In the beginning...

It had always been my intention to write this blog in 'real time'. As things happened during this gap year of a journey it was my intention to chronicle every experience and nuance of the situation in order for it to be preserved in time and at the time. For it to provide the author and the reader or readers (well a girl can hope...) with a true account of what happened as it happened as I suppose blogs are meant to. However it became very apparent that in normal times I would have struggled to keep this up so there wasn't really a hope in hell that it was going to happened when I was drugged up to the eyeballs and undoubtedly not going to be well. 

I googled many cancer blogs and marvelled at people's ability to keep it going even when they really were not very well at all. Not only could I not have done that I was really aware that I wouldn't have been able to capture what I was truly feeling because the drugs changed my perception of everything happening to me and around me. I can only now, months after treatment has ended and with some semblance of normality returning, feel I can express what has happened to me over the last 9 months. It is nearly a year to the day that I found my lump and at the end of November it will be one year since I went for my tests. December 14th is the day I was given the news about my diagnosis. 

Only a year on do I feel able to do this. That I am at last in the right place to tell my story in the right words at the right time. 

Who am I doing this for? I am not sure. I think first and foremost for myself, then my family, then my friends and for those who have been through this, but in no particular order. I also hope that this might be useful to those starting to going through this. Those who are where I was a year ago. Scared, alone and frightened of what might be ahead and googling for some answers, some support, some helpful words and so importantly honesty.

What a difference a year makes. I am no longer as scared or frightened anymore though I am still alone with my innermost feelings about this but I think that's okay and natural. Its hard to explain even to those closest to you how you are feeling if they haven't experienced a diagnosis as life threatening as cancer. But having experienced my worse fear I am prepared and ready for whatever the future now holds and I really am  no longer scared of it. I have to live for today and all the days ahead that I hope I have. I owe it to my family to get on with my life and move forward.

That is why writing this blog now is the right time. It is now cathartic and allows me to get beyond my cancer and begin to live again.

In the beginning things were so different and I truly believed that I would leave my cancer behind after treatment, but I now know it is what makes me who I now am and who I am going to be from now on. So although in the beginning I thought I would be nearing the end of this blog by now, I am only just truly beginning.