I have little time to write because I’m writing.
I was a bit stuck, mostly because the one year cancer check up was looming and I couldn’t think. The doctor was no one I had ever seen before but he answered a question. I know that if I survive five years the risk of recurrence is the same as the rest of the population. The OH was convinced that the risk must be decreasing as time goes by; I had no idea. So I asked. This, in itself was a good thing. Normally I only remember the questions on the way home, or often, the next day. The answer was not what I’d hoped, it is that the risk continues until the last day of the five years and there you are suddenly, bingo, OK.
So despite a good report I was cast down. I haven’t really been able to write since before Christmas, knowing this was looming. I have tried very hard to have a positive mental attitude, to count my blessings, to separate my feelings about me from my worries about the OH. This is difficult. The OH is going in for surgery on his gouty foot with the holes in it, which he is convinced is entirely due to eating cauliflower. If he cannot get to the pub he will go into withdrawal, which last time was frightening to say the least and, I am certain, has an impact on my health.
There’s a lot in the news at this time of year about diet, exercise and all the stuff that is good for your health. Nobody ever writes about the impact other people have on your health. Taking care of insane people, for example. Living with addicts, for example.
In some ways I am lucky. I am not a child carer. There are many children who are care givers, many become so good at it they turn it into a profession; hospitals are staffed by people who had to be care givers at home and those who were so marked by family illness they wanted to help others with the same problem. I have recently met quite a few. So I am not doing anything other than counting my blessings.
Nevertheless worries and doubts make it hard to write funny stuff, and if it’s not funny it’s not me.
However, I am writing again. So finally, Happy New Year to me. (And you) For the next four years I will be glad that January is a long month, it gives me time to get over the check up and then get on with the next six months.
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