Low Point

FYI: I didn't really fancy sharing this post at all and had to have a long hard think about it. But realised that its important to document every part of this journey. I started writing this blog primarily for awareness but also for the one person out there who might, like me last year, find themselves in the future with a similar diagnosis and not be able to find anyone they can relate too!

Along the way I also discovered writing really helps me process everything that's going on and that's why I love doing this blog. This is not a pity party for one and it's not an attention seeking activity, because quite frankly I hate this kind of attention. Its about acknowledging that we can't all be positive and 'strong' 100% of the time and to pretend that we are can be really damaging to both ourselves and other people.

Most of the time I genuinely do feel on top of things, I feel like I'm handling everything well and I feel positive about the future. But occasionally, like earlier this week I'l have a low point.

After our New Years holiday was over I knew chemo was coming and it was time to get my head back in the game. I thought I was coping fine with this but sometimes things sneak up on you. It started with loads of excess energy, not being able to sleep at night because my head was spilling over with loads of exciting ideas, I'd get up constantly to make notes or to read up on something and then I’d be up again a couple hours later to do the night feed. I mostly saw this as a positive (part of me still does).

I genuinely didn't feel tired in fact if anything I felt a bit manic and then I started to get snappy if I’d gone half an hour without any caffeine and I knew it wasn't totally healthy.

Then all my chemo information came through the door in a big pack. I had to go for blood tests for things like kidney function and white blood count and all of a sudden things started to feel really real.

I began to look at my body, a body I'm struggling to recognise or very much like after having a baby, one that is still recovering. We are about to go through something big, something potentially painful or permanently damaging and I wasn't sure how it would cope.

The final straw was something so tiny. I caught sight of a vein in my arm, it's my one 'good vein' and recently its taken a lot of stick (literally) in the form of needles for blood tests and canulas. For the first time ever it looked a bit of a state; bloodied, bruised and scared. Is this what my new body was going to look like? I hadn't even started my treatment journey yet and already the effects were starting to show.

I put my extra baggy pj's on and hid under the duvet for 10 minutes and lay there feeling sorry for myself.....and then the baby started crying and it was back to business as usual. The perfect little reminder that life is about something much much bigger and better than me and even if I don't feel like myself right now I can still be the best mummy to Oscar! and everything else will come in time.

Treatment starts tomorrow and I'm so ready to get on with it now! I'l blog again about my experience as the 6 week course goes on.

Thanks for reading :)

Katie xxx