4th September 10.45 pm

 Last night I couldn't sleep.  So I got up and spent a couple of hours blogging until about 3 am.   I'm struggling with how  I feel.   I feel like I'm waiting for the next scan to tell me if there was infact anything on the lungs as presumably it will have grown if there was.   I'm struggling with the thought of 6 months of chemotherapy and living on my own with that.   I'm struggling with the thoughts that this might be an easy way out ..... and I have been ashamed to share that with anyone. 

7th September - 00:03 am 

Did a bit of gardening today, not much, just pulled out a few weeds with right arm.   My head and heart just weren't in it.  The sun was unbearable even for just the hour (or less) that I was outside. 

My thoughts aren't positive, I don't want to talk to anyone.  I feel shutdown, but put a front on when I do see someone I know.   I'm told by the support group I joined today that it's ok to feel like this, it's normal, I've got cancer, i'm had surgery and take each day as it comes.  

I've been what I heard on a cancer podcast "health obcessed" for most of my life.   You've heard the one about the person with a head ache and before long it's a brain tumour in their mind.   That's been me for a lot of years.  When I got into recovery 16 years ago, and no longer numbed my body with alcohol, i had to face some feelings.  I had to face real life, not the one going on in my head.  The one in my head where people didn't die, where everything was lovely, where I always ended up rescuing someone.   For 16 years I've been changing and growing and trying to be the best me I can be, the authentic me.   But I've struggled with it.  

And now having to deal with something I can't control it's terrifying and for some reason I think I should be dealing with it better than I am !!!  When I'm feeling emotional and hopeless, I forget that I sat in front of Miranda 3 months ago and she told me I have got cancer in my breast and lymph nodes.  I am facing the one thing I have always feared yet sometimes thought I wanted.  My own mortality.    So yes, I am popping into denial some days, as that's been my coping mechanism since childhood.  Yes I'm just going through the motions.  Yes I'm eating shitty sugary carby foods in search of the comfort it used to bring me. It's comforting me momentarily and then I'm with me again.   

I have to feel what's going on, express how i'm feeling in whatever format helps me, if I don't want to speak to people today that's ok I can't take on their feelings and I'm powerless over whether they are worrying about me.  

So tonight I give myself permission to be me, to be scared, to be tearful, irritable or whatever the hell else feelings I have without my head telling me "oooh you should be grateful, you should try helping someone else and stop thinking about your self, you should be eating better food, you should be walking like you were before the operation.   Because SHOULD is SHIT.   Should is used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone's actions.      

Enough with the SHOULDS.

Love Titty and Tracey