I start counting from the day after chemo…for those of you who are interested in how my little (yes, rapidly diminishing) mind works. And of course, the joy of reading, you can just skip or ignore parts or the whole :-). So, chemo day is 0 day, then I start counting…so today is day 2. Sorted? However, the whole thing is thrown because I had my chemo in the morning so of course, as with all on this journey, its now unpredictable. What a surprise. Today was a chemo haze day – not helped of course by being awake from 1.30am on and off – but, I am in Amman so could go back to sleep after The Man left for work, don’t have the school run but did have a ton of work coming at me which was annoying. Did get the day at home which was pretty cool.

As I think I mentioned yesterday, throwing around a ton of thoughts and not least realising my sense of humour seems to be diminishing the longer the chemo goes on. Not a good sign – I know I’m alive because I always laugh a lot. Although to qualify, I loved talking to a couple of you today, and did laugh so thank you :-). As well as some of the messages!

Obviously, doing chemo is shit. No question. For me it seems that the insomnia is going to be the killer. And I have been losing the focus on me – the healing I talked about so very much at the start of this journey – the learning that using the last drops for others is not the way forward anymore. How insidious that has become in my life, to the point where I struggled to even realise it – but I did and can see when I do it. Now, I think triggered by the insomnia and the madness of the last few weeks, the old habit is back. I’ve been worrying a lot about work, how I am not giving enough to The Man, ditto re the children, big and small. Constant fear of failure actually – in work, in my relationship, as a parent – not good enough shit coming in. And the baseline is I can’t afford that – its old behaviour and it is not healing. I need to focus on me again – lose the fear, bring back the softness and vulnerability (hopefully not by sobbing constantly), gentle part of me and accept those that can give to me and not worry that I cannot return it. Honestly, really not easy. And terribly scary. If I’m not good enough in work, I lose my job, and on and on.

Trust. Its back to trust. Belief that healing myself is of primary importance – yes, all the rest is of course important – but at a much lesser scale as of course non of it matters if I do not get well. Badly phrased, but you know what I mean…chemo haze to blame….I hope by writing this that it will be a start. Naming it and all that. I appreciate its probably blindingly obvious, but not so easy to put in practise all the time…apparently….