I Had a Dream

Well my lovely bloglets,

When I was little, I of course had my life planned out.  When I say little, I mean a teenager and then a twenty one year old and possibly even a twenty two year old.  And then the phone rang and my life was never the same again.  In some ways I have had to give up everything and in other ways I have gained it all.  I was talking to someone about it all on Thursday and I said, as I do because I mean it, I don’t say it to fool myself into thinking it.  I’m not like that.  I am honest with myself even though at times that is painful and potentially a bit self-destructive.  He asked me how much of cancer has made me, me.  How much of my response to life is because of it or because that’s who I was anyway.  I have been thinking about this and I don’t know.  Your twenties are formative years.  At University discovering who I was.  Living away from home was not a first; I had lived at school from the age of 13 and then had a gap year including 5 months travelling, so in many ways I was already very independent.  I was used to changing my sheets once a week, used to not being with my parents.  I don’t mean this to sound like I regret it.  I don’t.  I fucking loved, on the whole, my time at boarding school.  I went to a wonderful school and made some incredible friends.  Maybe it was my time there that made me, me.

Change and uncertainty are upon me.  Both with the new chemo, I have another week off and then, if my prescription has been processed, I start, in a week.  I don’t want to.  I really don’t. I have to take these drugs because of some wankers who don’t know what it’s like to take them.  Who don’t know about side effects and that in some ways I gave my life up at 22.  How dare they refuse me the drug that my consultant thinks are the best for me?  There is a reason I’m changing and why that one was chosen.  And the fact that I’m probably going to be intolerant to them as well and fasting.  It’s going to be a fucking nightmare and I don’t want to get used to it.  Once again, making my life fit around the hospital and the drugs.  It’s not fucking fair.  And I’m still fucking knackered.  Yes, I have been doing a lot of Uni work over the last week – dissertation deadline is looming and I’m seeing my supervisor on Thursday which has put the fear into me, so I’m getting my head down and doing as much as I can so far to show her I have been doing it and am getting on with it.  Don’t really want a bollocking.  Also, I want it done.  I have been tempted to defer it to next year, but I don’t want to. I want to finish in July.  I want to graduate in November.  If I don’t get it done, that won’t happen and it will be another year until I do.  I have been sleeping between nine and ten hours a night for the last week and I still feel like I’ve been punched in the face.  I just want to sleep and to not want to sit crying all the time.  To be on the sofa doing nothing.  Able to go and enjoy friends birthdays without constantly clock watching and working out how much sleep I will get depending on when I leave.

I also know it’s the last stretch of a fucking insane year of a fucking intense degree. 

Finishing in July.  It’s getting scarily close.  Still 6 more deadlines.  And then.  No longer a student.  Do I focus on setting up my practice and hoping I get enough clients to cover my rent and bills or do I get any job so I know I am financially secure but that takes time away from being a Naturopath.  I have not done these last four years to not be a Naturopath.  It’s what I am.  What I am meant to be doing.  I am fucking good at it.  I know that. Money just gets in the way of a lot.

I saw my sister yesterday and her bump which is wonderful.  I can’t wait to be an Aunt in August.  I am however all too aware of my body clock, the tick getting louder each day.  I have wanted a baby since I was ten.  This is no surprise; I just thought that by now that part of my life would be a bit different.  I don’t know what has made it like this.  Why I haven’t met someone.  Well, someone that doesn’t end in a car crash that isn’t complicated and can only remain a dream.  I have a plan.  Five more years and then IVF on my own.  I really hope that I find someone but then the last 7 years hasn’t exactly gone how I had planned.  I wonder how the parallel me is doing in the parallel universe where there is no cancer ….maybe that Katie is happy.  Not to say I’m not happy.  I just… well.  There’s room for improvement and hope.  As long as there is hope I will be ok.  I am ok.  I’m just.  Processing.  All the Stephen stuff.  Talking about everything on Thursday.  Milo doing the Great Wall of China marathon for me which includes 5, 164 steps for me. (https://www.justgiving.com/Milo-Ruane1/)  I meant what fucking lunatic brother does that for his sister? Apparently mine.

I’ve just got a lot going on in my head at the moment.  And when I’m tired I find it all just a bit overwhelming.  I really thought I would be feeling ok and not tired by now….

With much love, laughter there is a lot of that I promise, and hope,

XXX