Full up

Like a swimmer bursting to the surface, the sun has come out in my life. I have got back in control and back on top of my emotions, my family and my job. I am just, frankly, so goddamn content at the moment.

I am settling slowly back into work and my normal working pattern. My beloved daughters are, as ever, gorgeous and I have started exercising regularly and even eating well. I have even started a writing course which is stretching my writing and making me consider seriously whether I am, in fact, a fiction writer, or, as I think I am, a poet..

So, you see, my life is full and brimming. Thank you all so much for all your notes and comments. I have read every one and they have helped me come through the tunnel.

Minerva

Definitely Down

So the past month has been horrible; a time to forget, and move on away from. I have been so down, but down without fully realising what has been happening to me. My concentration is shot to pieces, any work takes me hours and I never seem to finish. The stress generated by my inability to work to my previous standards engenders, naturally, even more pressure.

I can't sleep, and when I wake in the morning, I can't get up. The joy has gone from my life and I am irritable with all I love, save my girls, for some reason. And, every time I am irritable with someone I love, I beat myself up completely about it. I have written reams of self hate diatribe and yet, somehow, I watch my fingers typing with no understanding of where these feelings are coming from.

Certainly, I tried to rationalise it all at the beginning; that coming through Cancer is much like a major trauma and that I was suffering from the post 'is this all there is'. syndrome. But I feel so ashamed, so very very ashamed that I can even write something so self pitying. All over the world there are those, so much less lucky than I have been, who wake and fight cancer every day, and here am I, delivered by a faulty PET scan, looking around wanting to run and hide. How selfish, how self-involved, and ultimately how completely pathetic.

Thus, you see how my mind has been working, or rather not working. It was only last week, as having put up smoke signal after smoke signal at work and home and not being acknowledged that I decided to go to the doctor. I was extrememly concerned about being laughed out of the consulting room; ''You, free of cancer, unhappy? Don't be RIDICULOUS!'' or some such.

I needn't have worried. I am indeed diagnosed as suffering from depression which apparently is quite common. After cancer, which is so all encompassing and 'in your face' with purpose, your troubles don't get eliminated, they just get submerged in the face of impending death and doom. But, when that huge destructor of purpose leaves your life, then the same old trivialities come back and you, worn down, and destroyed by cancer and its treatment, still have to deal with it all.

I refused the 'sick note' from work believing that work is probably the best therapy for me, but I do wish these pills would hurry up and work; I am so tired of not feeling myself, of not feeling joy, happiness or laughter.

Minerva

Finally

Finally, the clouds are lifting. At last, my mood seems to be climbing up again having been really low over the past month or so. I have been irritable, grumpy with those I love and sleeping an incredible amount. I have also wondered, to be honest, if I was depressed and contemplated meeting a doctor and going onto anti-depressants. I used to be on them, and in fact, only came off in the early Summer after being on them for over twenty years. Because I am a manic depressive, I do have a very sensitive antenna as far as my moods are concerned so when my mood started turning on Sunday I was concerned lest it was a blip of happiness in a TV screen of darkness.

But, it appears to be settling in and staying. And that sense of energy and activity has helped me start to tackle the everyday problems around me, and that, my friends, is what continues to keep me going. My house is a mess; a maelstrom of books, animals, children and the detritus that each leaves. Given that I have had two and a half years blighted by eight months each year on 'Cancer leave', the house, naturally, has been neglected. The leaks and the urgent things have been done, but the stains on the plaster, the chips in the walls, the holes in the floorboards remain unplugged.

Time for that to change. I have the number of a builder, I have the number of someone to build cupboards, and I have even started trying to empty my glorious junk whirlpool of clutter and left overs of my previous days. It is slow; I freely admit that, but the stone has been nudged, and once the impetus begins, it does get harder to stop.

I have also signed up for a course writing fiction starting in May. I have never had much confidence in my prose before, and I don't think I 'do' characters and plotlines but I have always wanted, as you know, to write that book. I know now, after my experiences of the last two years, that if I don't start now, the opportunity may never come for, despite my good news, Cancer is a hard and implacable enemy daunted, it seems, by nothing.

It could always come back. But, until it does, I am going to get out there, create the house I have always wanted and start putting my dreams into action, right now, right here, today.

Minerva

Irony

How ironic that having faced what was, probably, the greatest fight of my life, that I am struggling so much with dealing with real life. When you are dying, everything gets slightly left. After all, what on earth is the point of painting the house, fixing the car, sorting out the junk, when you are not going to be around to see it?

But now, now that I am not going to 'shuffle my mortal coil', for a certain time, I feel as though I really can't cope. I am snowed under at work, but unable to concentrate so everything is taking twice as long. Other people, dear family and friends, have naturally ratcheted up their expectations, but I feel I can't meet them.

I feel in a vortex of confusion, tiredness and apathy, and I have no idea why.

Hence, I may add, the lack of posting. I figure that after a near death experience like this, people only want to hear good news. Of course I am thrilled that I don't have cancer at the moment, and that it didn't come back, but real life with its busyness and expectations is all proving rather more difficult than I realised.

Minerva

Memo

I have to keep reminding myself that I don't have cancer - how bizarre is that? Tonight I drove past a Centre which is being built next to my hospital for people who are living with cancer. Just one week ago I was talking to a counsellor about being a regular visitor there and about telling my children that I had secondary cancer.

Just a week ago, I was having the CT scan which has changed my life. I have never had a day like Friday where, suddenly, the world's worries were completely lifted from my shoulders. I completely understand how someone on Death Row feels after a pardon, because I truly felt that I was really alive, that I had my life back, and that the world lies open to me.

The thing is that cancer has constantly been at my elbow for nearly two and a half years. It has haunted my dreams, it has sabotaged my plans and it has been the first thing I think of in the morning and the last thing I have slipped away from at night. Preparing for the next visit, the next scan, the next bombshell has been my entire focus and now, that's all gone.

I have holidays to plan, I can think about doing everything I want to with no constrictions or boundaries, and best of all, supreme above all other things, I have hope that I will see my gorgeous daughters blossom and grow into the fine adults I know they will be.

Minerva