in some distant future that may never come. It's about enjoying what you've got, not thinking too much about the future. Um, these are all things that we talk about, you know, YOLO, you only live once. It's quite difficult in reality to live every day as if it's your last. And I don't recommend that because you would run out of money. But, and we've all got lives to lead and kids to bring up and jobs to do and all of that money to earn. But it is just about being conscious of, of the now and of what you've got instead of what you've not got. And thinking, thinking about the positives in life. And, you know, if you want to go for a swim in Hamstead Ponds, then there's no time like the present. I mean, we're recording this in October, so it will be quite chilly, but people do it all year round, and it— there's no better feeling than jumping into that freezing cold water. Oh, I don't know. I mean, I go to a fantastic open water swimming place out in southwest London, and there's no better feeling than jumping in when it's a little bit warmer. Yeah, that's true. With your— with your cozy on as opposed to your wetsuit. Which one do you go to? I go to Shepperton Open Water Swim. Oh yeah, I love it. Yeah, there's no motorized vehicles allowed on there, so it's so clean. You have all these ducks and swans and geese kind of swimming along the side of you, and there's, you know, a good 100 people doing it at the same time, and it's stunning. I need to do that. I've been to Thorpe Lake, um, but I haven't been to Shepperton Lake. Yeah, I swam in Thorpe Lake, and I can definitely say that Shepperton is much, much better. I did a triathlon at Thorpe Lake, and I was glad that I didn't have the time to think about— it's, it's not the cleanest, it's not the cleanest one around. And Shepperton, you just get spoiled because it's beautiful. Oh wow, okay, good tip. Yeah, I'll send you a link later. Uh, so, um, yeah, Thinkable Female listeners, you need to go and pop onto lauraprice.com and go and buy it. Buy it, go and get the hard— because you know what, you, you gave me the hardcover, uh, last week, and actually because of the COVID it looks quite like a coffee table book. You must be so happy with the design of it. It just looks fantastic being left out for everybody to see. Yeah, I love the COVID of the hardback. The, um, the paperback is actually coming out in January with a different cover, so it's yellow and it's just got Single Board Female and a smaller image on it. So if anyone does want to get the hardback beautiful, um, woman in the blue wig, then get it now because soon it will be gone. And, um, yeah, once, once it's gone, it's gone. Buy the book, buy the book, buy, buy both the hardback and the paperback for true, for true fans of Single Bold Female. Yes, because, you know, maybe the paperback will fit better in your bag, you know, you can just kind of interchange. Yeah, you see what I did there? Um, yes, so because of your your diagnosis 10 years ago, you started dealing with an organization called Copper Feel. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah. So Copper Feel is a breast cancer education charity, and it was founded by a woman called Chris Hallinger, who was 23 when she was diagnosed with stage 4 incurable breast cancer. And she decided to set up this charity because she didn't know she could get breast cancer when she was 23., and so she figured lots of other young women wouldn't know either, or young men too, because they can get breast cancer too. Um, so she set up this charity to go to schools and workplaces and festivals and educate younger people about not only the signs and symptoms of breast cancer but also just getting to know your bodies in general. And the name comes from Copping a Feel, which they recommend you do every so often, every month or so, um, and they do a amazing text reminder service that you can sign up for for free on their website. And yeah, it's just about having a feel of your body, of your boobs, your pecs, your armpits, your collarbone, chest area every month and getting to know what it normally feels like so that if there is one day something untoward that feels unusual, you will know to get it checked out. And that doesn't mean that that thing is necessarily breast cancer, but Um, it's just good to get it checked out and just good to know and have that empowerment of knowing your body. As we say, knowledge is power. Um, and I think what's important is we run around like headless chickens and we can mean to do something, and unfortunately, months later, we can still not have got around to doing something that could have taken us less than 60 seconds, and we just keep on burying our head in the sand. And, and I think it's a good reminder for all our listeners that these are sort of things that you can do while you're waiting for the microwave to ping because you're reheating last night's dinner, you know, it's a minute, or you're waiting for the shower to warm up. There are really simple, easy times that you can just engage what's what's going on in Copperfeel, but also a bit of a reminder that it needs to be done regularly enough that you don't suddenly get alarmed if the first— well, the second time you do it, your breasts feel more firm because maybe your time of the month. Things do change on a monthly basis, so it needs to make sure that there's variety in there as to when you are checking. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And just as a reminder to all of our listeners, they can pop onto copperfeel.com copafell.org, that's C-O-P-A-F-E-L, and find out more. I love the idea of kind of text reminders as well because we do, we just forget. I mean, I can walk into a room and forget why I went in there. I know, all the time. Yeah, I've just been recording an episode for my podcast about food and menopause before we got on the phone to each other today. So I've been talking about all the menopausal symptoms that you get and, you know, being forgetful is one of them. I'm sure that also just comes with motherhood and age and everything else. But, but yeah, I think it's good to have a text reminder. It is. I mean, there are so many people who aren't mothers or aren't menopausal that are forgetting stuff because we're pumping too much into our brains and we're wondering why it's not retaining everything. Yeah, that's true. They were just all over the place. And now I love it how you kind of did a little segue there, because I do want to talk about life and food with Laura Price. Aha. Mm-hmm. I think food is so incredibly important, and not just because of the nostalgia it can bring on, but also the right food can make us feel good about ourselves. It can contribute to our health. There are certain foods that, you know, Help Our Brains, which I'm sure came up in your, in your podcast as well. Tell us a little bit more about why you started this podcast. Well, so after my first breast cancer diagnosis, so before I was working in financial journalism and afterwards I got a job writing about restaurants and chefs and their lives. And I was traveling all over the world and meeting these incredible chefs and interviewing them and finding out their amazing stories about how they created these incredible restaurants that became some of the best restaurants in the world. And I would interview them and I would write up an article of maybe 1,000 words, 800 words, and I would just have to leave out so many quotes and so many amazing things that they said. And I was like, if only I could have a place where I could have the full conversation broadcast or written down so that people could just hear hear everything that they said to me. So, um, and I wanted to have a podcast for years because I'm a big fan of podcasts. Um, and I decided a few years ago actually that I would create this podcast that would, um, I didn't have the name Life and Food at the time. It's called Life and Food with Laura Price. But I did decide on the concept years ago, and it was that each episode I would interview a different guest about food plus one other thing. So I've had Food and Cancer with Chris Hallinger from Copperfield. I've had Food and Grief with Clover Stroud, who wrote a wonderful book about, um, her grief after the death of her sister from breast cancer. I did Food and Love with Dominique Crenn, the chef. Food and Friendship with Nicki May, who is the author of a wonderful book called Wahala, um, about some British Nigerian girlfriends who really enjoy their food and they meet over various meals and whatnot. And in the new season, I've got, um, I have Food and Roots with Charmaine Wilkerson, who is the author of an amazing book called Black Cake, which is on Barack Obama's 2022 summer reading list. So I've got these brilliant guests, and we— and they just come on and we talk. It's not, um, super technical. They just come on and talk about their own food memories from growing up. They talk about how they feel about food, how food makes them feel, and then they talk about food in relation to the thing that talking about. So, so friendship or family or love or menopause or whatever else. And it, um, it's just a joy really for me to, for me to produce. I love that. I, I did read, uh, a book that might interest you. I actually read it maybe about 10 years ago, um, it was by a chef called Roland Meunier, and he was the chef at the White House for like 20 years or something. And it was all to do with how certain food brought people together. If there was somebody coming from Lithuania, then they'd make sure that there was a nod to Lithuania and how you'd incorporate it all together and how food is not— it's very rarely just a meal that you shoved on the table. You know, when you really think about it and you're thinking about everybody and you're thinking about the health elements and how certain presidents, when they're unwell, it was his job to make sure that they had certain foods to make sure that they were at their optimum. Or when the first wives wanted to incorporate something for their children or their staff, you know, it just, it incorporated everything. And just the finite detail they would go to make sure that they welcomed people. And food is about welcoming people and making them feel feel good about themselves, or, you know, we quite often make food to please somebody else. There's so many different elements to it. Yeah, food is about bringing people together ultimately, and in, you know, recent years and decades we've gone away from that a bit more. You know, we have such busy lives now and we sometimes eat at our desk, or we sometimes eat in front of the television. Uh, we might let kids go off to a different room to eat and watch their television while we watch some television, whereas actually when you bring everyone back around the it just, you know, fosters connection and talking, and you might find out something that you didn't know that happened in your child's day or your partner's day or your friend's day that it's really important for them to talk about, but they don't feel they can talk to you about in front of the TV. So whilst I do eat in front of the TV and I do eat on the go, I also try to make sure that I make more and more time for eating around the table where you can have those discussions with phones off, telly off, radio off, Alexa off. See, we in our family, interestingly, we, we do always sit around the table for all of our meals. They're not allowed to eat, you know, there's like crisps and chocolate and snacks and stuff in their bedrooms, but it's very, very rare. Um, it's proper meals are at the table, and Monday to Thursday you know, we'll put on an episode of Family Guy, but we'll, we'll chat about it at the same— it's the most inappropriate program for me to watch with my children, but it's brilliant. And we have a good old giggle and we talk about things and, and we thoroughly enjoy it, but we're doing it at the table together. If for some reason we're not eating at the table, they're asking why. It is just something that we have always done and will continue to do for as long as— what about breakfast? Do you manage to eat that together? Uh, we leave at different times, so I tend— yeah, because my My oldest son, he likes to walk to school, whereas the other one likes to catch a bus, so we all get up at different times. So no breakfast. On the weekend, 100%. And it's a case of, if you want a bacon sandwich, you're getting up and you're sitting at the table. If you're happy with cereal and making it yourself, then please feel free to get up whenever you feel like it. But yeah, if there's a meal and we're there, we all eat together. Oh, well, that's great. Well done, you. Yeah, I mean, obviously there is the aforementioned inappropriate Family Guy, but we love it and we've got a very poor sense of humor. I think whatever brings you together, you know, it's just— these things are so important. Well, it is, but Laura, have you ever watched Family Guy? I have, but not for a long time, so I don't remember. I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but yeah, I think I know. It's terrible. It's very funny though, but it starts conversations. It's definitely a conversation starter. Uh, um, so I'm interested to know, have you read similar books to Single Bald Female? No, and that's partly why I wanted to write it, because there are lots of books about— there are lots of memoirs about people who have had breast cancer or cancer experiences, and there are lots of memoirs about women in their 20s and 30s who feel they're going— falling behind their friends. Um, there are novels about older women with cancer or even children with cancer, but I, I don't think that there are any novels about a young woman experiencing breast cancer and dating and the friendship issues all at the same time. So it kind of brings together all those things, and I really felt that it was a unique angle to go from. And it was actually inspired by a blog post that I wrote for the Huffington Post about dating after cancer and the difficulties of whether you tell the truth on your dating profile, whether you, you know, put the pictures of you with the long hair before cancer, or whether you go for the bald head and the wig and tell the truth. And it was a blog post that I wrote about that that went viral for the Huffington Post that made me think, oh, I think there's interest in this subject and people want to know about dating through illness or after illness, and it's something that I can make into quite a funny, funny-sad, um, work of fiction. So that's what I did. I think dating is a hot topic anyway, especially when there's so many disingenuous elements to it. But being able to be, um, real and less shallow from the off just means that you weed out the dross straight off. You must saved loads of time. Yeah, I mean, and that was a long time ago that I actually did that, um, but I would recommend it to anyone to sort of just be a bit more truthful, a bit more honest on, on, well, both on social media and on dating apps, I think. Yeah, can you imagine? I mean, I've done dating apps in the past. I normally manage them 3 days at a time because I just despised them. I'd rather just take my dog to a really nice park and get chatting to somebody. Um, well, that's the advantage of having a dog, you see. I didn't have a dog. Oh no, and you didn't think of taking the cat out on a lead? Mind you, that would probably attract the wrong kind of people, wouldn't it? Yeah, but, uh, yeah, wow. Yeah, the dating element I did find really funny and quite enlightening, and again, it served as a reminder that I do not want to go back onto dating apps. But yeah, if I ever did, I would just put— I'd probably just completely go on there with no expectations and just be as honest as you like. You know, I'm OCD, scared of spiders, uh, can be a little bit prickly in the kitchen, please don't touch my work surfaces, blah blah blah blah, and just go and go all out. Okay, now if it's okay with you, I'd like to talk a little bit about your current diagnosis and help people to understand a little bit more about the concept of secondary cancer. Yeah, absolutely. So, well, so I was diagnosed with secondary breast cancer, which is also known as metastatic breast cancer or stage 4 breast cancer or incurable breast cancer. We don't tend to call it terminal cancer anymore. Terminal now tends to mean that you have been given about 6 months to live. So fortunately, that's not the case for me, and I'm trying to avoid that term, though I do know people who are a bit older, um, still tend to use that term a little bit. Um, what does it mean? So in my case, it's when the cancer has spread from the breast to another part of the body, which in my case is the bones. So even though we say I've got breast cancer, I don't have cancer in my breast. Breasts, if that makes sense. So it's in the bones, um, and once it leaves the breast and goes somewhere else, that means it's incurable. Because basically you can treat it, you can have drugs that will, um, reduce the size of the tumor and keep your symptoms and side effects away for as long as possible, but eventually it will come back and it spreads to other places. So for me at the moment, uh, we are hoping very much that it's limited to one tiny area of my body in the sternum bone, and that we can control spread for as long as possible. Hopefully it'll be years and years and years and years and years. Hopefully it'll be decades. We just don't know. And I'm not asking about that side of things, but I know that my team are very, very optimistic. And, you know, it's great that we've, we've caught it. So it's a tricky one because it's essentially— we tend to think of cancer as a short-term thing where people have treatment like chemotherapy, they lose their hair, and then the treatment is done and they— the hair grows back and it's all over and you call yourself a cancer survivor. But with secondary cancer, it's not like that. You are actually living with cancer. You are in society. You might have chemo, but you might not. And so if you're not having chemo, then you look how you looked before and you probably act like you look— you act before. You might even feel like you felt before. But you have this massive, massive emotional weight that is the knowledge that you've got this incurable cancer status. Yes. So, and that affects everything in your life, really. It affects making plans for the future, and, um, it's just your mental health on a day-to-day basis, really. So, um, yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a ridiculous thing to say, but that niggling worry that you, you constantly have. And, and I suppose what treatment you have is dependent on how your body responds, and everybody is completely different. Yeah, and for me it's not even so much a worry anymore. It's like the worst has happened. So in between having my primary breast cancer diagnosis in 2012 and 2022 when I was re-diagnosed, I worried— not all the time, but I worried that my cancer was going to come back someday. And now that the cancer is actually back, it's like that, that worry has gone because I know the has happened. I know it's gonna— I know it's gonna spread at some point and get worse and worse, and, um, I can't do anything about that, and I will worry about that. But at the same time, it's acceptance that I've got this now and that I just have to adapt my life and figure out what I'm gonna do next and figure out how I'm going to deal with it and how everyone around me is going to deal with it. And yeah, but life goes on, you know. We— I'm not dying. I just have to figure out how to live my life with this knowledge that I, I have this horrible, horrible disease. I think we've discussed this in the past, haven't we, how sometimes you spend quite a bit of your time, um, placating other people and making sure they feel okay with your diagnosis. Um, and it can take up quite a bit of energy. But I like having conversations like this to to help, to educate people and to help people understand a little bit more. Sometimes people are scared to ask about somebody's diagnosis in case they're going to spark certain feelings or say the wrong thing. And I think generally people want to understand and they want to know more. It's just how they get that information. Yeah. And that, that depends so much on the person. Some people won't want to talk about it at all, and that's okay. I think the best thing to do if you've got a friend who has a cancer diagnosis is ask, is ask them. 'How do you want me to be with you? Do you want me to just act like nothing's wrong and just as normal unless you bring it up, or do you want me to— do you want to talk about it every time we meet up?' And just check in with them every so often and say, you know, 'Has it changed? Do you want me to— do you want to talk about it now, or do you still not want to talk about it?' And go from there. For me, what I don't want is people going behind my back and asking other people about it, or I mean, it's fine for people to Google things because I don't want people to necessarily be asking me stuff all the time that's going to be draining on me. But I want them to ask how I am. And if they say, look, I don't really understand this thing, can you tell me a bit more about it? Then I might either tell them more about it, or I might say, look, this is a place that you can go to, to look it up. Don't just go to Dr. Google. Go to, you know, the Macmillan website or Breast Cancer Now website, which are really useful resources. And there's a bunch podcasts as well that you can listen to. Um, and yeah, I think for me, I find it quite hard when people— I do want them to ask me, but sometimes it's people I don't know that well, or sometimes it's worse with the people I do know that well that I just don't feel comfortable talking about it. So I write about it instead. So I actually have a newsletter, which is basically the same as a. It's on Substack, so it's just lauraprice.substack.com. And I've written on there about what's happening with my cancer diagnosis, what it means, what treatment I, I'm on, what that treatment does, how it shuts down my ovaries, what side effects that gives me, when my next scan is, and all those sorts of things so that people aren't necessarily asking me the same questions all the time. And if someone says, look, I really don't understand your treatment and what's happening, I can just direct them to that and they can read it. And, and people tend to find that quite interesting. So for me, that's easier than just talking about it. And if in doubt, and people just don't know what to say and they don't necessarily feel comfortable sparking the conversation, the main thing for them to do is to buy the book, right? Yeah. I mean, this book, I, I would know what I want them to buy the book because because that helps support me as an author and to write future books. But that's not a guidebook on breast cancer. So if they want, in the terms of that, I would say go to my newsletter or I can provide further resources. But I think the main thing to do if you've got a friend and you really don't know what to do or say is send them a text or call them and just say, how are you today? That 'how are you today' is important because 'how are you' is such a nebulous question. Yeah. That has so many answers. And a lot of the time if someone says, 'Are you okay?' you just burst out into tears. Um, so, and you can say, 'Is there anything that I can do for you?' And for me it's practical things that are really helpful. Um, you know, it might be helping with food or it might be helping with something else that's going on in your life. Um, personal admin. Yeah, personal admin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And to be fair though, although you said, you know, it's not a guide, there is so much relatable stories and information in Single Bald Female that actually I would find it useful if I had a friend who said, my friend's just been diagnosed with breast cancer or any kind of cancer, um, I'm just wondering what place I'm supposed to take in her friendship group. I'd say read the book, it gives you some nice kind of relatable scenarios where hopefully it can just help you navigate a best way through. Good. Okay. Well, I'm really pleased to hear that it's got— had that effect on you. And also, I also want people to know this book is not just a book about breast cancer, and it's not just a book for people who have cancer or know someone with cancer. It's actually a book for any woman. And one of my favorite quotes, um, that someone, another author, kindly wrote about it was from Lauren Bravo, where she said, you know, whatever you're going through, whether you're you're going on your friend's hen do, or you're dipping your foot into the world of dating, or whatever, this is the book for you. And that made me feel like that was my objective, was that it was a book for any woman in her 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, doesn't really matter. Um, I think people will hopefully enjoy it regardless of what's going on in terms of cancer. Yeah, you smashed it out the park. So what's next? What's the next book? Oh, um, so I am, I am writing a second novel at the moment, and I would also I'd like to write a memoir at some point. So I'm working on those things alongside creating the podcast and writing newsletters and going to hospital appointments, all of which is very, very time-consuming. But, um, yeah, hopefully at some point— if people want to follow me on Instagram, probably is the best place. I'm @laurapricewrites. That will probably be the first place that I will post about it if I if I'm bringing a second book out. So, but yeah, just give me time, basically. No, we want it now. Um, right. And something that I like to ask all of my guests here on Get Booked are, um, the first one I'm going to ask you is for somebody who you admire in the public eye. The reason that I ask this question is because we're so consumed with looking at social media, and it's not always the best accounts that we're looking at that kind of uplift us or give us accurate or even interesting information. It's, you know, Love Island and whatnot, um, which is totally fine to be a Love Island fan, but is there someone out there in the public eye that you just think, do you know what, I love seeing what you post, it always makes me feel good about myself, or it's inspirational, or even knowledgeable? Oh, that's so tricky. Um, yeah, I actually mentioned this on another one, so a couple of people actually. So first is Chris Hallinger, who, um, is on Instagram at How to Glitter a Turd, and she's also got an amazing memoir called Glittering a Turd, and she now has a podcast called Glittering a Turd too. She is the person that I mentioned before who founded Copperphill, and she has, um, stage 4 cancer, and she doesn't do anything for the likes, or she doesn't do anything contrived. She is just herself, and she's just an incredibly, um, wonderful, warm, funny, hilariously funny, um, with a dark sense of humor cancer person, and she just tells it— she just tells it like it is. She's got a blog on Patreon which you, um, which you have to subscribe to, um, it's paid, but it supports her with her various cancer treatments that can be very, very costly, uh, like holistic alternative, um, therapies. I'm talking about outside of what she receives on the NHS, um. And the second person is actually a friend of Chris's, which is Dawn O'Porter. The author who's brilliant, funny, funny author, but she, her social media is so real and so funny and she doesn't do anything thinking I need to look amazing on this. She just takes the selfie, but she also posts about charitable causes. She posts about world disasters, like she properly uses her platform to help people, I think. But she's also incredibly funny and she also shares the cat videos and, and all the rest. I've read quite a few of Donna Watters book, and they're really good as well. Yeah, they're brilliant, they're absolutely brilliant. They get you thinking, get you giggling at the same time. Yeah, a great combination. Um, and something else I'd like to ask as well is the 3 top tips on trying to get a good level of mental well-being. Um, get more sleep. So a lot of us don't do that. Eat well. So I think what we eat really, really truly affects how we feel, both mentally and physically. And nourishing our bodies is also about nourishing the mind. So it's not, not being cruel to yourself about what you're eating, not be— not feeling guilty, not beating yourself up, just having a balanced diet and just trying to eat well wherever possible, eat as well as possible. Um, and then just also just being kind to yourself and allowing yourself to feel whatever feelings you're feeling. So at the moment, I cry all the time, and we apologize about crying. You know, when I— the GP asked me if I was okay yesterday, and I burst out crying on him, and I said, oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to, didn't intend to cry. And I do still apologize for crying, but we, we needn't feel bad. We needn't make ourselves feel bad for crying and feeling feelings because it's just part of who we are as humans and what we need to go through. And, you know, historically we've tried to stop ourselves from crying in public places, and we've said it's not okay to cry at work and it's not okay to cry at school or whatever, but actually those prohibiting, stopping someone from crying is what contributes to us bottling things up, and it's what contributes to ill mental health and suicide and all of these things. So, you know, that would be my main piece of advice, would just be allow yourself to feel whatever you're feeling and don't feel bad about it. I think that they're absolutely excellent. I mean, I completely burst into tears last night at the final episode of Lucifer, which is, you know, I mean And it's not supposed to be that emotional, but I must say the final episode was absolutely— I was like, ridiculous. But I think sometimes we just need a release. Sometimes, you know, a dodgy episode of The Simpsons can make us pop and just go with it. Let it happen. Can you imagine if we didn't have emotions? Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's when we don't have to let ourselves feel emotions that it gets dangerous. You know, there are certain industries and there are certain places where it's still not okay to cry. And those often turn out to be the industries where, you know, there are higher suicide rates and there are higher rates of depression and, and things like that. So yeah, the more open we can be, the better. Well, um, that's fantastic and a great way to end the show. Uh, thank you so much, Laura, for joining us here on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. And all you listeners, go and buy the book, buy the book. If you can pop on to laura-price.com, although if you type it into Google, you come up everywhere. You're all over the place. Yay, that's the goal. It is, it is. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us. And when you do write the second and third book, please do come back on the show. I will do. Thank you so much, Hazel. It's been an absolute joy. And thanks for helping me promote the, the cause as well and talk about breast cancer and how important To know our bodies. To know our bodies indeed. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. Bye-bye. Laura has very kindly done a reading of Single Bald Female for us. A little bit of warning, there is swearing in it, but it's totally worth it. Enjoy. So I'm just going to read a section from the book which is just after the main character Jess has been diagnosed with cancer, and she's going through the motions of telling her friends, which is the most difficult part. I press the button to accept the call from Lauren. Jess! Oh my God, it's the fucking florist! Hmm? They've messed up the flowers again, and now Lola's have said it's going to take an extra 2 months to make the bridesmaids' dresses in marshmallow. Lauren, I— I open the cupboard and take down my favourite mug, the one so big Dad joked I could have a bath in it. Look, I know it's not necessarily what you'd pick for yourself, 'Self.' I can hear her voice trembling, on the verge of tears. 'It's just really important to me that we go with the marshmallow, Lauren.' I fill the kettle and drop a tea bag into the mug, remembering the way Mum would always put the milk in first. 'Jess, I didn't understand how stressful organising a wedding was going to be. It's just so—' She's crying now, sniffling into the phone. 'Lauren, I need to tell you something.' The comforting crackle and hiss of the kettle. 'Please don't argue with me, 'Yes, it's my wedding. You only get married once, at least I hope.' Lauren: 'Jess, let me speak.' 'No, let me speak. Fuck's sake, Lauren, I've got cancer.' Silence for once. In fact, it's quite possibly the first time Lauren has been speechless since the day that #SheSaidYes. A split second later, there is wailing, sobbing, almost cartoonish. I feel like I'm outside my body, unable to react to her I wait for her to finish, to calm herself down. "Are you sure?" she says, finally composing herself. "Could there have been a mistake with the results?" "I don't think so, I—" "Could you get a second opinion? It's not a mix-up." I hear a snotty sniffle, followed by the uncontrollable sob of a distraught child. "But you're so young! You can't have cancer!" "I know." "So soon after your mum!" "I know." It's just not— it's not— it's not fair. There are sharp intakes of breath between each part of the sentence as she begins to hyperventilate. I know. I need her to see that I'm going to be fine. I'm going to be fine, but I just don't know how to console her. Please don't cry. I'm not going to die. And then there is a wail, a painful wolf-like cry that goes right through me. Maybe die Wasn't the right choice of word. "Hey, hey, hey," I say, every "hey" an effort to stop her tears. "They said they've caught it. It's possible to treat it. It's gonna be fine." "Did they—" she fights back the sobs— "Did they say you're gonna lose your hair?" "I think so." "You're gonna be bald?" Britney again, that heartbreaking front-page image of her looking doe-eyed with her hair half on, half off, off like a crazed clown. "I guess. For my— for my wedding?" I'm about to have chemo to save my life right after the guy I love cheated on me, and she's worried about her wedding. "Jess, I'm sure we can find a wig in Marshmallow if that's what you're worried about." And then we're both laughing, Lauren making hysterical hiccuping belly laughs mixed with sniffles of snot. Even though she sometimes says the most ridiculous things, I can I can feel how much he loves me through the phone, my stupid blubbering emotional wreck of a best mate. Get your ass over here, I say, when I can just about speak again. I'll bring gin, she says. That was a reading from Single Bald Female by today's guest Laura Price. You can go and find out more at laura-price.com. Coming up in the next few weeks, we have the incredible Thomas Siroto, who's going to be talking to us about the book he's been working on, Lady Sapiens, finding out about prehistoric women and their place in society. Then on the following week, we have regular guest on the show, Dr. Tony Ortega, who has released his latest book entitled Enlightened as hell. That's definitely gonna be a very funny show, definitely not one to miss. A quick reminder, you can pop on to hazelbutterfield.com to find out about the latest books that I've been reading, and pop on to the little SoundCloud icon at the top, and all my previous Get Booked shows are on there. Get Booked is all about talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books-related, and all all the joy, enlightenment, inspiration, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. I'm Hazel Butterfield, your host of Get Booked, and thank you so much for listening.