Welcome to 'On Coping'.

A survival guide to living on the sidelines of cancer.

“Tell the story of the mountain you climbed. Your words could become a page in someone else's survival guide.” - Morgan Harper Nichols

Tell the story…

Stories are humankind’s greatest survival tool.

Learning of disasters encountered and dangers averted has kept our species, our communities and our offspring alive for millennia.

Or maybe the act of sharing is in itself inoculating, preventative, strengthening. Perhaps a problem shared is a problem halved. A pain spoken of a burden less heavy.

But the hearing of triumph and tragedy, the empathy of experiencing someone else’s pain or pleasure, is at the very least useful preparation for our own inevitable joy and despair.

Stories keep us alive by connecting us to living world, to each other.

I know because I spent 20 years surrounded by them: as the Artistic Director of Paines Plough, my purpose was to find, create and share powerful live narratives. Yes, to entertain. But more than that; to help us all better navigate this thing we call life.

Then five years ago, everything changed.

I quit being a director, quit being an Artistic Director and quit making theatre altogether. And so faced a terrifying question:

If I wasn’t George Perrin, Director then who was I?

What happened next was this:

• Soul-searching, failed experiments and unfailing support from my wife.

• A stint as a TV/Film Development Exec, a false-start in Podcast Drama & the slow build of a professional Coaching practice.

• A lot more time spent at home with my wife and children.

• The pandemic: too much time spent at home with my wife and children.

• Moving house to live near the sea and the arrival of a long-promised family dog.

Finally, three years later, I arrived at an answer to my question. Who am I?

I am someone who collaborates with other people to help them be their best selves.

As a Director, an Artistic Director, a dad, a husband, a friend and now a Coach, I’m always doing that self same thing.

And with this simple but hard-won realisation, I finally felt able to move on from one career, one version of life and embrace a new chapter with a sense of continuity, clarity and courage.

Wouldn’t that be a neat end to the story.

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…of the mountain you climbed…

Two years ago, shortly after we moved house, whilst flourishing in her new leadership role at work and embracing life by the sea, my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

She was 42.

Since then, she’s had 16 rounds of chemo, high dose radiotherapy and liver surgery. But none of it has worked. She still has tumours in her bowel, liver and lungs. And they are growing. Fast.

The NHS has deemed her inoperable and incurable.

In search of alternative treatments, our friend Emma started a gofundme campaign to help meet the high costs of non-toxic therapies abroad. Many people have donated a lot of money which has beed used to support my wife to spend a month at a clinic in Mexico and cover the costs of self-administering those treatments now at home.

In addition, she has started on two further chemotherapy drugs, one of which is being paid for privately through the fund.

Through it all, she has been unspeakably positive and brave.

And we have been overwhelmed by the response of our family, friends, colleagues, community, neighbours and complete strangers who have given us love, support, time, food, flowers and money to help us continue to climb this mountain.

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…your words…

People ask ‘how are you?’.

They care about us. They love us. They are feeling pain. They are worried. They are sad. They are angry. They express disbelief at what is happening to my wife. They say what we’re coping with is unimaginable.

And they’re absolutely right. It is worrying, sad, enraging; it is unbelievable, it is unimaginable. In fact, it is nothing other than what it is. And we are doing nothing more and nothing less than coping as best we can.

But whilst I struggle to vocalise a response to the question ‘how are you?’, I am discovering I can write one.

You see, I’ve never been a talker. That’s why, despite starting out as a budding actor, I became a Director. It’s why I love my Coaching work; silence is 90% of the job description. But I have come to realise that whilst I may not enjoy speaking, I do have things to say. Experiences to share. Stories to tell.

And not just tell; but be heard. Because I write not to release; but to communicate. And that takes two.

So I arrange these words, my words, in an attempt to capture for you how I am and what it is like to cope with the unimaginable.

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…could become a page in someone else’s survival guide.

It bears repeating: stories are humankind’s greatest survival tool.

So, with this in mind, I offer you this story to help you imagine the unimaginable, so that perhaps someday, hopefully never, but possibly if you find yourself somewhere similar then maybe - just maybe - you’re a little more prepared than I was.

Another act of collaboration with other people, if you like, with readers now, to help them be their best selves in the worst circumstances.

A somewhat scrappy collage of memories, moments and messages from the sidelines of coping with cancer, the most I hope for these missives is that they form a page in your survival guide.

And as a consequence that my story, our story, this story, shared here, becomes less burdensome for me as it becomes more useful to you.

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Here is where the story begins.

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