One Year Later

I sit amongst the debris of my messy office. I have decided that tomorrow is the day I’m going to take a bin bag to it and sort it out once and for all seen as it looks like I will be working from it for the foreseeable future. My office is at the top of the stairs, it’s a tiny box room, which if it wasn’t an office could easily squeeze in another child or a family member that comes to stay that you don’t really like. It’s also become the dumping ground for paperwork, bills and my husband’s ever increasing music collection. The bookcase is a mess and sits behind me on Teams meetings. It’s embarrassing really and I’m constantly checking it to make sure there’s not an offensive titled book behind my head, and whilst I suppose I could change the background, I think I’d rather have a messy bookshelf than my head keep disappearing into outer space or it turn into a potato! Saying this the number of Quality Street wrappers cluttering my desk means that my head possibly already is a potato or very soon will be.

I stopped writing in my blog and that’s not only because December hit and it all got a bit crazy but well, because December hit and I didn’t want to. Instead, I just wanted to enjoy Christmas because last year I couldn’t. Last year I was filled with anxiety knowing that something was wrong with me, as I said earlier in my blog…in my mind I just knew it wasn’t good. This year I just wanted to focus on making memories and in doing so filled the entire month of December with trips to see Santa, numerous Christmas markets and Disney on Ice! 

Now I am sat here and its New Year’s Eve tomorrow and that’s the day when I finally went to see my GP a year ago and this shit of a journey began. I have no expectations for 2022, I think I will forever approach the year now thinking if I am still here next Christmas then that’s good. I know that 2022 will bring its challenges. Cancer does not leave you even if you’re cured and, in my case, I begin the year with further tests and investigations, scans and blood tests. Yippee! There is this overwhelming anxiety of constantly thinking I need to do things…and now. I need to travel to the places I so want to see; I need to make memories; I need to get rid of our old couch that I’ve been trying to get rid of for 5 years! I need desperately to get healthier, exercise (somehow) and eat better. At this moment in time, I am just a blob of chocolate and cheese. I didn’t hold back on the alcohol either…there’s something about Christmas that makes drinking in the morning acceptable…not that I have been. No I didn’t walk around the park with my child holding a cappuccino laced with Baileys at 11am the other day. I know I need to look after myself…I know how important this is now and that I cannot take an inch of myself for granted. Your body can fail at any given second...grim but true. 

What I am grateful for as I go into 2022 is that I’m taking with me a huge number of people who I would not have got through this year without. Some of these people are family, new friends, some are colleagues, some I have only known for a handful of years, and some are my oldest and dearest friends. I am eternally grateful to have these people in my life because despite everything they have kept me going, they have been the light in my darkest days. Sometimes I just needed a silly message, encouragement, or someone to force me into being a little bit kinder to myself, these people know who they are, and I will never forget their kindness. As for my blog, I don’t even know if anybody reads it but maybe I will write an update every now and again. 

It is a cancer blog and quite frankly that’s just bloody depressing so maybe I’ll write about something else between the scans and the blood tests…watch this space. 

Happy New Year everyone, please be safe and don’t be stupid because nothing is worth sacrificing your health for…said the wise woman in the elasticated waistband eating chocolate and drinking prosecco…I will stop on Monday!