So much has happened in the last few months & I really should have been updating you frequently…but frankly I have been too busy & life has gotten in the way of my rollercoaster!
So I’m very sorry for neglecting you……And yet I’m also not.
Anyway….short re-cap. We sold our house, bought a 200 year old pile in the countryside about 45 minutes away from where we had been. It’s uninhabitable because it is falling apart & covered in mould (which we did know about). As a result, for the last 4 months we have been living in a tiny 2 bedroom caravan on site whilst The Mr does an impression of Bob The Builder meets Tarzan….which so far consists of a mix of knocking things down, and making vast amounts of mess!
My work has been frantically busy – which is a good thing and is incredibly rewarding professionally…but it has made my plans for this year’s Melanoma Patient Conference a little challenging to say the least.
In amongst all of the House & work drama I have had a couple of trip to the Churchill hospital – most notably last month to have 8 moles removed in 1 sitting!
It was quite the hub of activity. I was booked in for day surgery, gowned, tagged & marked before being taken in to surgery. A proper surgical room with what seemed to be a dozen official bodies in blue gowns and masks ready to remove the suspicious and offending moles from my body. Thankfully the familiar & reassuring presence of “The Surgeon” aka Mr Oliver Cassell provided me with much needed conversation & amusing banter whilst his scalpel was put to work.
I did feel like a bit of a fraud…all those people…and in such a “surgical” environment…just for 8 smallish moles…there wasn’t to be any significant surgery & it reminded me of how much of a contrast it was to the consultation room 5 years previously where I had my Melanoma properly removed. No surgical gowns or lights then – just a dermatologist, a nurse & a tray with local anaesthetic!
Things might have been very rushed back then, but somehow I don’t get the impression I would have had the same experience if I had started my rollercoaster elsewhere. Despite the time it takes to travel to Oxford and the frustration (torture) involved in parking there, I am thankful every day for the trust & confidence I feel about those “responsible” for my health.
I have learnt so much over the last 5 years…but perhaps one of the greatest things I have learnt is that I cannot change the past. What was done was done – I can’t roll back time & not have Melanoma…I can’t take this away from my life – it is a part of who I am now.
Time – a gift and one that I am more grateful of than ever before.
And why….well as I have mentioned just a few times already I have made it to that amazing & much anticipated 5 year mark!!
Strictly speaking today is my 5 year mark…but right now I am in Dublin for work for the next 5 days…so instead I marked the event yesterday with a wonderful & perfect day with my favourite people.
We laughed, cried, cuddled and all acknowledged how amazing it is that despite some pretty scary statistics and a really brutal start to my rollercoaster I am still here…I can look towards the future with a little less cation than before.
There is no such thing as safe in my world….but the light at the end of the tunnel just shone brighter.
I am supremely aware thanks to my newfound knowledge & circle of friends whom are also patients that far too many reach these wonderful “safe” milestones & then as though punishment is needed for having reached sanctuary they get brutally thrown back onto the rollercoaster at an epicly fast pace.
I can’t say that my anxiety will ever diminish & I know for a fact that my guard will never completely come down…but I do know that I never thought I would be here, or that I wouldn’t have already progressed and that means I have got to see these wonderful little people become the amazing people they are.
Every day counts.
I’m not always in control of every minuscule aspect of my health, wellbeing or surroundings but I no longer feel the desperate need to regain all that I have lost. I no longer grieve the life I never got the chance to have, but instead hope that this life I now live continues to be kind & forever fills head and heart with the gifts of love and friendship the last 5 years have given to me.
Thank you for supporting me x