Race For Life

Tomorrow I, and nine of my friends and family, are taking part in Race For Life. This is one of a series of races that you can run or walk to raise money for Cancer Research UK. Between us, and in the name of my beautiful brave DD, we've raised over £2,000.

Words can't describe how I feel right now. One of the things you get in your race pack is a piece of paper that you can pin to your back to say who you are running Race For Life for. My list is too long to fit on the piece of paper. I think I'll take a lot of tissues with me tomorrow.

For all the injured and the fallen in the battle against cancer. For every parent who has had to watch their child go through it or had to tell their child they have cancer. For every child who's asked if Mummy or Daddy or Granny or Grandpa will die.

We will win.

Sometimes

 Can I tell you a secret? It's a horrible secret, a filthy secret, something I definitely shouldn't even contemplate and certainly something that doesn't suit my cancer survivor status.

Sometimes I wish the cancer had won.

There'd be a noble tragedy about it, and I wouldn't have to take the blame in the same way I would as a suicide. And I'd be out of here. Sometimes that feels like a win-win situation.

The key word here is "sometimes". I'm not about to do anything, btw. I'm writing this because I had a rubbish day, right down in the black depressive hole. It wasn't even all bad, in fact most of it was good. I spent a lot of it in meetings and was effective in them. I went for my first outside run in 10 months and didn't completely suck. But then, come the children's bedtime, I could feel my fuse shortening and shortening. They wouldn't listen. I shouted. I looked around and saw piles of stuff to do everywhere, and before I knew it I didn't know where to start or how. I needed to take time out and eat supper but didn't want to eat because I am still putting on weight at a rate of knots and I hate myself for it. The evening progressed through a small sobbing panic attack to me sat on the sofa in my little shell, not talking. And at times like these, I want a way out.

It's 4 am. After food and sleep I feel better but also guilty, for thinking this way, for being so horrible to my family. And angry, bloody angry, for the first time. Because I didn't ask for this and I didn't do anything to deserve having my life torn up and the pieces scattered on the table for me to somehow stick back together.

I just hope my family can forgive me for what I think, what I have become. It isn't me, it's fucking cancer.

Borg free

No, I have not given up tennis nor committed a typo relating to a film about lions. The portacath, the marvellous device that has made chemo so much easier whilst making me feel like Seven of Nine without the catsuit, is gone. Lots of waiting around, a good dose of sedative, what felt like an eternity of tugging and some stitches later and it's gone. I did ask to see it and the actual line is bloody long!

So that is the end of that. Normal life, ish, can resume.