The start of my working week here, I leave to go back to London at the end of it – Friday 11th Sept. Yes, I am flying from the Middle East on 9/11 – on the plus side I imagine the flight will be quite empty….

My little children arrive back to the UK today after a month with their dad in Ireland – and today I have had the first pang of missing them terribly and I can’t wait to see them. I have literally barely seen then since the start of July and since this whole rollercoaster started. Which has been very necessary and its only now I feel like I can take that part of my life back on, but also very surreal for me as I have never been apart from them for so long nor felt so detached for so long. Its been a real exercise in trust, yet another one, that has paid off.

So – to sum up over the last 2 months and one day since it was confirmed I have breast cancer:

• I have confirmed I can work, and do a good job, through this
• I have been given a contract that covers me for work and health insurance for the next 6 months
• I have left a crappy hospital and am at the Royal Marsden which I am really happy with
• I have fallen in love
• I have been apart from my children
• I have landed that I actually have cancer, that I will be living with cancer for now and that it is a part of my life today.
• I have organised that I will be working in Jordan for the next 3 months (based at home in the UK, but travel only to here) where I have Dr ISIS on standby for a treatment and care with any side effects. I.e. I have medical back up here I am happy with
• The amazing parents at the children’s school have organised a rota for the children for after school care, snacks and lunches, morning pick ups and just generally incredible support for Hayley and I
• I feel ready now, and only just now, to go home and face my life in the UK. I will however have to learn to do it differently, just the same as I have learned to do it differently here.
• You – all of you – are so amazing
• I have withdrawn the last 10 days to be with The Man and it has stabilised me emotionally to a point I didn’t think was possible. And in fact I can’t even fully name how but the results are obvious.
• I am struggling a little to fully recover from a rather severe kidney infection – on antibiotics but its just not completely going – my concern of course being that it needs to be gone before chemo.
• I am constantly learning to ask for help, to trust and to be vulnerable.

A pretty full two months then 🙂