Psychological Boost

I feel really quite well and apart from a very slight dry throat (it is yet another side effect) I'm really feeling quite upbeat and it has to be a combination of having had such a good reception following my presentation on Thursday and that at that point, possibly more than any other, it laid down who I am and what I can do and set the scene. Finally I fit in at work and they - for the first time - saw me presenting in full flow and emphasising in the right place, inserting the humour and playing the audience. That was good and ego is comfortably been stroked with that. I have that smug smile you wear internally when I think about it.

Then, of course, is Monday. How I really want it to be the very last time I have the BCG instillation and yet when I first started having them and didn't know if they would work I had resigned myself to potentially having a life time of them. Within my grasp now is the very real possibility that this will be the last.

I can't even begin to tell you how good that actually feels. Winning the lottery I suppose, getting a gold medal, maybe? It really is a weight off of me and it does actually feel like that too. I do feel lighter and it is amazing how "light" you feel your body is weighing you down and your arms and torso just feel like they are dragging down your shoulders and your head is down. I have no idea how your body does that but you do really notice it.

I am feeling really upbeat today and just want to get on with things that are lying around in my office here.

At long last I am close enough to the end of the tunnel to be dazzled by the light and make out the walls and details. Better than that, it is near enough to smell the fresh air, see the sunshine beaming in to the portal. Not long now and I can be out there, out of the tunnel, off of the roller coaster and emerge blinking into this new landscape. It will be different from the scenery I saw before I entered but that is no bad thing is it?

I need to cope with a few of the extremes of my changed persona - especially the utter confidence and over talkative bit. I need to work on the accepting that a lot of people are in fact idiots and not get sharp, angry or down right rude to them. I also need to work on this emotion thing. I am still finding that side of things quite difficult to cope with. I have a feeling that I see other people's experiences and sort of tack my experience alongside it. I feel really bad for them but not for myself, sort of surrogate suffering :-) I am sure this will subside over time as, I am certain, will all of the other "side effects" both mental and physical.

It is nice not to have to go back to the despair of a year ago. It is great to be alive and to be able to look forward again. When I consider everything else that has happened and the people I know who haven't made it through the same period it is a bit worrying. Three of us survive, at least 3 died and one who survived now has a recurrence. People get Cancer all the time, perhaps it is me but a LOT of people appear to be getting it, maybe I am just attuned to hearing or filtering out the word Cancer in discussions and in print? They said Chernobyl would take 20 years to get us :-) Crikey I hope it isn't that!

Now to pack away the Cancer baggage and move on to see what will happen in the next chapter at the other end of the tunnel.