Four years gone

This time four years ago I was getting myself ready for brain surgery. That still sounds mad to me! Almost unbelievable. My first surgery was on 22nd February 2017, and my second one was a week later on 1st March....... I saw a video this week of a woman playing violin during awake brain surgery. All I managed were some very poor jokes.......

Hand me the forceps; “What are you doing up there?? You’re not delivering a baby you know!!”, 

 “Do you know what day it is today?? It’s 1st March, the first day of Brain Tumour Awareness month. Don’t f*ck this up.....it’d be really embarrassing for you!!”,

“Just so we’re clear, if I die on this table I’m coming back to haunt you!”

All I have to do is touch my head to be reminded it wasn’t all a bad dream......there’s a scar and a temple fontanelle to remind me. The weather reminds me too...... we’ve just had a complete downpour and accompanying thunder and lightning so powerful it knocked the Sky TV signal off. Hubby was very unhappy because the Merseyside derby is on! I’m unhappy because my head is still thumping. Human barometer.

Thankfully there was no rain for my sea dip this morning. Though it’s still very, very cold in the water! I wrote that like it’s ever warm in the North Atlantic.......it’s not, but there’s definitely ‘winter cold’ and ‘summer cold’, and we’re still in the former. Not for long though...... Spring is just around the corner. Some of my snowdrops have come out in our garden, and there are tulip shoots just waiting for the season to properly change. It’ll be Spring no time!

The longer days seem to be lifting everyone. In the last week I’ve had loads of really pleasant conversations and experiences. I’ve been busy at work, which is always good for me. I’ve started playing piano again after 30 years......it’s halting and there are plenty of bum notes, but it’s coming on. A wonderful lady I met when her mother was in the same hospital ward as me created a series of beautiful images inspired by sea bathers. “My” image is called Stormbusting and she made me cry with her words;

“....brave, tenacious, enduring, inspirational...”, “the long mermaid hair symbolises the inner rock chick being restored. The wave symbolises everything you endured and are still going through.....”

Wow! What could I even say? Completely overwhelming. 

Hot on the heels of this I had someone tell me I was ‘a tonic’. I took this as a wonderful compliment. It’s not an expression you hear much, but I’d just rattled off my ‘Billy Joel saved my life’ story along with a few other comedy lines. It’s always nice to have my, sometimes dark, humour appreciated.

We are fast racing towards Spring. I have snowdrops in bloom in my garden and tulips starting to sprout. Before we know it Covid restrictions will start to ease and we’ll be all be in a better place! 

We have rescheduled gigs to attend and trips to go on. Please, please let us get a break by summer!! Even if it means handing back the laptop, getting out of the jogging bottoms and going back out into the Wide World.  I’m restless. I crave the sun, music, good friends, and seeing our Riverbank Relatives Room finally opening! I am filled with hope and expectation. Come on life.......don’t let me down!! 

Washing worries away

Let’s get the bad stuff over with first.......Sometimes real life sucks. This seems to be particularly true for me at the start of the year. January and February should be about fresh starts and looking forward to an exciting year ahead....... for me, it seems to have become the time when bad things happen. 

It’s been a very full on few weeks. I’ve had a ‘half scan’ due to my rubbish veins and am nervously awaiting results, knowing they won’t be conclusive anyway. I’ve moved into a new role at work, through my own choice, but another change to deal with all the same. Hardest of all, I’ve watched my dad tumble very rapidly into dementia and have had to accept he will spend the rest of his life in a dementia unit in a care home. This is particularly difficult because he has dementia with Lewy bodies which, unlike Alzheimer’s, is not a steady decline; rather a fluctuating state of semi lucidity and complete delusion within a short space of time. 

It’s been tough going, made worse by the time of year and the ongoing covid pandemic, but I know people experience far worse. I always aim to be honest in this wee blog of nonsense......I don’t want to come across as an eternally happy and positive person, because that’s just not real life for anyone. What I do always try to do is pull out positives....... I do this to let the few of you still reading this see there are always positives to be seen. More so, I do it to remind myself and to chase my anxieties away.

So here’s the story told from a different perspective......... In the last few weeks I’ve had a scan that should show enough to tell us if everything remains stable, which I’m expecting to be the case. It’s winter, but we’ve had some glorious crisp and sunny days and been able to enjoy restorative time outdoors, despite the pandemic. Just this morning I enjoyed a life affirming sea dip. 

I’ve moved into a new, exciting role at work. It was through my own choice and gives me an opportunity to learn new things, work as part of a bigger team, and hopefully make a tiny difference in my wee patch. Hopefully some time this year I’ll get back into my office and out of my house. I’ve been home working for almost a year now........aren’t I lucky?? Neither my husband or  I have been furloughed, we haven’t lost our jobs, we have interesting and secure jobs that pay us enough to pay our bills and live a good life. We’re not rich but we’re certainly not on the bread line. Most of all we have each other, not to mention our gorgeous big son.

My dad is safe, warm and comfortable in a care home specially set up to look after dementia patients. I even got to choose his room and this week we will take him some items from home and get him settled in. He is close by and we can visit him with restrictions. Once lockdown rules change we’ll be able to have full visits more often. Some people don’t get that valuable time. 

I have just come back from a fantastic dip in a very cold, but glorious sea, under blue skies, and have left my worries in the sea. I have been spoilt with a hot shower, a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea, and am now watching my husband do the housework while I write a load of uninteresting words that will likely never be read, but that help me work through my thoughts.

Yep, I’ve nothing to complain about really. Living with x