You say 'journey', I say 'gap year'...

So my numerous followers (I know but a girl can dream...) can see that I have not been as forthcoming as my first post in my Life in 3G series (listen to me like I've been a prolific blogger with a number of blogs - not!) might have intimated that I would have been, but in fairness to me I think I have a pretty good excuse...

You will have noted that I have started another blog with an intriguing new title. Well I will be continuing to blog  (not sure if that's a promise or threat?) about my Life in 3 G alongside, but as if life wasn't complicated, complex and challenging (l'm liking the the 3 C's) enough I decided to add another dimension to it (and another 'C') cancer.

I know I am a greedy cow and obviously the amount of stuff I had going on in my life just wasn't high octane stress level inducing enough for me. Oh no sirey. As I was beginning to reduce my stress by deciding to eliminate the most stressful part of my life - my job - something decided to knock me off centre completely.

You are all probably thinking what depths would this woman sink to to get material for a blog. Will pretty low as nothing is sacred, but in my defence on receiving my diagnosis blogging was the furthest from my mind. The only resounding technicolour thought I had can be summed up in one word - FUCK - yes that was the first thought and continued to be the only thought for a number of hours after. FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK. All those years of a fairly successful education and for those who know me I have never been one who is lost for words, but really the only word that kept coming up was FUCK. But you will be pleased to know that it did progress and by the end of the day the word had morphed into a sentence (probably more of a statement) albeit it a short one, but not deviating far from the initial thought."I'M FUCKED". See progression however subtle.

But look at me skipping along and giving you way too much detail already. No no no missus. Stop being so easy and giving it all away at the first opportunity. This isn't a date. Have a bit of mystique woman. Play a bit hard to get. Leave them wanting more. I am not sure who the 'them' is and if there really is anymore that anyone would be vaguely interested in. Still my followers (I at least have one, but I think it's me) will be the judge I am sure.

Anyway a lot of people have said I should blog my 'journey' with cancer to help get through it and to have something to look back on to make sense of it all when the 'journey' ends. But in the first instance I struggle with the word 'journey'. Is it really a journey? I am not knocking those who view it as a journey because what I have learnt is that when you are the person going on this 'journey' you grab whatever you need to get through it so if the 'journey' helps you journey away. I have even found myself using the word when talking to others especially when trying to convince them (and undoubtedly me) that this is something that is going to be okay and I have to go on  the 'journey' to get to the other side (and no I don't mean the afterlife - well not yet or for awhile anyway!!!)

However for me the word 'journey' is something you plan, embark upon willingly and by choice with an idea of where you are heading on the way and where your ultimate destination will be. This is not the case with this. I didn't plan it, I am certainly not a willing passenger and I haven't a fucking clue what I'll be encountering on this trip and where the fuck I will end up. So journey to me is a bit of false advertising. Its feels more like what I imagine a gap year would be. This is the gap year I never had. Gap years were not part of my working class state school comprehension. But now 24 years later I am embarking on my 'gap year'. Gap years start with a vague idea of a plan but then ends up wherever they end up and this is exactly the same. There is a starting point and a plan of action on which we hope that things will work out but actually who the fuck knows, in the middle of it when you're drunk and drugged up who the fuck cares and frankly by the end of it you can only hope it was worth doing and hasn't left you too traumatised on the way.

So join me on my 'gap year' in my adventures with my left tit. See me become spiritually enlightened (or is that drugged up on chemotherapy), stripping back my western vanities (losing the shackles of womanhood - my hair and maybe a breast who knows) and my rebirth (or is that regrowth as will probably - or should I say hopefully - involve hair again and maybe breast reconstruction) and finally emerging in the glow of the new improved me (radiotherapy followed by hot flushes from early menopause and 5 years of hormone surpressing drugs). Wow what a 'journey'. Gap Year - Bring it On...