When Glasgow author Gillian Shirreffs was diagnosed with breast cancer, she used the power of words to navigate her experience. She talks 800 transformative days and the life lessons she’s taken with her 

My new book, Elephant, is the story of a writer diagnosed with breast cancer.  

It charts 800 days. 800 days in which I graduated with a doctorate in creative writing, found a lump, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, had 22 infusions of chemotherapy, two surgeries, 15 sessions of radiotherapy, learned to live with the aftermath of treatment, and saw my novel Brodie published.  

Elephant is not the book I expected to write, and it’s not the book my publisher expected to publish. He thought I was beavering away on a novel called The Accidental Immortals; a dual timeline story of three women who become accidentally immortal in the late 1600s. 

But a different book wouldn’t leave me alone. A book about mortality. My own mortality. 

I’ve been writing about illness for the last 18 years. It started as the result of an extended period of bedrest. I’d just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and was ordered to bed, having lost the feeling from my toes to my chest. I wrote short stories and poetry to pass the time.  

When I was finally able to venture back out into the world, the feeling having returned to my body, I made an unwelcome discovery. People were no longer at ease around me.  

I seemed to make them feel uncomfortable. I didn’t even need to speak to do so – my mere presence was all that was required. 

My initial reaction was to feel shame, which I couldn’t understand. I’d done nothing wrong, so it didn’t make sense to feel this way. But I did. 

My next reaction was to write. I wrote stories in which I would give a character a neurological illness to see what would happen to them and the people around them; a sort of working out. It was also my way of trying to connect. To normalise illness. To cry out into the void that it can happen to any of us.  

It’s therefore not surprising that 14 years later when I found a lump and was told there was ‘something’ in my right breast that shouldn’t be there, my response, once again, was to write.  

I wrote my way through diagnosis, treatment and the aftermath of treatment. Sometimes longer pieces trying to make sense of the situation, but more often just short bursts of words. Reaching out to friends, family, clinicians, and to anyone who might notice me waving as I bobbed along on the sea of social media. 

As I wrote the emails, text messages and tweets that appear in Elephant, I didn’t expect they would one day form a book – but no matter how hard I tried to apply my mind to fiction, the story that is Elephant refused to leave me alone. It demanded my attention until I finally succumbed.  

My life is now settling back into the rhythm of a fiction writer. I’m researching a new novel, which means I mainly have my nose stuck in historical texts about the International Exhibition of 1888 and the life and times of Victorian Glaswegians.  

In addition, I’m working with patient advocates, clinicians and charities to try to ensure careful and kind care for all. I hope that Elephant is a useful resource in this important effort.  

I’m also keen to remember the lessons those 800 days taught me. For instance, I’m mortal. This might seem like the sort of thing I should have known already, but before I was diagnosed, I only knew it in the abstract, not in my very bones. My diagnosis brought the reality of life and death into sharp focus, which reminds me to appreciate each new day.  

I discovered that walking is great medicine. Whenever things got a bit much for me during treatment, I’d go for a walk. I walked every evening, no matter the weather. It helped me to sleep and made me feel more in control. It’s something I continue to this day.  

I also learned that support is out there. I received amazing help from friends, family, neighbours and Beatson Cancer Charity, a charity based at my local cancer hospital. Amongst other things, they provided a telephone befriender who phoned me every week, a lovely blond bob of a wig and a six-week Fear of Recurrence course, which I found invaluable. I now know that if ever I need support to cope with the aftermath of treatment or a new health challenge, all I need to do is ask.  

Elephant is out now