LUMP

In the aftermath of another point of friction with her daughter, Pen takes a long hard look at herself and comes up with some uncomfortable conclusions about her attitude to conformity.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

"As time stretches out between me and the shock of those early diagnosis days, I’m spending more and more time with cancer as a back note, a gentle hum to my day. I cook, I write, I read, I see friends, we laugh, alot.  All of these things I do with a body that doesn’t work as well as it did and probably never will again. All of these things I do with a body which is significantly scarred and changed. It’s the physicality of cancer that will be my personal tinnitus.

But I am living with it, I am not defined by it. I am not cancer. And that discovery feels like a small triumph."

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

This was one of the hardest episodes for Pen to write and then read back. None of us likes to admit when we're being a bit of a dick but its only by being honest about ourselves, how we're feeling and perhaps our less appealing qualities, that we get to go to work on feeling a bit better. So here Pen wrestles with the notion that she's jealous, something she hates to admit.

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

One of the hardest things about cancer is that it rips away the sense of having choice over your life, you lose control. In this episode Pen wrestles back control by choosing to take a walk up the hill above the house in search of understanding as to why she still feels so angry at cancer for stealing choice from her. Powerful, insightful and inspiring, writing which takes you way beyond the subject of cancer and ploughs into the human condition.

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

A call from an old friend prompts Pen to mull over what we give of ourselves to others. Should she worry about how honest she's been in writing her blog (and by association in this podcast), should she be fearful of the message that being so brutally honest sends out?

"We want to be known.  And we do.  But we want to carefully curate what is known about us.  Look at facebook, twitter, in fact all social media and you get a distilled concentrate of how each and every participant wants to be known.  Facebook doesn’t paint a portrait so much as provide a series of self-styled snapshots, group them together and you get an outline of a figure but the detail is often missing.  I doubt I’m alone in diving into the profiles and newsfeeds of both relative strangers and long lost acquaintances to see how they want to be known..."

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

After making her exit from 25 years at the BBC, Pen ruminates on what on earth she'll say if she's asked "what do you do?". We're so hung up on labelling each other and ourselves but what label do you choose as an ex-BBC ex-Radio producing ex-cycling cancer warrior?

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Time to leave the BBC and push 25 years of her life to one side, but leaving a workplace during lockdown over zoom is distinctly weird...

"It feels ever so slightly like attending my own wake.  People say lovely, generous, heartfelt things which make me squirm with embarrassment.  I’m deeply suspicious I tell them, people always say nice things after someone dies, always sing their praises, this has the distinct whiff of being buried alive, tomorrow you’ll be slagging me off something rotten I laugh at them, you’ll be having an o-bitch-uary!  I talk too much, soak up as much time as possible in a bid to stop them saying how much I’ll be missed.  Finally at the end of the third zoom meeting we say a last farewell and each person leaves the meeting one by one switching off their camera..."

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

E-bike at the ready, Pen contemplates the significance of getting back in the saddle and the cycling alongside David once more. For some reason the associated fear and anxiety prompts memories of a terrifying moment from years earlier...

"We flew down the hill in pairs, spreading out, a distance opening up between myself at the back and the front group where David was, I was further up the hill, laughing and shouting, not looking when it happened.  The first I knew of David’s hitting the car was the realisation that everything had stopped up ahead, time seem to have frozen, then the shout from Simon, one of the other cyclists, to call an ambulance..."

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Like loads of other people facing the fallout from cancer, Pen has taken some radical decisions about her career, but as the time to leave the BBC draws closer, she contemplates all the years she's spent there, half her life, with mixed emotions...

"even though I know this story is finished, there’s that curious thing that happens with a great book or adventure.  Part of you wants to hurtle to the end and throw yourself at the empty space beyond, the other part of you wants to drag your feet, take time to savour all the best bits, delight in the pleasures the book has afforded you, put off thatinevitable moment when you turn the page and there’s nothing there, a blank sheet then maybe an acknowledgement or two.

I’ve been experiencing both of these things.  Both of these things laced over with fear, pure, undiluted, gulp down the bile, fear."

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Pen finds a new way of getting active again but she's torn up with the notion that she might be somehow cheating...

"Tears pour down my face as David drives us to the shop.  I should be excited, elated and a small quiet corner of me is but right now, right at this very second, I’m broken hearted about what this trip and this purchase represents."

Searingly honest, heart-breaking, often sweary and laugh out loud funny, LUMP is one woman’s rollercoaster ride through the mind meltdown which comes with learning you have breast cancer. 

Utterly human and compelling, it’s a unique story which will resonate with anyone and everyone who’s ever had a battle with a life changing event in their lives.

Read more here

Written and narrated by Pennie Latin-Stuart

Lump is produced in Scotland by Adventurous Audio and sponsored by The Head Gardener

It was recorded by the legends who are Dave and Johnny at The Music Shed Recording Studios

Special thanks to Incredible Feet for their inspiration and belief in the importance of LUMP and for constantly reminding us that while every cancer journey is unique, we never need to run it alone.

You'll find the written version of this episode here.