Feeling Hesitant

Well my lovely Bloglets,

I have now been feeling lighter for over a week and happy again.  It's quite strange.  The sun it out, I'm now doing a daily photo on Blipfoto (SwearingQueen if you wish to have a look) and it's really helping.  I didn't realise how much I would enjoy the 100 Happy Day challenge and it certainly didn't feel like a challenge to me.  Maybe it's because underneath all the cancer and chemo shit there is a genuinely happy person who has just needed the space and an outlet to get out.

I can't remember when I started to enjoy photography.  I think it was after my gap year when I got all the film rolls developed and I went though them with my parents showing them everywhere I had been and was complimented on the photos I had taken.  I didn't have a particularly special camera.  I don't even think it had a zoom.  I can't remember to be honest. I know I am by no means the worlds most gifted photographer but it makes me really happy.  I can't wait to be free and in August to spend time wandering around London taking photos again.  Having no time limit or destination in mind. To just wander, looking, capturing moments.  Just me, my iPod and my camera. Freedom. I long to go abroad again, as I did in the summer of 2011.  6 weeks away, 3 on my own, 3 with friends.  Just seeing where I ended up each day. Always with my camera in tow.

Yesterday I amazed myself by handing in a piece of work on time.  That's the second time I have managed it this academic year.  Being ill in October and then the grey cloud of burnout and being, well, depressed, descended.  My dissertation cut off for draft work is Monday and I took a new patient yesterday, and then there is a case study, a financial plan, a communication and marketing plan, and a continuing professional development plan to write. But I feel ok about it. My new patient will be my case study.  I don't think it's going to be particularly good, but the patient isn't complicated, thank fuck, which makes it easier.

I have 3 sections of my dissertation to write in just under 3 weeks.  I will get there.  I will get it done.  I had a good meeting with my supervisor last week and also bumped into the module leader, neither are worried about me getting it done.  They have faith in me.  So I should have it in myself.  I am getting there.  Shifts are happening.  My wonderful clinic supervisor was in clinic yesterday.  He has always been in my corner. And he is so knowledgeable and wise and he gets me.  It's amazing.  He told me it's now time to let go.  I don't need what I carry around with me any more.  It doesn't serve me.  It's not necessary.  I am now me.  And I should trust me.  I know what's right.  I know what to do.  I am ready.  And I feel this as well.  Tentatively. It's a bit strange.  Time for change.

Change.  It doesn't sit so well with me but I am getting better with it.  Change this week, I am waiting to find out about if I have to start the new chemo.  I'm nervous.  Side effects have hindered me for a long time.  Not sure I'm ready to deal with more now that I feel, well, happy.  I don't want to lose this. Someone pulled me up on twitter for posting so many photos of myself.  I know I do it.  I know why I do it.  And yes.  It is for compliments.  Not in a narcissistic way but to confirm what I am beginning, with baby steps to believe about myself.  And feeling good about me, well, that's amazing.

Next week I say goodbye to my patient that I have had since September.  I will have seen her 20 times.  It's sad but also it's time.  She is ready.  I have helped to get her there.  I'm not solely responsible and would never say that I am.  I have been a part of it though and that.  Well.  That's why I am what I am, a Naturopath. And I am well enough in myself to support someone else and to get there to where I am.  I must remember that.  I feel like a bird sitting on the edge of the nest getting ready to soar into the sky, and soar I shall.  And it's terrifying but perfect.

And so with love, hope and happiness,
XXX

I Think I'm Beginning to Forgive Myself

Well my lovely Bloglets,

As is quite often the case I don't really know where I am going with my writing today.  However with the Hospital yesterday and Stephen's funeral today it is fitting to write, even if not much is said.

Firstly, I have been overwhelmed by the comments and feedback I have had from my last post.  It was a very raw thing to write and I do sometimes wonder if I shouldn't say what I do in the way that I say it.  I read the blog of another and they have a beauty with their words that I don't think I do.  There seems to be more of  peace and acceptance maybe it's because the posts are written after contemplation.  I, however, sit and type and process whilst doing it.  Or maybe...well I don't know.  So thank you to everyone who read it and let me be how I needed to be after hearing the news that Stephen had died and everything that means to me and all the shit it brought up.  Today,  I do feel a bit lighter, even though the scales yesterday did not confirm that. HA!

So, the hospital.  After various emails from my consultant, including one on a Saturday... I KNOW!!!! It was decided that as it's been about 3 weeks or nearly a month, I'm not sure to be honest, I can't remember, since I stopped taking the old drugs, it was time for a blood test just to see how everything is going.  I will find out the Leukaemic rate in about a week and depending on how that is depends on what happens.  I have a prescription for the new drugs aka drugs of doom and have at least another week of freedom.  I think, also, that shifts are taking place and after being very spotty and a bit smelly, the joys of detoxification, I really think I feel a bit better today.  Maybe a little less tired, definitely lighter and happier.  I don't know if it's my system finally rid of the old lot or because in 2 months I will be done.  I have a fuck load of work to do, I'm not entirely sure how I will get it done.  But I will.  Because I always do. And I need to let go of the mark.  It doesn't matter if I get a 2.1 or a 3rd.  Well it does a bit, for my ego, but in terms of being a therapist no one is ever going to ask me what result I got in research methods, or how was my starting your practice financial plan.  I just need to get it done and handed in and to pass.  Seeing my patients improve and getting the feedback from my supervisors in clinic is what matters.  And the fact that I have done it.  My class has gone from 22 to 9 in clinic and I am still there.  That is what I need to focus on.  Alongside all the shit that has been going on, I did it.

Anyways, back to my consultant.  I fucking love her so much!  It's amazing being listened to and discussing what will happen rather than patted on the head and sent off for 3 months and told that you are fine and to basically get on with it.  My thyroid is also going to be tested as she is not disbelieving that it's the impact of the drugs, but she is slightly puzzled as to why I still feel fucking exhausted when this time a year ago, well nearly this time a year ago, I felt much improved after about a weekish.  It could also be that I am just burnt out from my degree and in fact not much will help that and I just need to power through.

Something else has started to happen over the last few days as well, which is ground breaking, is how I view me.  It won't come as a surprise to many of you that I don't view me as others do.  I'm not sure anyone does really, however, I am highly disbelieving of what people say in terms of compliments.  I don't know why, well I do for part of it, but not the other.  When I was little I put on a lot of weight and I think alongside that I used to think I was fat, well I was, no two ways about that, but I also added ugly to it and that has stayed with me over the last 20ish years.  Don't get me wrong, I don't suddenly think I'm the most amazingly beautiful person on the planet with a figure to die for, well, because I don't.  However, I am beginning to realise that I'm not fat.  I was, yes, and my weight has yo-yo'd, but for about 9 months now, my weight has basically been the same.  There are a few pounds of fluctuation depending, but as an average I weigh 9 stone.  I showed my flatty a picture of me from Edinburgh days and he said that I was double the size I am now and was surprised by the photo.  I think it showed him that when I say I was fat, I'm not just being a girl about it.  Ok maybe fat is a bit much, but overweight, yes. So for the last 4 or 5 days I have started to be, well I suppose, kinder to myself.  Maybe beginning to see who I really am.  Being happier with me.  It's been quite a journey but I will get there.  Maybe I need to clarify that.  I am happy with me, I haven't been so happy with the external me.

And so, I should go, and this time I shall include some photos.  I feel incredibly proud and brave doing this, as one is a picture of me from 2006 when I used to tan....boo....and yesterday morning.  Until this week, I have felt like I am the size I was and bigger.

And also, a sample of the  little collection I put on twitter when I was bored at the hospital waiting for my prescription to be dispensed.  I should have done a thumbs up one for Stephen, which I will be doing at 11 to remember him and what he did and his family and friends who have a hole in their lives and no words can make it any better.  I am also putting these photos on here because it amused me hugely and I don't want you to think I don't have any laughter in my life because I do.  A lot.

Maybe I have just started to forgive myself....
With much love, laughter and hope,
XXX

Guilt. Anger. Needing Forgiveness.

It’s funny when you say someone has died.  But.  In fact it’s anything but funny.  It’s tragic and awful but not for the person that has died.  They have gone to that blissful place we know nothing about and that is scary.  We do not embrace and accept death in this country as some nations and religions do. It’s a daunting thing that we don’t acknowledge but the only thing in life, and it’s the one fucking certainty in life regardless of what else happens, that we will die.  There is no escape.  Some people live for a day and some live for 100 years.  There is no rhyme or reason why.  It just is.

So today another death.  Of a truly remarkable 19 year old who I met last October and shared a stage with. We both talked about our stories but you couldn’t get much different.  Today his story ended and mine continues.  And the whole nation knows about him.  And only a few know about me.

Guilt.

Why me.

It’s not fucking fair.

Why am I alive.

Why am I allowed to whinge.

What have I got to complain about.

Where is my recognition.

So much.  Everything.  Nothing.

What about the rest of us?  Those that slipped away with only those around them knowing.  Those of us who carry on every day but with a silent burden.

I’m listening to the playlist I made when I did the London Marathon in 2012 for the Teenage Cancer Trust of course.  Who else?  A charity I love so much, feel so possessive about, that does so much and that I was denied treatment with because there wasn’t a unit in Edinburgh in 2007.  There is now, thank fuck.  A small charity no one really knew about, and now...  I know I wrote about this last time, it’s all still so raw.  Why does one person get catapulted into ‘stardom’? Because they are going to die.  Imminently at 19.  I was on my gap year at this point I was away in Australia or Thailand being 19, not dying, not taking my last breath.  And yet…what about me?

So selfish.

There is so much in my head but I don’t know how to get it out.  How can I when I sound like a twat?  I can’t begin to imagine how Stephen’s family feel today.  I have no concept of what it is like to lose a child, a sibling… I don’t know if he had brothers or sisters.  I can’t imagine what it would be like to say goodbye to Claudia or Milo.  I can’t.

I feel exhausted.  I am exhausted. And confused, well conflicted, and because of that feel like a bad person who cannot simply rejoice in what Stephen accomplished and it how full his life was, especially in the last four years since his diagnosis.  I feel angry.  Angry at myself.  Angry at my diagnosis.  Angry that I didn’t have TCT when I was diagnosed.  Angry that I still have to take these fucking drugs which dictate my life.  Angry that my life is not fully mine.  Angry at consultants and angry because I am not recognised at a national level which is, I know, absolutely fucking stupid.

I know I need to do a lot of self-work, I just need to get through these next 8 weeks and finish my degree and get all my work done.  Then I can give myself the space to acknowledge and process and heal and forgive.  Because I have to.  I can’t carry on feeling like this.

Maybe that’s why I met Stephen, why he came into my life.  To teach me that I still have so much to do to help me and I need to. Maybe once I have forgiven and let go of all the anger I can finally fully heal.

I don’t know.  All I can do is hope…

XXX

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

Have You Heard of the Teenage Cancer Trust?

Well my bloglets,

In 2008, I can't remember when exactly, I was asked by a girl I had met in Scotland after my diagnosis through to Clic Sargent, if I would go with her to a weekend she was speaking at. This weekend was Find Your Sense of Tumour and I discovered the Teenage Cancer Trust. A charity that was over 10 years old at that point but who I had, and none of my friends had, ever heard of. I also discovered the Lost Tribe, teenagers and young adults (TYA) who are diagnosed between 16 and 24. The cancer kids. This is my terminology but phrases those of you who read my blog or watch my videos - http://jimmyteens.tv/films-by/katie-ruane/ will be familiar with them.

I was lucky enough at FYSOT 2008 to talk to the then CEO who is now in America setting up Teen Cancer our American sibling so to speak, so TYAs get the right care over there. And Simon gave me his business card. I moved to London in the January of 2009 ad me being me, one of the first things I did was to email him and our romance began. Not with me and Simon, with me and TCT.

I could whinge, again, about the shit care I had in Scotland and its emerging that my care at my current clinic hasn't necessarily been in my best interest in terms of looking after me emotionally and dealing with side effects, but this made me valuable to TCT. I can't tell you how many events I have spoken at raising awareness of what it's like NOT to be treated on a TCT ward. And, even though, far too old, I am still able to do so with a trip to Westminster on the cards in June.

I can't tell you how different it would have been if I had been on a TCT ward and I suppose that's what has been happening with Stephen, especially since his brave, dignified and heart felt goodbye on Facebook last Tuesday. Because of this the media awareness for TCT has been phenomenal. Not only will the money raised be able to build a new unit if that is what is needed, the publicity is priceless.

This is going to sound very strange. And I'm sure that those who knew about the charity before me and were treated on the first ward possibly feel this way about me. I don't know. Still being on treatment makes me have a slightly different view to most my age. I feel, and I don't quite know how to say this. Upset I haven't been able to do this myself? No that's not right. Jealous? A bit. Fucking mental I know. I am so connected to TCT it means so much to me and now everyone has heard of it which is obviously amazing. Awareness of TYA cancer is paramount. I now feel like I have to share and my secret is now public. I suppose I feel a bit like my amazing piece of jewellery is now everyone else's. I don't think this is making sense. I don't know.....

I feel that everyone knows about Stephen and what about the rest of us? For those who are 'normal' who haven't done anything like he has. Milo, my brother, is running the Great Wall of China  marathon for me and TCT in May and wants to raise £10.000. That's a phenomenal thing, but now seems to pale into insignificance a bit. I feel I can't ask for sponsorship for him because of Stephen and people donating money for him. I feel that by talking about Milo and me, I won't die, well not from cancer, is somehow a bad thing. It's all very confused in my head.

I do ask though, as a cancer kid (well....nearly 30) to think of those of us who are 'normal'. Just getting through each day the best we can. Not raising millions or being in the national press. Not being at ease with a terminal diagnosis but still struggling. Well that's me and my interpretation. I have 7 more days of my current chemo, two weeks off and then the next lot. For how long? I don't know.

If you can. Let's get Milo his £10,000 https://www.justgiving.com/Milo-Ruane1/

From an as ever-exhausted me,
love, laughter and hope,
XxX

Numb and Your Help Needed

Well my lovely bloglets,

I had a vague idea about what I was going to blog about today.  Last week I had both an amazing and an incredibly frustrating check- up.  My Leukaemic rate has dropped from 0.014% to 0.005% which is obviously utterly amazing.  It takes me a massive step closed to coming off the drugs.  0.000% is now in sight.

Drugs.  Well.  I will be starting new ones soon.  But not the ones my new consultant wanted me to get because of bureaucratic bullshit basically.  The ones I will be starting are called Nilotinib and the fucker about them is that I have to fast for 2 hours before and an hour after taking them twice a day.  Not idea for a massive foodie like me who does snack to keep my energy levels up.  However.  It may be that I’m not tired with them so don’t need the snack to pick me up and boost my energy levels to get me through the afternoon.  So it might not be as bad as I think.  Also, apparently they are appetite suppressants and my current ones are stimulants, so every silver lining right?

I was going to talk about how my old consultant saw me and didn’t let me see my new one and how furious I was and that she had no idea what was going on with me and didn’t say about taking a break between drugs etc etc etc So the next day whilst getting more and more fucked off I remembered I have my clinical nurse specialists number, so rang her!  She spoke to my old consultant who said a break of two days would be enough and I went very calming mental and said the my new consultant had okayed 2 weeks because of how long it took me to get over the effects last year when I had a break.  My old consultant was oblivious to all of this because I haven’t seen her in a year and she doesn’t treat me as me.  So I told my CNS that I was extremely unhappy with this and much preferred my new consultants approach.  The CNS said I could take a two week break but to let her know that I was doing it, and I agreed.  10 minutes later my new consultant PHONED ME!!!!  And we spoke for about half an hour and got it all sorted.  Amazing.  I love her.  We agreed how to move forward together rather being treated like a child and a ‘there there pat your head’ type of way that I feel my old consultant has.  Anyways.  It’s sorted, and I only have 11 more days left of my current chemo.  I really hope the next lot are ok.  Oh and also, my new consultant said to come in a week after starting the new drugs because I’m so responsive and sensitive to them.  My old consultant said to come back in 6 weeks….

I am today feeling this is all a bit irrelevant and I feel very numb and tearful.  A wonderful boy, he’s only 19, I was lucky enough to hear speaking and meet at last year’s Find Your Sense of Tumour is dying.  He has been terminal for a while due to late misdiagnosis because of being a teenager with cancer.  You have no idea how often this story is told.  I am so lucky to have been diagnosed in a day.  I saw yesterday on Facebook that he has said goodbye and thank you and this is it.  To have that courage and dignity at 19 is unbelievable.   I don’t really have words to be honest.  He has inspired so many and whilst he is on his deathbed his wish to raise a million for the Teenage Cancer Trust is becoming a reality.  I hope he is able to stay with us to see the million mark on his fundraising page.  I feel, I don’t know. I’m sitting here with tears streaming down my face.  I can’t… there are no words.  Upset, guilt, hope, loss.  None of these seem to be able to explain it.  Stephen dying, my living. Why?

Milo, my little brother, is running the Great Wall of China Marathon in May for me and for the Teenage Cancer Trust.  I have been through shit which may have been prevented had I had access to a TCT ward.  I didn’t and so my story is how it is.  Milo wants to raise £10,000.  So let’s get that £10,000 to help prevent late diagnosis in another teenager/young adult so they live the life they deserve.  So the next TYA gets the support they should, consultants who listen, so they are not alone and isolated in pain with no one hearing.  So they get the correct fertility advice.  So they smile and have fun.  Cancer can be pretty fucking shit.  But the Teenage Cancer Trust makes is bearable.  www.justgiving.com/Milo-Ruane1/

With hope,

XXX

8 Days in Colchester Hospital

Well my lovely Bloglets,

In the past 7 and a bit years I have only been in hospital as the patient, but not over the last 10 days.  I came home for a few days of chill out before living in the library for my ‘Easter Holiday’ because of dissertation and an essay due the first Monday back.  As always, exhausted, and needed this time to sleep and re-charge so the rest of my ‘holiday’ was productive.  I arrived home on the Monday via the wake of a family member that I had never met which was rather strange to say the least.

Tuesday morning I got up and as expected the rentals were not there – Kev aka Daddy, had a routine op booked at Colchester hospital to remove a cyst at the back of the throat and to have part of his uvula removed as it was elongated and he has sleep apnoea.  My Ma aka Mummy was in London for appointments and was going to pick him up on her way home. I was pottering and making tea when the phone rang at about 11, a man asked if I was my Ma - it was the surgeon who had operated on Kev.  He explained that due to swelling as the cyst was larger than expected and worries that the windpipe would be blocked, he had been intubated, and was on a ventilator in ICU.  Shock, is, I don’t quite think the word to explain how I felt.  This was also reminiscent of another phone call I had received over 7 years ago with my diagnosis, and I’m sure I was suddenly thrown back to that evening in the flat I lived in, in Edinburgh.

I’m not going to detail everything that happened over the following week sitting in both ICU and then on a normal ward whilst Kev recovered.  I’m not going to go into what it’s like trying to convince someone who has been awake on high alert for 3 days due to not sleeping for 2 nights once out of sedation with severe paranoia and hallucinations because of the sedation drugs and hearing everything whilst sedated and trauma, that they are ok.  There were some very funny moments but the majority were, well not concerning, but a bit fucking weird.  And that’s not my story to tell.  I think the thing that was the hardest to get my head around was walking into ICU and seeing my Daddy lying in a bed with a tube down his throat and tape around his mouth holding it in place and a ventilator breathing for him that he was  medically healthy and fit. All the time  spent on ICU and a normal ward was due to swelling from the surgery – the body doing what it should do – alongside a bit of a throat and chest infection and the delerium. 

I’m not going to lie, I did nearly hit the floor the first time I walked into ICU and saw him lying there, but luckily, I know the signs from my millions of check-ups how I feel when my body is about to collapse.  Note to self, eat food before going to visit someone in ICU. 

I am currently sitting next to him on the sofa and he keeps on interrupting me with what he wants me to make him for supper and he was ‘back seat driving’ when I was cooking earlier.  I think he was slightly surprised that the banana bread/cake thing I made was actually good….wanker.

Anyways, I am eternally grateful for all my hospital shit and that I understand how they work and am used to sitting around for them for hours.  I am also eternally grateful for the medical knowledge I have learnt through my degree which enabled me to understand and explain to my parents, especially Kev during his delirium what was happening by a person he trusted.  And also, without my diagnosis I may not have met my wonderful friend Kate who is a nurse and was able to speak to my mother and explain things when some information was given to her that was worrying.  I would also like to say that I was blown away by the nursing staff at Colchester ICU - they were amazing.

I haven’t really written what I thought I was going to.  I have stress rash all over my hands which I think shows how truly stressful and worrying the last 10 days has been.  Shock as well.  All my shit being brought up.  The worry of seeing him lying there in the bed, of him being in that state, which is common after sedation where nothing was as it is, and the fear and the paranoia.  The shock and the trauma this has been for him and for Mummy.  My in-built ‘rescuer’ driver kicking in, in overdrive and needing to look after everyone often to the detriment of my own self.  I left for 24 hours to go back to London to get reading materials I needed and Kev was convinced that nurses had killed me.  That time away and the worry I felt was far worse than being with him in the hospital.  I quite like hospitals, I feel at home in them.  The only downside was the fucking awful coffee.  I am finally beginning to feel not so knackered and am also a week behind on my work.  But fuck it. As always I will get it done.  As long as I pass, my marks, to a degree are irrelevant.

Back to the hospital - being a family member was far more stressful and worrying than being a patient.  As a patient I know how I am, I know I am fine, I know I will be ok.  Seeing my Daddy in that bed and then so affected by the drugs was a heart wrenching thing to experience.  I knew it was only temporary but not knowing when it would be over… waiting.  Something I have been doing for many years, but when it was about someone else, it was so different.

I have a check up on Monday, a brief phone call with my consultant yesterday and the chemo change is not going to be straightforward, but more next week.

The last 10 days have been a bit surreal, I have no idea how is must feel for my father and how it does as things filter back into his memory as I help to piece the bits together.  I do know that I am so relieved I was at home when all this happened; I could not have stayed in London and not known and wondered.  And I now know, just a little bit, about how friends and family must have felt when I was diagnosed and in hospital for that first week.

He is home and healthy and that is all that matters.

I dedicate this to all the nurses out there who might one day read this, thank you.                           

With love,  laughter and hope,                                                                                                        

XXX