Life post cancer.

Wading through the aftermath of cancer – quite literally sometimes like wading through the wreckage, pulling out what is salvageable, discarding what is not, building some things from scratch, re-building others. It seems a little never ending in some ways, logical in others and consistently quite bizarre. The to do list to rebuild, or in some cases deconstruct, my life is very, very long…..

Physically – I still have the Smurf square on my boob, the tanned large rectangle spanning from under my arm, to under my boob, to my collarbone and sternum from the radio. Plus the attractive peeling in the parts that were more burnt than others. My knees appear to have aged 40 years – getting up and down from the floor is genuinely difficult. BUT – that is pretty much it. Which, having had lists on here that took up a whole blog, is pretty fucking cool.

I am slowly getting fit again, flexible not so much, but it will happen, my hair is my hair again, still love the eyebrows and eyelashes, my fingernails are finally back to normal (they weren’t awful, but love the fact they are OK, another sign of moving forwards), my memory is really, really shot…probably a good thing, I still get very tired, but nothing like it was a month ago…and I seem to be having normal feelings again. A little like the body hair regrowth, I could live without those as well.

The kids LOVED their new school and I feel an enormous relief as I also loved it – it is absolutely the right place for them in every way – they will find their safe space there, it has a homely and family feel, they will go forwards leaps and bounds doing sports and academically – its bloody fantastic. And – thank fuck they are leaving now – what is happening here in the UK terrifies me for them. Who ever would have thought that Northern Ireland would be a haven against xenophobia and racism….

Myself and The Man are going through a rough patch – in fact, I am not sure if we will make it through. It is tough. I am wondering today if we will break up around now…not for the first time…although I really have no idea how things will go. I do know they cannot continue for either of us as they have been where we clash over pretty much the same things over and over. It seems since I am fully well, I need from him what he cannot give. That sucks for us both.

Notice is given on my house – we are out by 23rd August. Deciding whether to ditch everything I own – well, hopefully sell some of it, and just store a few boxes of papers and some clothes, or whether to pay exorbitant amounts for storage. Hayley will move into a wonderful friend’s house, the kids to their dad, and me…well, I will leave and travel. The when depends on what happens with me and The Man.

In many ways, I am hanging on until September until I can truly have my break and introduce myself back to me. Post cancer treatment, its all about sorting out the kids, big and small, all the millions of practicalities, setting the scene so that I can be free for a while. Exhausting is an understatement, but it is also grounding at the same time. In a very weird way. My shrink said I was dismantling my family – which is true. And not easy. She also said breaking up with The Man right now was not a good idea….sigh.