73. Life is is more Colosseum than Colonoscopy this weekend.

After the last few days of taking in the news of looking like the pet scan bowel light up last July was purely inflammation or benign polyps, I have found a new calm that I don't think I've felt for about a decade. When my Grandma died in 2014 I had thought my mum had been acting slightly strange and 'off' for some time, but as I didn't live near her, and only could gauge things from limited contact and telephone calls, I put it down to stress, or just her, being extra awkward and chucking herself about attention seeking like she was very prone to do. However over the ensuing months and years it transpired she was actually ill, for once! She had spent her whole life thinking she had one malady or another, and hating everyone with a vengeance for not believing her, and then, here she was, actually very sick and was the only one who didn't notice and in fact berated anyone who insinuated she was. The irony! Anyway, even before my insidious friend neck lump appeared in 2024, I had spent the previous 10 yrs worrying constantly about her, arranging her life, sorting her finances, trying to make sure her partner was doing everything he could to look after her, make sure her savings lasted for as long as she did..... running someone else's life from over a 100 miles away by phone and email whilst trying to cope with my own. The 'lumpy' turned up just when it was all coming to an end, and although her being alive and the lump in my neck only over lapped by a few months, by the time her estate was wrapped up it was still another 6 months of worrying about her, be it posthumously, and then I obviously was diagnosed with cancer in July '25. So this is the first week, in nearly 12 yrs, I basically haven't had much to worry about. So I did what most exhausted think they might die and then find out they might not people do... I decided to go and see one of the 7 wonders of the world. So we booked to go to Rome for my birthday, and see the Colesseum. The Trevi fountain is also very high on my 'now cancelled hopefully bucket' list, as its outside and shouldn't be a problem anxiety wise, and although the crowds are a worry and being inside, a tour of the Vatican museum and see the Sistine chapel, Michael Angelo's creation of Adam. I'm hoping the feeling of calm in such a religious place will help, I'm always chilled in churches, even though not religious, I think I just feel the love.

You really stop looking at life in the same way when you spend endless nights awake, in the dark, thinking about how close never ending blackness could be. I used to think that people declaring some kind of epiphany after a cancer diagnosis were a bit lame and being all 'drama' and attention seeking tbh, but in all honestly, I just have to say cancer changes you! I used to think I knew about being ill all the time, and hated 'safe' people who thought that a puncture on the way to work was worth a mini series in everyone's day as it was so important.

I'd had my share of hard knocks in my life, my crap romantic relationships, a childhood full of abuse and domestic violence, miscarriages, drug addict husbands, divorces,( both mine and my parents), ill health, misdiagnosis of life changing conditions, mental health issues, but nothing really knocked my feet from under me like this has.

Everything I have endured, everything I have survived before, I sort of felt it was my choice, I could stop it all if I made the right choices, cut it off, walked away, start again, but with cancer its not under your control. Your treatment is, and what you're prepared to do, and how far you're prepared to go, but even then there are no guarantees. cancer looks you straight in the eyes and see's if you stare back and who's going to look away first. Everyday I get closer to 'dodging its bullet', hopefully. This week was huge, almost like there is no more bullet, but I know that's not entirely true. But it felt like it. Now I need the fear spring to lose some torque, and feel the slack. I want at the end of this to look back and thank the cosmos for giving me this, I want in the end to be given back a life better than I had before, because I have learned the lessons I didn't have the strength to learn before. By being strong, and capable, by insisting I battled on, survived through everything, adapting, kept myself safe by avoiding, by living off fear, and making my self smaller, my world tiny I'd get through.

Its time with cancers help, that life needs to change, before there is no time and no life left. So Rome, I'll see you soon. x