A personal story – from Alto F3 (Row F/Seat 3)
This week I sang in the spring concert Gloria! with the Leicester Bach Choir for the first time in two years – this is my story of why this is significant and what this means to my journey back to health.
The positive benefits on mental health and emotional well-being derived from singing in a choir are well documented – however, a personal story can bring context and colour to demonstrate the reality of a lived experience – so I hope you won’t mind me sharing with you with a short account of my own personal experience.
I last sang with the LBC in July 2023 in the and Choir and Cello and Meditations Summer Concert and even hosted the brilliant Matthew Sharp, our amazing cellist, prior to the evening performance. Little was I to know that it would be nearly two years before I sang with the choir again. In October 2023 I was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent significant surgery in December, which successfully removed the tumour. What followed was in intensive period of chemo and radio therapy which increasingly took impact on my body throughout 2024. By July 2024 life was very difficult and I had virtually become a hermit, just living day to day and waiting for the horrid side effects of the treatment to pass. Feeling continuously rotten and limiting contact with people to avoid the possibility of infection felt like lockdown all over again – but this time with more misery increased levels of pain – and it was just me!
One major impact of cancer treatment is the effect the whole experience has on your mental and emotional well being. My physical issues were dealt with very well by an amazing team of people at the hospital, but working through the mental aspects and getting myself ‘back out there’ has required a different level of support – and this is where the LBC has been a vital part of my recovery. Throughout 2024, during my lowest moments, various members of the choir would check up on me, send me flowers and jigsaws and come and have a chat. I managed to see a couple of dress rehearsals, though eventually even this became more than I could manage. I kept contact with the choir, albeit from a distance, continuing to produce the programme and run some of the social media. This gave me something to do, which I could manage at my own pace.
My treatment left me drained and the whole experience battered my confidence, for example, I lost all my hair as a result of the chemo and even though it’s slowly returning I don’t look the same as I used to – most people who haven’t seen me for a year don’t even recognise me. Having people ignore you because they don’t know who you are is very disarming and my whole sense of personal identity has been rocked. I’m not a person who generally lacks confidence, I do a lot of public speaking in my day to day work, but after those very dark months the prospect of attending even a rehearsal – walking into a room of 50 people – was overly daunting. Luckily my fellow altos somehow understood this and, when I was ready to return in January, they took me under their wing and fluttered round me like mother hens, making sure that I was looked after and protected, literally sitting round me, flanking me from every side. It would have been so easy to stay at home and live life at a distance – but they weren’t going to let me get away with that!
People in the LBC have welcomed me back and I have learned to be in community again. Everyone has been lovely and gradually people have wandered up to me, told me how glad they are to see me back, made gentle, tentative enquiries about what’s happened to me – it’s been amazing to discover how many people have noticed and care enough to show compassion – it’s like coming back to the security of a warm and loving family, where you are welcome and accepted, even if you have no hair, your concentration levels are lacking and you can’t quite follow all the music.
Throughout the 4 months of rehearsal I have regained a lot of my confidence. Performing in the LBC Spring concert this year has been a vital part of my recuperation and I am so grateful to the whole community of the choir who have made me feel safe, welcomed, supported and valued.
It is impossible to overestimate the immense positive impact that this has had on my mental and emotional well being – thank you to everyone, and, if you are reading this and feel like you could benefit from an experience like mine then I strongly encourage you to seek out and join a choir – you won’t regret it!