Limbo State

Tomorrow is the pre-assessment and I can't say that I particularly like it. So familiar am I with the nurses there that I have a swab kit here to pre do some of the tests for MRSA so I just need to hand those in.

I suppose it can't be helped that I am a little heavier than the last time I went in. Other than that I will just have to see what tomorrow brings. Friday just needs to be over and done with and I hope that by this time next week I will be able to be sitting here writing some good things about the procedure - unlike last time.

To tell the truth I have now forgotten how many times I have actually been into Hospital for biopsies and TURBTs - I think this makes 7 times but I'd need to go and check that out.

I'm trying to be balanced and tell myself that I'd have settled for going in every 6 months for the rest of my life if they cured me - that would make me shudder but you can probably see that the act of reminding myself that the treatment has been life-saving brings some perspective back to the situation. I forget (like most people do) that through all the horrible things that have gone on the undeniable truth is that I am here still, I am in good health (although not great health) and that I need to count myself privileged to be in a position that the next operation is to check that things are OK not to remove tumours or anything else worse than that.

I've been quite down this past week and pretty downbeat, pessimistic almost (and many who know me would realise that isn't my usual state). Today I'm in a different mindset and I'm beginning to think things through more - rationalise it all out and make sense of what is going on. I did get a bit of a shock when I daydreamed of going to the woods and saw a picture of myself hanging from a noose on a tree - that snapped me out as well. I hasten to add, it (suicide) doesn't enter into the equation but it was a vivid representation of the depth of last week's depression. If you are wondering, I wouldn't because of what it does to those who know or knew you and those who found you and all that sort of stuff. I can understand why but not why you would upset loads of people by doing it (train jumpers for example - and I saw one just the once and it did upset me too). Yes, a daydream and a warning painting - the brain is a complex thing.

I have to face facts sometimes that I'm working with the cards I've been dealt and worrying about things beyond my control. Worrying doesn't change things but it is so much part of the territory (the Doctors don't tell you about) that I should be getting used to it by now. In some ways, maybe I am that I can work it through and know that it is transitory in nature. The whole Cancer trip is a fairground ride where someone has tampered with the rails or half sawn through the wooden supports of the roller coaster you're on. To your Doctor it is a tumour to be removed, treatment and checking and best care for a cure or remission. if it is worse then there is no doubt a protocol to follow in terms of whether they have time and ability to slow or stop metastasis. They have a matter of fact approach whereas you have to live with the dread of the boogie man coming back all the time. Someone likened it to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and along with the massive fatigue that can also bring is the constant worry that something is about to happen to you. On a tour of duty service personnel have huge amounts of stress for long periods - whether they'll take a bullet, an IED or die, every hour or every day for the whole tour of duty. In Cancer it is that every twinge, anything out of the ordinary any slight change is a return of the cancer. There is always the worry that it will come back and that it will come back and get you next time. Your brain doesn't help you with this, it just adds fuel to that particular line of thought and makes things worse unless you spend time equalising out and in almost a right hand, left hand brain way think through the whole thing.

It is funny that last week wasn't "The Black Dog" I described earlier or even its puppy :-) It was just an uneasy state of being "stuck in a rut" or if "I hadn't got cancer?" or perhaps a bit of the old self-pity or the down after the holiday and returning to work. Who knows. Cancer just amplifies this and I it plays on your own fears and it magnifies them.

It is a nice sunny day outside, as usual it looks as if I am the only one in the house and so I will set up outside with a radio (Test Match is on) and a shade and have a relaxing day.

I do have my health and I have family, job and yada yada so I ought to be thankful that I have those.