the nasty one

As I often do, I described my second brain tumour as the nasty one. 

It was. The cyst was. 

The lack of pain and inability to function crippling. 

Only bed bound for a few weeks. How lucky I an that it wasn't longer. 

And now... Less than that until I might, maybe be that forever 

Not because of the unpleasant side effect of moving but because I simply can't. 

I have reassured myself and others that they don't do this if they think they'll kill you. 

I don't know what is will be. 

Cancer feels so much easier. 

I'm still cross at that man, that friend who thought a cancer survivor was better than me. 

She might be. But not because she survived her one and only cancer. 

I face it and other over and over. 

Today I explained to a draw dropped group of people I had had 2 brain tumours removed. When they then heard I was going to have spine surgery they were even more shocked. Imagine their surprise if if added in the last kidney cancer. I didn't say it. And of course I didn't talk about the other 3 major ones and 3 more 'minor'. But of course I'm not a real cancer survivor. I'm not really brave. I'm not really going through it. 

When you do it well no one sees the rehearsal they see the performance. 

Father's Day

 Last night I cried because I felt a strange sadness that I knew that I missed my dad, the dad I had seen in a picture in my daughter's A-level Art portfolio. He was the man who I remembered loving like a daughter should. 

It is a fact that I miss the one who needed so much physical help less. We still laughed and talked but I felt the dad I really loved was disappearing or gone. Perhaps this fade of need is more natural than I felt at the time. Over the years of my daughter's life, she growing more and more independent, he lost so much of it. 

This father's day I am facing a sudden change, I know the weeks of healing that go with surgery, the first few hours of a level of helplessness that mean you rely completely on others, and then hours turn to days and the joy of going home followed by the peculiar understanding of one day at a time. The walking down the road, making it one step further, the first time on a bus, the first pain free day, the first time eating out again, the first day back at work. And before you realise it your recovered, 6 weeks, a year maybe you never are. Always changed a bit. 

I am not sure how to feel about this one, I might never fully recover, I might be to my daughter what he was to me. 24 days left to know this and not know this. To hope and to fear. 

To every season.

Turn

Turn

Turn 

fear

I'm trying to keep out of my negative head space, I'm trying so hard and sometimes I am good at it. 

Not this morning, I felt a visceral fear of paralysis and what that might look like. This suddenly combined with a fear women have... Sexual assault and no way of telling anyone. I could feel his hands on me. It was as if it were a memory not a worry. Then I thought of the times when I've not given consent. So it's both. 

And it's sitting heavily on me, my jaw is tight and my eyes are sad. 

I don't know how to be alive right now. I don't know how I'm putting one foot in front of the other. It's an elaborate game - a real life squid game - peril just in front and a hope of survival no guarantee and no real skill to help change the odds. 

Right now, this moment I want to sleep and dream and be in a place that isn't now. 

Right now I'm not ok. 

Right now. 

And in a bit I'll clean my teeth and go and get bread and milk and I'll tuck myself into being very normal. 

But I can't ever be that. 

not knowing and knowing

 There is an odd pressure attached to knowing a maybe date and really knowing, so it can become as close to definite as possible. |It got to me this week, the lack of confirmation, the feeling that the careful thought around date and time isn't clear and the breadth of people that impacts. 

I might be

I've been told

Pencilled in

All unhelpful, this is a frightening one that looms and over shadowed the every day. My joy at current independence tickled by this grim worry. The exhausting mantra, don't worry about it right now, it isn't now, it might never be. 

arm

Today I felt a strange sensation in my arm. The left one. Different to the recent fuzzy feeling. This was more like a dull ache - this was similar to when I had my first brain tumour. 

I wonder if I'm creating symptoms to give me a good reason to have this surgery - so that it becomes inevitable rather than my choice. 

My backs been hurting. I'm feeling more stressed - despite my new fancy watch just telling me I'm really not. 

I want a date that it definitely happening. 

Ummm.