It's All Write

I've been asked a few times whether I'd turn this blog into a book and I'd dismissed this for a long while. The main reason for not wanting to share the whole story as it were is because I would be publishing information about people and places, some of whom would rather I not share it. 
Although there is of course mention in this blog about where I was treated and it's not difficult to work out by whom, some of my experience wasn't pleasant and I have no wish to raise issue with either the hospitals or the doctors.
Originally I wrote notes to record what was happening to me, the blog grew from that as I felt publishing it would highlight both the disease and the need for better treatment and research. At no point, despite failures with my care, did I want to pursue a complaint, it wouldn't have made me feel any better.
I suppose what's been hardest to do is to have had to search for information about kidney cancer, push for treatment options, even plead for results. This is why my blog has been so important to me and has obviously been read by so many others, there's a need to know more.
A few months ago I began reading back through my blog and going through my medical notes in order to find a way to put it all into a book format. There was only one way forward and that was to fictionalise my account, a story based on true events. No real names or places means that I can elaborate on what happened and produce a comprehensive story, leaving nothing out.
While writing the blog I've been careful not to mention some events as they're either too personal to me or else to someone involved in my treatment. By novelising this I can bring individual characters to life - just not name and shame. It's also a little easier to write about some of the things I found it hard to publicise, the gory details.
It's not all medical terminology and surgery scars, it has given me the opportunity to give a bit of my back story, the fashion business that came before and which inspired my blog title.
My book An Unfashionable Cancer is now well under way and will bear the same tag line;
'From running a fashion business to waking up with kidney cancer, a journey from fashion victim to cancer survivor'
I've a long way to go still as although the pages are already there I am having to rewrite every part, no easy task. My own story is still ongoing but I'm over the half way point now, three and a half years into that goal of five years cancer free. By putting the whole thing into print I hope I'll be able to close this chapter of my life and finally move on. Unfortunately though many others are only just waking up to kidney cancer so the need to raise awareness of this will continue.
If I can help kidney cancer awareness either through the blog or the book it'll be a story worth telling.