Third time lucky.....

I'm going to say this in a really quiet voice........I've made it through a whole weekend at my most at risk point without ending up in hospital! What's more, we even managed a night out. I'm very proud of myself. My ongoing anxieties about the thermometer have abated temporarily. Technically I still have a couple more days at risk, but I'm now happy to say that I'm quietly confident that this will be the first cycle where I haven't ended up in hospital. Third time lucky after the first two failed attempts.

I've pretty much been a hermit since my last post until Saturday. I figured that staying out of people's way would help with the infection control thing. I've even been to the supermarket early in the morning to try and avoid the crowds. Shopping was all done and safely at home in the fridge by 9am in the morning. My diet has been mainly beige over the last few days to reduce the likelihood of ingesting anything that may cause a problem. Rare meat is out, which is a shame, but only for a few days. What else? Well, I hired a Rug Doctor and have cleaned all the carpets in the house as well as I was at a loss of things to do. I've also finally started to (badly) play the baby grand piano that I treated myself to several years ago. I might even stretch as far as some lessons.

The running machine is now together (thanks Stephen), so I have managed a few runs. I'm painfully slow compared to where I used to be which I find intensely frustrating. Somehow I think I need to re-frame things, but this is where my stubborn streak comes in.

I've also managed a couple more walks as well, although the weather has put a stop to some of them.

We're blessed to have some great walks just outside our front door and live in an area where there are hundreds of Red Kites who always seemed to accompany me when I used to go out running and are still happy to hang around for us mere mortals who prefer walking. I managed a 5 mile walk on Friday. Parts were like the Somme, so it felt a lot further. I'm not known for my sense of direction, quite the opposite in fact (just ask my brother), so was quite proud of myself for managing not to get lost. I successfully navigated to and from a local pub via the footpaths with the aid of an Ordinance Survey where I treated myself to a J20 and a packet of pickled onion Monster Munch. Rock and roll.

We went to Briony's school's Burns night supper and Ceilidh on Saturday evening with a gang of the parents from her class. I think this is pretty much my first evening out since the advent of all this crap. On the positive, my hair didn't take too long as it was just a case of working out which wig to wear! It was a fab night. I even had 3 glasses of Prosecco, which it a recent record for me. There were one or 2 slightly worrying moments in the Ceilidh where I had to go under arches made from arms etc. where I thought I might be in danger of loosing my wig, but at least it would make a good talking point! Ever the party animal we didn't quite manage to make it to the end of the evening, but nevertheless put in a fairly respectable show. Even my false eyelashes behaved themselves.

The CT scan happened today after the false start a couple of weeks ago. All fairly uneventful to be honest. Apparently I will now glow gentle for the next 5 days due to the radioactive dye injected. That's probably the least of my worries!

So this is now the beginning of my good week where I feel able to face the world again and things return pretty much to the "new normal". I say the new normal as clearly things are not back to how they were before all of this. I wonder if they ever will be? I admitted to Stephen last week that I miss the chaos of our old life. I miss being ever-so-slightly-late for absolutely everything, getting home and throwing random meals together because I've forgotten to go shopping (or didn't have time) and swearing about the latest request for something for the next day for Briony at school. I don't mean to sound ungrateful, it's just that it is very different.

I was thinking about it all whilst in bed the other night, unable to sleep. On the whole I am sleeping better now as I think the initial shock has worn off, but there are the odd nights where sleep still eludes me. Anyway, I was thinking about how there was life Before Cancer (herein called BC) and then life After Diagnosis (AD). I realise these aren't the standard definitions, but they seemed quite fitting at 3am in the morning. Tessa Jowell's speech has also got me thinking this week. Regardless of what you think of her views as a politician her words resonated with me. I will now always be living with cancer, but prefer to think of it in a positive light and hope others can also re-position it in this way. I find it shocking that we have some of the worst survival rates in Western Europe, (mainly due to slower access to new technologies/medicines than other countries), but on the flip-side am very grateful to be receiving the newer therapies thanks to my private medical insurance. I don't want to talk about prognosis just yet, but lets just say that there is a significant difference because of this.

I had a card from my Dad and Step-Mum that made me smile. How well they know me!