Stranger than fiction.

Last night I dreamt about going into surgery. Now that it's happened I realise it's a surprise that I haven't been dreaming of it all along. It wasn't a nightmare, or particularly scary, just all the mundane things I had to do to get ready to go in. 

I was really annoyed that someone wanted to use the plastic bag I planned to pack my underwear in...

Anyway.

It's not really surprising that it's in my subconscious now. I've been talking about it a lot over the one year mark. And I've also been in touch with a few people who are going through it right now. Weird how it all happens at once, I didn't hear from anyone all year and then a few all within a week. 

So I read some of the old posts back to see what they had been reading, and it's so strange to try and remember what that all felt like. It's mad, that I went through that. I don't really think about it any more, and when I do it's like telling a fictional story. Not a reality that was my life. It was surreal at the time, but even now it is no less surreal.

Reading it back is fascinating! I can see what everyone was going on about now, even though I find it quite cringe worthy.

Reading it last thing before going to sleep (ha, what is sleep please?) obviously planted it in my brain. But interestingly this dream wasn't about the surgery I had, it was a new one. People were commiserating that I had to do it again. I hope this isn't the start of me worrying about it growing back.

Hurray! One year!

I'm celebrating in style on a seven mile beach in Grand Cayman. Much too busy relaxing to write more. Bloody hell though, isn't life unpredictable?

Happy 24th October everyone xxx

About time.

Sometimes, quite suddenly, things that have previously been totally familiar and obvious to me become weird. Unfamiliar and odd.

During recovery that happened with reading. I'd never stopped to think about the words on a page before, they just are. But suddenly they seemed vulnerable and unanchored, like nothing was holding them in place. And although they were floating in the right position just now... what? I'm not sure what to be honest. An unarticulated threat.

It was unnerving and made me quite anxious. I didn't read a book for a long time and then at some point it became ok again. Words on pages just are again.

Now it's about time. Time only goes one way. That is such an obvious feature of time that it doesn't need stating, but it suddenly seems all at odds.

I met someone today who is going through what I went through exactly a year ago. She is the same age that I was and at the same stage in her life. She has the same worries that I did. All those things I worried about! What a waste of worry. 

It got me thinking. As she heads into surgery tomorrow, I will be boarding a plane on the holiday of my lifetime. With Alfred. It's certainly an image that would never have seemed possible this time last year. 

There was no way for me to know what would happen to me next or how I would recover from the surgery. And I would still have the same worries if I did it all over again. But from where I am now it seems like a colossal waste. Of energy and time. How is it possible that I didn't know it would all turn out ok? Brilliant in fact. 

A while ago I made a conscious effort not to worry about things so much. There's nothing wrong with preparing for the worst but once prepared, no amount of worrying can help. It's not that easy though, I'm a worrier at heart. 

But back to time. I can't get my head around the weirdness of being able to look back and analyse, but not forward. Time is so weird and unstoppable. Elastic but relentless. 

It's like being on a conveyor belt, with a curtain of fog in front of your nose. You can't stop moving towards whatever is in store for you. Bit of a wobble? Peak or trough? No idea. All the twists and turns of your history are mapped out in detail, but really I just want a sneaky peak at whatever's behind the curtain. 

No words.

Sometimes something happens that makes you totally reevaluate what you have, and see things through a different filter.

When something awful happens to someone else, the power of the imagination is scary. You can't understand what it would feel like, or what you would do, or how you can help. It's paralysing. Also the disastrous potential - the destruction of the 'it'll never happen' bubble.

The cruelty of not being able to turn back time is hard to get your head around sometimes.

I wonder why I wrote this using 'you' and not 'me'. Clearly I'm talking about me, my filter, my imagination, my paralysis.

I was on the receiving end of this with tumourgate, and always suspected it was harder on those close to me. It's not pleasant though either way.

Walking cliché.

I met someone on the bus the other day and we ended up having a right good chat. She was massively pregnant and I had a tiny Alfred strapped to me so we got talking about stuff. The King's post natal ward, NCT, breastfeeding. Lack of sleep and new babies. 

It was so clichéd. The whole situation was clichéd but worse than that, almost everything I said was a total cliché. 

What has happened to me? I fought against it during pregnancy but now have to accept that almost every cliché I've heard has proved true for me. I am unable to remember anything. Names, where I left my keys, which boob Alfred *just* fed from. I believe my baby is the best baby of them all. I now realise what my parents went through and am ashamed of how I've behaved over the years.

Thinking back to tumourgate (tunagate?) it was the same - I lived the cliché. When an extract of this very same blog appeared in the Guardian, the online version received an angry comment (since removed) about how clichéd I was. Spouting about how lucky I am and perspective and family... very dull but also true. 

I wonder if I'm just identifying with the clichés that apply to me, but it seems that clichés are pretty much spot on in general. I am a walking cliché. Not so long ago that would have pissed me right off, but I'm too tired to care now.