Once Upon a Time, I had a brain tumour

And survived!

Hi everyone. I am launching my new documentary film production website SCATTERFLIX.

For two reasons. I am celebrating one year since my Acoustic Neuroma brain tumour was diagnosed, and operated on in September 2019. I survived with very little damage. I am extremely lucky as this is not always the case.

I am also scattered over four different countries - France, UK, Canada and China - and wanted a site to reflect who I am. So, saying that, I’m now scattering film ideas through my DIY, low-budget, mixed-media documentary filmmaking workshops.

This time last year I found out I had a brain tumour

May 19th was hot. I skipped along Hong Kong Middle Road in Qingdao to a meeting with Dr Grace at the Qilu Hospital. (I had no idea what was waiting for me.) I felt incredibly happy. May is a wonderful month. Qingdao has a coastal microclimate, reminiscent of my home in the Cathar country, the south of France. Dry, whipped with magnificent wildflowers from May through till late summer, a profusion of scents at once familiar, then quite foreign. It is an uncluttered, breezy, wide-open city with a mix of ultra-modern and turn-of-the-century buildings created by the Germans, then added to by the Japanese who, during the Sino-Japanese occupation, were kinder to the architecture than they were to the inhabitants of China.

Wild coastal flowers in May. Qingdao. China. Jeanne Pope

Mama magpies, one of China’s symbols, lay eggs in April. By mid-May trees are wild with song and bustle and magpie papas are on the watch for anyone coming too close to home. I remember that special sound of cacking - cack, cack, cack - like laughter, them jesting down at me on my sidewalk. An old man played music at some point. I stopped and recorded him, knowing one day I would use it for something special

My appointment was at 11.00 am, my colleague Wang Ying could not come with me as he had class, but it wasn’t important, an MRI report is quite routine in China. You have a problem and a bevvy of tests are performed.

I like visiting Chinese hospitals as I always think of Dr Norman Bethune, the communist Canadian as I walk through the doors. Bethune was disliked by many people for his political views and desire to have social medicine accessible for everyone in Montreal. He eventually left for Spain to offer his medical services in the Spanish Civil War. He left Spain under dubious circumstances which makes a great read. 

Wang Ying and I, fascinated by his story, met his niece Joan in Toronto, whilst researching a few years ago for a documentary project. Now that I live in China I must admit he is often on my mind.

Norman Bethune, transfusion unit, 1936. Spain. Canadian Public domain

Bethune came to China in early 1938 by traveling over rough ground and dry-lipped mountains, arriving at the communist held base camp. Mao and Bethune met only once over many hours that day, and then Mao gave him orders to continue on to the north of the country. Here he became known tenderly as Bai Qiu'en, 白求恩.

He sometimes worked for 40 hours without sleeping, saving many lives on the front line. There are poems and stories and anecdotes about his bravery. He died, on the front line, of septicaemia just two years after arriving in China. Mao wrote a famous essay in which he declared: “I am deeply grieved over his death. Now we are all commemorating him, which shows how profoundly his spirit inspires everyone.”

When I tell Chinese I am a British-Canadian, I suddenly become ‘a friend,’ as Bethune is the most beloved non-Chinese national. In every hospital, in every city, all over China you will find a statue of the man at the entrance. Doctors in China say the word Bethune as a mantra.

Meeting between Bethune, (left) and Nie Rongzhen (centre), Commander-in-Chief of the Chin-Ch'a-Chi Border Region, 1938-China. Public Domain, China.

Chinese hospitals are colourful; merry lights, plastic flowers mixed with green plants and tiny-tank-turtles for good luck are dotted everywhere. Nurses wear old fashioned stiff white cotton starched hats with neat white shoes, the doctors walk around with long white coats and see hundreds of patients, yet always remain calm.

Shah Baba - little-baby with Turtle, Qingdao General Hospital. Jeanne Pope

Dr Grace my GP speaks quite good English - better than my Chinese - and has a son who studies photography, so we always have a lot to say. She has empathy, even though there are times I know she is very tired. She never shows this, only her eyes betray her. Her husband works as a heart surgeon in the national hospital in Huangdao.

I like Dr Grace.

From past to present tense

The nurses at the front desk are laughing over some new dance tune on TicToc. I walk up and they suddenly become quiet. Dr Grace is in the background, she comes and guides me gently to her room. The rest is silence in my mind.

I look out of the window, past the small cactus plant to the Laoshan mountains beyond. (嶗山; pinyin: Láo Shān).

View from window. Qingdao General. Jeanne Pope

This is the highest coastal mountain in China. And among the rugged stones is built the Taoist Temple of Supreme Purity.

I have still not been up there in all these years. I got halfway in the first months of living in Qingdao, as one does, desperate to see it all, in the ‘time of the cabbages,’ and got so engrossed talking to the locals about the size of their crops that Taoism took a back seat.

I often think of this old lady and her cart, her son and her small house. I think of her now and the temple I never got to see, as Dr Grace tells me I need to speak to the neurosurgeon at another hospital, and an appointment is arranged for the next Monday. “We are not sure what type it is, but you have a tumour in your brain.”

In the time of the cabbages. Lao Shan mountain. Jeanne Pope

Really, there is not much more to say. I walk out of the hospital, find my bench by the baby clinic where young mothers coo, coming in and out of the large wooden doors, and the friendly gardener wearing the spring fashion, a hat with a big red plastic flower sits looking up towards cabbage mountain, smoking in the before-lunch-break. I do not want anyone or anything. I stay on my bench all afternoon. Wang Ying finally comes and picks me up that evening.

One week later I visit Mr Wang, the neurosurgeon who would eventually save my life.

I love this photo Wang Ying took. All is see is his compassion towards me.

“Empathy needs no words.” Mr Wang, neurosurgeon, Qingdao General. Picture. Wang Ying

What happened between then and now, well that is a longer story, not for now.

Every day I feel grateful, every day I feel amazed, every day I get a slight headache when I wake up, every day I remind myself that I must not run too fast as my balance is sometimes out-of-sync with my ambitions, but I am alive. It is a great feeling.

Have a great end of May

I hope you are all having a good time with your families, your friends and your loved ones, and getting time to do the things you never had time to do.

Please share if you like it…

And thank you for passing by.

Thank you, and Love on Ya! Jeanne

www.scatterfilx.com

Diy documentary film workshops for everyone, especially ‘made in lockdown.’

---

---