Cancer Treatment, Covid-19 and Mental Health Week

Life right now for all of us is so far removed from what we're used to and in some ways there are things about this enforced downtime that I'm actually loving. It has been really nice having Tom at home, even if he is locked away in his upstairs office a lot of the time. I'm really enjoying our daily family walks. I'm also enjoying the break from the outside world and all the pressure that comes along with that. In the absence of all the outside noise and interference I have been able to focus on what's really important to me and what's important to us as a family.
However one thing I know for sure is that when you have a bad day in lockdown it is amplified times 1000. This Monday was one of those days for me. I knew we had a busy week (by lockdown standards at least) as I had a couple of baking orders to complete for my business as well as getting the house ready for our first viewing in months later in the week and of course an over excitable 18 month old to run around after as per.

It was in the middle of another one of Oscars epic snack related meltdowns that my phone rang. It was the hospital ringing to let me know that it was now deemed safe enough to re-start my delayed BCG treatment and would I like to come in next Tuesday, following the bank holiday...

I know I should have been over the moon that things were able to go ahead again with only a very minor delay, but in my head we were done with hospitals until at least August and by then I was hopeful that things would have calmed down a little bit. Don't get me wrong, my last visit to hospital in lockdown was nowhere near as scary as I'd anticipated and I was so grateful to be there at all, at the time, but to be honest it was still intense as hell and it took me a lot to get into the right head space to get through my most recent surgery.

To top it all off I have to have another COVID-19 test on Friday before we can crack on and although I totally understand why and it's not really a big deal, it's still...well if you know, you know.

All of a sudden I felt exhausted. I sat on the floor of Oscar's room and cried my eyes out. For the first time in a long time I felt completely overwhelmed. All the plates I'd been metaphorically spinning just crashed to the floor and I didn't know where to start in picking them back up again.

Who was going to look after Oscar on treatment days when I was busy lying on the bathroom floor? Could Tom take any more time off work? How was I going to manage my business and house viewings on top of all this? And last, but by absolutely no means least...When could I just fucking hug my family?

Sure enough, after a good cry and a good sleep (the answer to a lot more problems than you'd think) as well as a positive chat with my consultant, I feel more than ready to get back on that treatment train and so very lucky that I am able to do so. As usual I'll blog about each week of BCG treatment again. This time it will be numbers 7, 8 and 9. So only three weeks to get through this time and in some ways lockdown is the perfect time to do it as I know I won't be missing out on any plans! The no drinking thing will be tricky though...how else am I going to tell the week from the weekend, or y'know the morning from the afternoon!?

I felt like this little meltdown deserved its own blog post, not to be self-indulgent or attention seeking, but purely to be honest. Because I'm pretty sure we're all going through similar things right now and we're each dealing with our own demons. This week is mental health awareness week and it's so important to talk about the bad times, the exhaustion and the self-doubt, because it reminds us that we all have these moments and that is absolutely okay because that's what makes us human.

I hope everyone is doing okay through this lockdown, and to anyone who is having a bad day, you are not alone, there is no shame in reaching out and this will not last forever!

Thanks for reading :)

Katie xxx