Just days before Christmas, Bambi Smyth is diagnosed with a brain tumour, throwing her life

completely off kilter and seriously upsetting her plans for an adventurous second-half-of-life.

Bad Hair Year tells the tale of how she copes – her stoicism, positivity and, above all, her enduring sense of humour. Which she will need again in spades because just as she's getting back on her feet she discovers she has breast cancer.

This is for anyone who wonders how it feels to have your very existence suddenly under threat,

or wants some reassurance from a friend who has been there, and lived to tell the tale.