And I can’t sleep…which sucks. I am beyond scared at this point – I haven’t been able to eat, I feel weak and like I want to collapse in a heap.

I really need to pull myself together. I know this level of fear – this is a new one of course in one sense – my biggest fear in life (which I haven’t faced) has been unnatural, early death. And here I am. Fear has been a companion with me for all my life, waking up with night terrors, literally frozen with fear, as a child the fear and pain and wanting to die, as an adult at various times reliving that and on and on…so I know it. And now I feel almost paralysed with fear about whether the cancer has spread…which I will know very soon.

I want to curl up and was just about to write die..for fuck’s sake, that is exactly what I don’t want to happen.

The man offered to come out to Amman to be here when I get those tests – the PETCT, the MRI. The ones that will tell me if its spread. Amazing offer.

And you my friends – the family I never had but always wished for – you are amazing.

The fear however is not – again, I know this feeling – resigning myself to death, feeling weirdly apathetic about it, like I can’t fight it, melting into nothingness, weak, powerless. And so very fucking tired. Isn’t it such a contradiction – I so don’t want to die, that I will give up now and let it all happen…makes no sense at all…but the feelings of despair are very strong right now.

Hayley, if you get to read these at any point, I am so, so sorry. I am sorry others know before you, I am sorry I have cancer and it will fuck things up for you, I am sorry that I will tell you and then leave you to go to Tuscany, I am sorry I do not know the right way to deal with this right now. I wanted to find out here, so I could process it, so I could tell you when I am feeling stronger and when there are people around who can hold you so much better than I can right now. I am so fucking angry that now I have cancer, when we have had probably the best time we have ever had as mother and daughter, as best friends, when we have laughed so much we have cried. I don’t get it Hayley, I really don’t – it feels cruel and I don’t understand why we have to live with cruel right now. But my instinct is now, and always will be, to protect you with every part of me I can and if I could never tell you, I wouldn’t. I hate the fact I will be the one to bring a horrendously dark cloud over your life, to see the joy disappear when I speak…it is so, so unbelievably unfair. So forgive me Hayley for the way I am handling this if it is wrong. Just like when you were born, I don’t have a blueprint for how to do it, not yet, I am blundering around and will probably get it wrong 100 times. But as from the day you were born, and before, I do this with all the love I have and with the belief that it is the right thing for you…even if I get it wrong.

I need to eat. I need to sleep. I need not to smoke – I desperately want to. I need to stay strong – despite the despair, I know that I have never managed to not fight, even when I have felt like this and worse.