WHAT IS THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RINGLETS?


In January 2015, following a routine check by my vigilant GP, I was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

As a Brit living in Sydney, Australia since 2008, I realised over the following days just how many of my friends and family were scattered across the globe and different timezones.

The Fellowship of the Ringlets was originally just a tremendous pun and the title of a closed Facebook group I created to keep those distant friends and family in the loop and worry-free.

But over 12 months, my little group somehow grew from 80 to 800+ and became a veritable band of brothers, a support team like no other and a true Fellowship in every sense of the word.

Their love, laughter and rallying cries have been the greatest tonic a little ringlet'd cancer-face like me could have wished for.

The following letters, musings, incoherent ramblings and occasional bouts of bad language are for them all.

Welcome to the Fellowship of the Ringlets.

VC x

Saturday 23 May 2015

* APPARENTLY I'M A PRAGMATIST. WHO KNEW?

Dear, Fellowship,

Some of you may recall a little (potentially chemo roid-rage-induced) reply I wrote a couple of weeks ago to an article that I read about the overwhelming fear around a potential cancer diagnosis - see below for the original piece and my initial reply.  

The author, Mia Freedman, was very gracious in her response to my somewhat scathing tone and kindly asked me to write a longer post for them from my perspective. I've been a bit busy wafting about in helicopters, climbing the Harbour Bridge, hanging with the fam and also getting totally schooled by this latest chemo drug (more of which I'll cover at a later date) but I finally got round to finishing the piece yesterday - see below!

Cabs are so 2014...

Just a quick post-chemo Harbour Bridge climb with my bro...

I would LOVE it if you could share, comment or just 'like' the article - it took me a while to write, I think it's an important conversation to keep having and I don't know if I've mentioned it but I'm having chemo so it's probably just safer not to mess with me right now. Plus you're part of the Fellowship, and there are unspoken rules and contractual obligations attached to your membership that you may have missed on the way in…sorry.
Oh yes, and I just got home to a letter from my good friend the Hon Peter Dutton MP (lovely lad), informing me that my application for Aussie citizenship has formally been approved, they cannot WAIT to embrace me as one of their own and I am a mere hand-shaking ceremony away from being able to say 'flaming galah' all day long, without hint of irony. I am officially more Aussie than Paul Hogan. 
Big and unexpectedly emotional day today but all happy tears - the family are now gone, but they gave me an unimaginable boost just by being here. So thank you to them for travelling so far to bring my two worlds together for a couple of weeks and thank you to you all for continuing to 'like' my nonsensical ramblings and cancer musings.
Now I'm off to drink a XXXX GOLD and check my article every 10 seconds for any sign of evil trolls - yikes!

Love,
VC x

Love this bloody town!! I'm almost an Aussie!


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