Author: Mark Coughlan

I had an appointment with my doctor today, and I heard the words: “We no longer consider you critical.” That took some processing. It’s good news, of course. I’m still on the curative track.

I have some tricky surgery coming up, so now it’s all about preparation. I finally understand the timelines I’m dealing with, and honestly, they’re pretty good. If all goes well, I should be out there bugging people to come out and play by summer.

So why do I feel so… meh?

I haven’t fully figured it out yet. Part of it might be that I never really expected a different outcome. I knew things could go another way, and I understood the numbers, but I’m not a natural worrier. I don’t tend to stress over things I can’t control. I focus on doing what I can to get the best results, then I move on. Maybe that’s playing into how I’m feeling now.

But it’s more than that. There’s a lot more to me than just my physical state, and right now, it’s not my body that’s struggling—it’s the other, less tangible stuff. It’s how I feel.

I’m tired. Tired of being tired. I have so much time on my hands, yet no energy to do anything with it. It’s frustrating. And boredom? That just fuels the cycle, making me feel… I don’t even know what. But it’s not great.

I wrote a while ago about misunderstanding ‘the fight.’ I see now how wrong I was. Every day is a fight—but strangely, it’s a fight with myself. A fight to get up, brush myself off, and go again. Some days, I win. Some days, I don’t. And on those days, I feel guilty for not pushing through.

On the bright side, I’m getting really good at Call of Duty. So, there’s that.

This story caught my attention tonight on BBC News. Essentially its the Doctors saying our care provision for cancer within the NHS is inadequate.

Weirdly, I don’t feel qualified to answer this with any real insight. The whole thing about anecdotes not being data applies I imagine. If, however, you can accept that perhaps I may not be as objective as I normally try to be, I can proffer some opinion.

Firstly, let me very clear in a way that I wasn’t in a very early post that got me some online grief. I have never, not even once, come across somebody in my whole experience who I felt wasn’t trying to be helpful. Any criticism I offer here is around the system, not the people.

Now, the bit that really sticks out in this story for me is this bit:

This bit I can 100% and completely agree with. The difference in care and provision I’ve received between Barts Health NHS Trust (Royal London Hospital etc.) and Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been beyond explaining. My early experiences with Barts – now I’ve experienced KCH – were awful. Every appointment hugely late, getting hold of the right people always a challenge.

To give you an idea, back when my situation first started in early 2024, I was given a referral to Urology. That appointment still has not happened. I had one phone call where a hassled man talked at me for about 4 minutes, told me he’d arrange a face to face…and all I’ve had since is letters cancelling and rearranging the appointment.

I’d have gone insane if the level of pain I was in really was down to something urology would have dealt with. It gets even more bizarre that I’ve emailed & rang a few times to tell them I don’t need to see them, but the cancellation and rearranged date letters still keep arriving.

There’s an air of chaos around Barts, and also Guys & St. Thomas’ when it comes to cancer care. An air of chaos that simply does not exist at KCH.

It is the compliment of the care I’ve received from KCH that’s made me realise how awful Barts was – please, before the messages, refer to what I said above about the people. I don’t mean them.

Whenever I’ve had to visit KCH every appointment has happened usually within 10 or 15 minutes of the booked time, and they’ve never been rushed. They’re also excellently prepared and seem to have access to all of my notes. My ending up at KCH quite literally, and without any drama, probably saved my life. It was the first time in an age I felt listened to, and they took their time to work things through with me. I was admitted the afternoon I turned up, and over the coming week the A&E consultant who admitted me also checked in to make sure things were moving.

I couldn’t have asked for more.

Anyway, it’s incredibly obvious to me – as a layman – that the funding levels between Barts and KCH must be hugely different. I can’t think of another reason for the difference in care levels.

Moving on slightly, I also think I’ve been very lucky to fall under the care of Oncologist who actually seems to care. I won’t name her, but she has been utterly fabulous in the way she’s helped me through this.

This seems to be my experience too. I was utterly lost and in substantial pain until I happened up on KCH.

How to fix this, or understanding what the causes are, are well above my pay grade or understanding, but I have a lot of sympathy for people who have not found the right path. The difference in my day to day between Barts & KCH is astonishing.

Anyway, this feels like I’m ranting. I am absolutely not – if anything, I’m sympathising with a system that’s struggling to cope.

If I had some advice – some advice I wish I’d have taken – if you’re not getting what you need please, please go somewhere else.

I’ve been quiet lately, and I know a few of you have been wondering what’s going on. The truth is, it’s not that I’ve been busy—I’ve just been filling my time with things that aren’t really moving me forward. My days seem to blend together now, and if I’m being honest, I sometimes forget what day it is at all.

Not long ago, I was someone who prided themselves on being a champion sleeper — only 5-6 hours a night. Now, I’m struggling to even get to bed. I’m often staying up well past 4 AM, which means I’m not really seeing the daylight until after lunchtime. It’s a strange shift, and I think it’s largely because my schedule’s been so empty. When I have things to do, I tend to get up and get things done. So, I’ve been making a conscious effort to fill my days with more tasks, and it seems to be working—I think this might be the first year I’ve ever submitted my tax returns early.

But that wasn’t the question I was asked. The question was: How am I doing? What’s going on?

I’m honestly flattered that so many of you care enough to check in. It’s a tough question to answer, but here goes:

I’ve mentioned before that I’m hoping to come out of this experience with a more positive perspective on people. I can see now how many of my past “reads” on others were way off. I still misread people, of course, but I’m learning to adjust my expectations and outcomes. Sharing this with you feels strange, though. I’m not totally sure how I feel about opening up in this way, but it’s out there now, and I’m rolling with it.

So, how am I, really?

Physically, I’m stronger than I’ve been in a long time. I’d say I’m about 80% back to normal. Pain has become more of an occasional discomfort than something I deal with every day. I’ve learned to manage things better, but I’ll admit, the boredom and lack of structure are starting to get to me. I’m not handling the lack of motivation very well, and it’s certainly keeping Amazon busy.

Mentally? That’s another story. I’m more exhausted in my mind than my body. It’s hard to explain, but sometimes things seem so overwhelming—even though I know I can handle them physically. It’s a strange new experience for me, and I’m working through it. Usually, my stubbornness is my superpower, but right now, it feels like my coping mechanism is failing me. I’m trying to figure out a new way to deal with things, and I haven’t quite nailed it yet.

The good news is, I’m aware of it, and when my brain tries to drag me into “The Funk,” I give myself a stern talk and push through it. Mostly, that works.

What else? Well, my radio-chemo wrapped up in December, and I’m getting closer to the end of the waiting period for the next steps. I had a CT scan recently, and after that, they moved my pre-surgery MRI up by almost a month—this weekend, in fact. Apparently, that’s a good sign. I didn’t totally understand the explanation, but it came from someone I trust completely, so I’m rolling with it. After the MRI, I’ll meet with the oncologist and her team, and then I’ll head into surgery to finally package up Percy and fire it in to the f***ing sun. I’m feeling calm about it all. As you can tell.

I do have a small gripe, though: I often get appointment reminders with no explanation. I’ll be called in for a CT scan, and then two days later, I’ll get a message saying, “Your MRI is now this Saturday—don’t cancel.” For a second, I freeze. I understand they deal with this stuff every day, but a little more context would go a long way. It’s confusing and, honestly, a bit unsettling.

I’m still unsure where I am on the path to surgery, and I think that uncertainty is contributing to some of my frustration. For example, I recently agreed to take on some design work, but I couldn’t commit to the delivery. Now, the team’s asking me to help with the delivery, and they seem confused when I keep saying no. It’s not about money, but they seem to think it is —I just don’t feel strong enough right now, and I don’t want to start something I can’t finish. Plus, it’s Cisco, so there’s that.

So, where am I? In short: Positive CT results, MRI on the horizon, and surgery waiting in the wings. Physically stronger, mentally drained—but I can see a sunny beach on the horizon, if that makes sense.

I’ve also got to mention my family and friends—they’ve been amazing. I know I can be tough to understand at times, even when I’m in a good place, so I can only imagine how hard I’ve been this year. But they’re here, doing their best to hold me up, feeding me snacks, and making sure I never run out of milk. Honestly, I’ve never felt more loved in my entire life.

So, that’s where I’m at. Mentally tired, physically stronger, but surrounded by people who make it all worth it.

I’ve spent the last few days being stared down and utterly annoyed by half an onion. Not even a full one. I dropped it in the kitchen when cooking the other night, and it’s been mocking me ever since.

It’s not even in an awkward place, just down between a couple of cupboards and the bin. The problem I have is that bending down can make lights flash in front of my eyes and then it’s significantly later than I thought it was. This isn’t the thing that’s stopped me doing it though. No. It’s my brain being a dick.

I’ve developed this weird mental bullying that I should just fucking deal with it whatever ‘it’ is. In this case, it’s an onion. On the floor. How hard can it be? 

The other night, I almost asked someone to grab it for me. But I stopped myself. I didn’t want to admit that I couldn’t even pick up a fucking onion. My pride kicked in, and I thought: ‘No, this is my problem.’. It’s as baffling to me as to why I hated that onion with a passion I cannot begin to describe.

In reality of course I’ve been having a tough week (Okay…year). My normal strategy of just facing down the world out of blatant bloody mindedness wasn’t going to plan. How very dare it. Given my limited emotional scope, I chose to channel my frustration into this poor, undeserving and abandoned vegetable. If you’re interested, that thing is now eviscerated to the point of no return, and with some malice. After somebody helped me pick it up of course, and then me completely re-arranging my living room to accommodate being unable to deal with the onion situation. I thought giving myself a far larger issue to regret may take my mind off it. I can confirm that no, it did not.

I sometimes struggle to consolidate the anger I feel at myself for not being able to deal with the most basic of things, with how I would hope I’d treat others in the same situation. I’d have just grabbed that onion and forgotten about it in seconds. For me it just became a monument to my failure to deal with the most basic of things.

Still, perspective, something I will never get.

PS. Fuck that onion.

Addenda: I struggled to present the context of this one properly, it reads more negatively than I intended, so please try read it as such (well, if you read it at all!).

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I find how people behave interesting – mainly as I don’t really understand it, for the most part. It’s no secret I struggle with this – it’s been obvious to me for several years that people communicate with more than just words. There’s some form of social dance that goes on, one that I am not equipped to read. It leads to confusion sometimes, and often frustration on my part (and sometimes offense on the other). People often think I’m annoyed about things probably a factor of 20 more times than I’m actually annoyed about anything. The irony being that when I am annoyed about something they really do know. 

It’s taken me a long time to realise that this isn’t on purpose, it’s just how we communicate is different. One thing shines out from all of this – for me anyway – and that is that I have a very literal view of the world. Usually what I say is exactly what I mean, without any embellishment. This isn’t however how most people communicate. I will never understand why somebody saying ‘The car is blue’ is seen as harsher as somebody who says ‘The car is very blue!’. Reading that back I think that needs to be said out-loud for anyone to understand what I meant. It’s especially true around subjects that make people uncomfortable – with one of those subjects being death. 

Death is a weird subject isn’t it? I mean even the tenses of the word bothers people in different ways (me too, but I’ll get to that in a minute). Die, died, dead, dying. Some of these words I’ve observed give people ‘The Fear’, so it got me thinking about them too – mainly as this proposition has raised its head in my surrounds recently.

Let me put it out there – dead doesn’t bother me any more than not being born. It’s a state of being I have no relation to, no memory of, so I have no fear of it. Dying however – the transition – that bears some concern. I don’t want it to be awful. I also don’t think it’s that hard – I mean people  of our type have been doing it for at least 300,000 years, and if they can do it I reckon I’ll do it just as spectacularly. What concerns me most though is the impact on others. This is a fairly modern thought for me, and one I should be – am – thankful for. –

In a break to the prose – a scene setup if you will – I journal a lot. I use it as a way to keep myself focused on what I want to do, what I don’t want to do, what’s working, what isn’t etc. Those journals take form of writing and audio notes. I know this isn’t unique to me – a personal diary is hardly earth shattering news. For me though, sometimes, I read stuff that I can’t remember experiencing or writing about. I sometimes don’t remember the scenarios around why I wrote something. That can sometimes be incredibly jolting to read. If you can’t be brutishly honest with yourself, who can you be? That’s also the reason my journals are so locked down.

Anyway, death. Post sponsored by omg drama – it isn’t, but you won’t read it in the right way if I don’t set the perspective first. Try it again, without the drama. I’m right aren’t I.

A few of my journals from Late Jan/early Feb 24 this year were about how to handle things if I died in the next couple of years. I’ve enacted many of those things. Digital separation was a right effort – I’ve ended up managing so many people’s backups, photos, iCloud, email (29 B2 365 licenses if that means anything to you), and even have separate password databases for people. Not least for the ‘Daaad how do I logon to Instagram?’. Sure, Law Grad, I got you. Finances were another. I’d accidentally ended up with complex finances through laziness, so I sorted those out into a couple of institutions, documented them etc. I even put together a hard disk with all the stuff my daughter could possibly be ever interested in, and of course included the password to the email account I’ve been emailing to since she was ….probably a year old? – about our experiences. I even read most of them – had a few tears, but mostly smiles and joy.

All of this was gloriously organised, and very much, well, me. Then I stumbled on some entries from late Jan/early Feb and they scared me a bit. Back then, I’d not had any diagnosis and the current thinking was .. limited. Yet the pain I was in was exponentially getting worse. Some of these entries involved how I would measure when enough was enough, and what I would do when enough became enough. Two things struck me about these entries – and the timeline matched too:

1: Practicality. How, organisation.

2: Impact on people.

I had item 1 nailed (all of them sucked, to be clear), item 2 however is where everything fell apart. I have experience of a very close friend choosing not to be here, and truth be told I still haven’t forgiven her for it. It’s a quiet unforgiven, but it’s certainly there. I don’t think it would be enough for me to not land on her like an over-excited Labrador as I’m sure I will when we finally get to meet again. You get the point. It’s a quiet anger, as in reality the anger is really inward – how didn’t I know that somebody so joyous, so important to my day, was having such a hard time?

My conclusion from this – and perhaps I haven’t explained this properly here – is that it’s people that got me through that period. That’s you, and you. Texting me repeatedly when I didn’t/hadn’t replied, emailing, calling. Turning up at my house with food. Shouting at me when I was in so much pain I passed out and then blamed some random drug. You gave my day value, you gave me value. I don’t think I can ever thank any of you enough for that.

I’ve been through a bit of a transition. I don’t think I’ll ever ‘forgive’* my friend for what she did, but I am so, so much closer to understanding it. For that though, I need to bear some responsibility for not being as solid as my ‘family’ has been. I will do my very best to make sure I never make that mistake again.

*I’ve struggled with this sentence. She doesn’t need my forgiveness, nor am I qualified or responsible to give it. This bit is all about how I felt. I know what I meant, I just can’t find the words.

I got asked an interesting question the other day – how do I decide what to video-blog and what to write. It caught me off guard a little, as I’d not given it much thought. It didn’t take much thought though to come to the conclusion that I write when I know I would struggle to talk through the subject I’m discussing. I struggle to ‘talk’ about some things – the more I try, the harder I find it, and it becomes frustrating. That frustration comes out in different ways – a common one that’s always misread is that I can look upset. I suppose I am in some ways, but it’s really frustration rather than what I’d imagine being emotionally upset would mean. If you want an example of that, check out about 8 mins 45 of this. I look upset, I‘m not. I’m frustrated because I’m struggling to make the point that is in my head – I just can’t find the words, and the more I try find them the further away they seem to get.

I’ve mentioned before that in my psychology studies I came across the thing about people without an internal monologue. I am one of these people. The thing is, until I’d read about it, I didn’t know I was any different to anyone else. The idea of having some form of running commentary in your head I just find bafflingly hard to ‘grab’. Is it like a compere? Is it Morgan Freeman? If I had to have one, I’d like Morgan Freeman: “Mark thought having another beer was a GREAT idea!” //Morgan Freeman: “It was not, in fact, a great idea.”.

I can’t imagine what it’s like any more than I can explain what it’s like for me – I don’t have ‘words’ in my head. I think stuff, it forms into words, and then falls out of my face. I’ve wondered (now) whether this is one of the reasons why people can find me overly direct and blunt. I can of course do the voice in the head thing, but to me it’s usually reciting stuff I’ve seen or experienced, it isn’t conversational. It’s kind of like watching a movie, rather than generating my own content, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I’ve wondered whether this is why I can find talking about such things difficult? My personal jury is out on that one. What did happen however is it got me reading my personal journals about such things – I tag my journals, so it’s pretty easy to filter by things related to how I’m feeling. 

It was a bit of a shocker, and in some respects genuinely upsetting. I’ve a wonderful skill of forgetting bad stuff like it never happened. I know I was in a lot of pain (hell, I passed out several times because of it), but can I remember that pain? No, I cannot. I know it happened, but I can’t remember what it was like. If I try think about it, all I get back is a ‘yeah, zero stars, let’s not do that again’. So what did I find so shocking? My personal writing about my chemo experiences and how I feel about them today. I can’t relate to what I wrote, although I know through the language that I wrote it.

Now I’ve had a month off from treatment (radio-chemo starts Monday – I got this! – it’s currently Thursday), I’ve had time to consider stuff. I’m feeling stronger than I have in an age, it’s been so good to get most of my day back. I’m still not as strong, my balance is a bit off, and when I decide I’m tired oh my god it’s immediate rather than hey, I need a rest soon….but, compared to before I’m leagues away from there. I’m doing my ‘relentless positivity’ that sometimes others talk about and yet I don’t quite get. 

I’ve been reading my notes about my chemo experience, and they’re a bit…unrelatable. They’re so different to how I currently feel about my treatment that I’m wondering if I have perhaps misrepresented it and made it out to be a walk in the park. I know it wasn’t. I’m sat here fully knowing the level of relief I felt finding out I was only doing 3 months rather than 6, but my memory of chemo was unpleasant but manageable. My journals say otherwise. The 4 days around chemo – 1 day lead up, the treatment day, and the couple of days afterward – became something I dreaded. I know this now, I just don’t think I appreciated how much. 

In one journal I talk about finding it so hard I was going to ask them to stop. As I’m sat here, I cannot relate to that. I don’t know why I wrote  that – more than once – or how I’d got there, but I also know how I deal with such horrific things – I deal with them, and I move on, and then it’s like they never happened. The positive journals then came out as soon as I allowed(!) people back in to my place usually by Saturday PM when I had had my chemo pump removed and was starting to feel a bit more human (chemo was on a Thursday). 

It was also written in a pleading manner too – not something I’m used to experiencing in myself. Usually I’d be fuck this, I’m not doing this anymore, so simply wouldn’t. I know why I did of course – because it was the right thing to do, for me, and for those I love, and, despite my attempts to make otherwise, seem to love me too.

So yeah. I write about stuff I struggle to verbalise. Part of that is because of a lack of understanding of things, and it’s obvious to me now that writing about stuff helps me understand the subject more than perhaps just talking at a camera does?

Not too long ago I was talking about language on one of my vLogs. Specifically, I’d mentioned that I sometimes find language frustrating in certain contexts – in this context, the idea that you can ‘fight’ this disease. It irritated me. I kept wondering why people referred to it. What happened for the people who didn’t come through? Did they not fight enough? ‘Keep fighting’ people would say. It was a weird choice of words to hear for me. In my head you can no more ‘fight’ this disease than you can fight being hit by a train, and nobody would suggest fighting that.

Now I’m over a year in however I have a better understanding. I still don’t think you fight this disease, but that’s not to say there’s not a fight going on – there is, often every single day. For me the fight has been motivating myself to get up every day and get on with stuff, regardless. The fight to not give in to that want to sit on the sofa and disappear in to my own head, not consuming crappy movies that happen to be on.

Truth is I didn’t manage that for quite a while, however with some perspective I understand why – I was in a significant amount of pain, combined with getting care that missed the mark significantly. I spent the best part of a year being told I had something like prostatitis or an enlarged prostate (to be fair, I’m probably about the right age), and having naproxen and stuff thrown down my throat. Staying with the train analogy, that’s like trying to treat being hit by a train with band-aids. I’ll forgive myself for that, I think. Not seeing any progress, and getting worse, well, I struggled with knowing what was next, and looking back that was really impacting my mental health, not just my physical health. I was losing my natural positivity as I couldn’t work a positive outcome. I couldn’t see when my days were going to get better.

I’ve often heard from people that I can be relentlessly positive. That’s also something I’m not quite sure I understood. Giving it some thought, I think it’s actually the other way around – I’m not a worrier. I don’t tend to worry about things I have no control over. With things where I do have control over outcomes, I tend to work out what the outcome is that I want, and what I need to do to work toward that outcome. What I don’t do is then constantly worry about whether I’m going to get to that outcome or not – it seems such a waste of brain energy & time to do so, and fortunately it’s something I’ve trained myself not to do. Perhaps that’s where the perception of ‘relentless positivity’ has come from? 

The last year has been a bit of education journey for me in some respects. This is one of those things I was wrong about – people can and do fight when they’re going through this stuff, but the fight isn’t what I thought. The fight is with yourself, and that’s arguably a tougher thing to process than fighting something tangible.

My fight goes on, but what I do know is this – today is a lot easier than yesterday, and it’s harder than tomorrow will be. Today that fight involves making some Thai curry – my favourite food in the world.

I met a very good friend for a late lunch on Wednesday. Now that I’m feeling a bit stronger I’m making the effort to catch up with people I haven’t been able to see for a while. My soul is better for it. We had some good food and a great catch up. I had to head home after a couple of hours as that’s about my physical limit right now before I need to rest up.

As I was plonked in front of the TV, I got the sudden urge to … cry. So I did. In reality I don’t think I could have stopped it if I’d have tried. This is not an emotion or a release I’m used to, it’s not typically a tool I have.

I’m one of those people who has a more unusual emotional gradient. The journey in/out of that ‘ok’ zone for me can be quite a steep and fast one, and the results can be physically painful and mentally draining. As a kid, those sorts of events would often result in (the now classic signs …) of covering my ears and wanting to scream until everything stopped. As an adult, I now have a good handle on the influencers on this behaviour, and I’ve learned how to avoid those situations, so such events are rare. I see them coming, and remove myself from those scenarios. There’s perhaps some Accounts Payable teams out there that think I have more to learn on that front, but c’est la vie.

This however was not that. This felt like just a rising tide of I don’t know what – just mental exhaustion perhaps? I wasn’t/am not feeling sad or down. I am feeling run-down though, hugely. Physical effort beyond a point can ruin my day, and I haven’t quite got the hang of how much physical effort is too much. So, yes, I found myself on the sofa in front of the TV sobbing my little eyes out while having no real clue as to why, or what the point was. I then wandered off in to the land of nod only to wake up a few hours later wondering what that was all about. My face looked like I’d taken part in some slapping competition, shortly followed by a ‘who can most look like a shaved baby’.

Then I realised something. I felt so much mentally better than I had. I felt off-loaded, relieved, and other words that sound like they should be in a sentence about something else.

I’m still trying to work out why/how it happened – I’m curious like that – but I’m ok that it did. Is this the start of the use of a mental tool I’ve never really had? Who knows. Perhaps next time H makes me watch Love Actually I won’t be looking forward to watching Die Hard afterward so I get to see Alan Rickman thrown off a building; instead swapping that for a different emotion. Or perhaps not.

Anyway. A new experience was had, and it wasn’t necessarily A Bad Thing.

As part of the discussions around my treatment, I was given the option of diving straight into the fixing, or targeting managing my pain first. Given where I’ve been for the last year – and a couple of other considerations I won’t go in to here – I’ve opted for the stoma route first. For those not familiar with a stoma – you can read about it here. Sounds horrific doesn’t it? In reality, it isn’t. I’m fortunate (…weird choice of words that) to know somebody who has had one for most of their adult life, so I came into this fully educated.

Monday AM it was an early start into Kings at 06:30 to prep for Surgery. Booked into the ward, and down in prep by 08:30. Under around 09:00, back in recovery around 10:30. I took the advice of having happy conversations before going under the anaesthetic and it paid off – my conversation on the way back up were complimentary, and ridiculously friendly. Somebody now knows I think they have great hair.

Yet again Kings College have been exemplary. Their treatment and care has been beyond question, I simply couldn’t ask for more. I’ve been involved in every conversation – do I want an epidural as well as the normal anaesthetic? – and educated on those choices. Everything they’ve said has come through. I feel cared for. I feel like I matter, and I’m listened to. 

I’ve been up in the ward since Monday and the level of care I’ve received has continued. Managing the stoma is easier than I thought in reality. Takes a bit of practice but it’s nothing that I can’t manage. I was so looking forward to being able to shower though! Weird how your brain will potentially not let you feel clean for a while isn’t it?

I’m feeling positive, and together…and I’m no longer in pain – and that, my friends, is glorious. It’s the first time I’ve been this pain free since last summer. It’s weird to say but I was starting to forget what it’s like. I’m sore, sure, but that I can cope with – every day I’m stronger, and less sore.

What have I Learned?

Don’t give up on asking for help is probably my primary lesson. I hate to be negative about such things, however when I compare and contrast the treatment I’ve received at Kings compared to Royal London, the gap in care is astonishing. They couldn’t have been more different. I’m so pleased I found this place.

A positive frame of mind is hard to maintain when you’re in constant pain – but when you’re progressing, when you have a plan, and you’re surrounded by people who support you – every one of those moments gets easier.

I need to buy new clothes. None of them fit. I look like I should be out skateboarding or advertising my wares in prison.

I’m a lot more positive than I was even a few days ago. I am however fully aware of the journey in front of me; the difference is now I feel ready to face it.

Final Thoughts of Today

• My daughter is a bad ass, and I couldn’t be more proud of her, and how she’s coping.
• People have surprised me in their willingness to help – even when I’ve not asked, and not thought to ask…because I don’t know how to.
• I got this. 
• This one may be a bit dramatic – but when you feel you’ve lost everything, and you’ve settled on that outcome, oh my god do you feel free. Told you, dramatic, but it’s the best way I can word it.
• Forgive the Tolkien quote (or don’t – bite me): “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”. I could not agree with this more – always have had this mentality, if I think about it – it’s now just hitting home.
• Sometimes it’s the small gestures from people we barely know that can reaffirm your faith that collectively people are good people. Often, they don’t even realise they’re one of those people. I hope I am one of those people.
• Tummy trumps will never not be hysterical.
• By my calculations I am now approximately 0.9% donut.