Less negativity......

The last post needed saying and I said it. But it probably didn't read very positively, my life is awesome, it's bloody brilliant being me.

Last weekend we were invited to Gareth and Julia's wedding at Borrowdale youth hostel in the lakes. Gareth is a good friend and neighbour and I was proud to be an usher even though I had to wear way too much wool on the hottest day of the year!

We had a brilliant weekend and Gareth and Julia just looked so happy and it all looked right. It reminded me of our wedding, a hot but wonderful day were everything went right and Wendy looked stunning. Being in the lakes was very relaxing and made me so incredibly happy. We'll be back one day, with or without the kids I'm not sure, I'd like to do both we will see.

Anyhow photos say so much I'll let them do the talking.

The one with the head!

My gran couldn't remember my name when mum called in on her the other day so I'm the one with the head. Not sure if the rest of the family are headless but mines been a little distinctive recently!

The brain is an incredible thing. It controls our bodies for a start, it enables us to walk, to judge distance/speed/beauty, it allows our mouths to work (sometimes) to utter the words I love you or to give thanks for a beautiful day. For some people it helps them be academic, storing information and formulea for use in the future. For others it allows them to paint or create or be musical or theatrical. Some get a strength of character, some get a determination that carries them through regardless, others get the ability to share, to teach, to love.

I think we all start out with similar abilities but with our own strengths. Our lives then mold us into the beings we are, the experiences, the ups and downs. My first word was mini, not mum or dad but mini so I guess there was some outside influence going on there!

My head at the moment is struggling, it is struggling with my body not being as fit as it was. With me being tired a lot of the time and it's struggling with little petty things at work which should be of no matter to me. Wendy and I keep having the whole your body has been through so much and it has to recover.

Yes it has to recover but I want it to be faster! This Thursday is one year since I started chemotherapy. I have been back at work for seven weeks, as a phased return so building my timetable up. I've also dropped Wednesday which gives me a chance to recharge. Making it to the end of my first half term was a fabulous feeling, it was a real milestone for me I had been scared that I wouldn't get there. That my body would say no, that I'd get a cough or a cold or something would happen. But nothing did, except for my head playing tricks with me, putting doubt in place of confidence and mixing emotions up to boiling point for no apparent reason.

I have to look after me and that is what I lost sight of. I've loved being back and teaching again it's felt so right and fun and some of the kids have been so nice. But it's all consuming and once you're in that classroom for the hour or two you have that lesson for you're in charge, no wandering off for a pee or to check for a text message. It's been brilliant but it hasn't given me chance to think.

It's half term holidays now and it gives me that chance to think. To hold hands with Wend and walk and talk and laugh and cry if need be. But it's all about getting a balance back, I knew it'd be hard going back to work and physically it has been but mentally it's been a real challenge. This week is about being me and getting back in tune with being me. Being me is being part of a lovely little family,it's taking the dog for walks, it's taking the kids for new shoes and stuff for school and it's about being in love with an incredible woman.

Knackered but smiling

Well the smile is there more often than it was. I don't feel as angry as I did, I went through a stage of just wanting to fight anything and everything. That is passing which is great as I don't upset the kids or Wend as much and I'm a more chilled teacher because of it.

The tennis elbow is ok, getting better actually, my tennis is still rubbish though. My chest still has it's moments and I'm happy to put that down to radio therapy side effects and a hint of a cold. Don't worry it's not man flu!

I've started staying at work until lunch time this week which has been as much of a kick in the teeth as starting back at work. It's been hard but I've enjoyed it, I've enjoyed feeling more part of the furniture and the kids are getting more used to me being back. I get less people staring at me, I had one lad come up and pat my shoulders as though he was checking I was real! It also feels like the staff have pretty much all seen me and it's old news. Which in a funny way is great, I like some attention but it's nice when people see me for me rather than someone who's had cancer. I'm starting to be Mr Hart, big loud hairy Mr Hart who is firm but fair (hopefully).

I went to see my GP tonight to sort out my final sick note, wow how good does that sound, so that I can return to work after spring bank half term holiday. I think that the timing feel right, it may be hard work, it will be hard work, but I need to be back properly. I will need to plod and to get my lessons right, settle into the full routine and then I can start thinking about getting my fitness back. It would be unfair for me to ask my body to go back to work and then on top of that start pushing to get fit again. I'll ride my bike and maybe go for the odd run but I need to make sure I have reserves of energy the last thing I need is to get run down.........had plenty of that!

Oh next Weston park visit is in three months, tennis elbow permitting!

Phew

The scan came through all clear. The thoughts on the arm is that it may be tennis elbow! My chest feels funny and my breathing isn't what it was but the consultants listened to my chest and it's all clear and the suggestion is that it's the side effects from the radio therapy still making themselves known.

I guess it's been an emotional time as everything felt like it was going so well and that I could get on with life all hunky dory. But it scared me, it scared Wend as well, it scared George and Carys and mum and dad. I've never been so convinced that I was going to die. It's a pants feeling really, all I could do was think about how Wend and the girls would cope and what music they'd play at my funeral and could I have an eco coffin etc etc etc. All the stuff that a morose self pitying hypochondriac thinks.

Well stuff that. I need to find the fine line between symptoms and side effects and I need to listen to my body and how it's responding to the gradual process of recovery but I need to live. I need to let go of the ghosts that sit with me in any waiting room, as though I'm going through chemo again. Let go of the feeling that my body isn't quite doing what I expect it to. We learned today that treatment can age your body by 10 years! Bugger. Anyway this 48 year old body is going to get fit and get back to work and get back on with enjoying life rather than existing, afraid of any ache or pain.

I need to do it sensibly and I need to do it once. We want boring from now on. No more excitement, no more appointments, no more waiting rooms. Lets chill out, live life and be as normal as I get for as long as possible.

Testing times

Going back to work has hit me hard, harder than I thought it would but it's also come at a bad time. I've been having some cracking good pains in my left arm and elbow. Me being me decided it's due tot he amount of poison that was shoved through that arm when I was on chemo, unfortunately my consultant doesn't agree.

It may be a circumstantial thing as i have been sat for a really long time over the last year doing bugger all and even less with my left arm as i'm right handed. Which ruled out Mark's theory that I'd been bashing the bishop too much. I'm reasonably ambidextrous but not that good!

So the testing has begun again, 6 xray's of my upper spine and shoulders which may have been inconclusive as I went for a MRI scan last night. It's weird, when the NHS needs to move quickly it can and that has made Wend and I all the more anxious, when you get a phone call at 7.45pm asking you to come for a scan the day after next it just takes me right back to when all this started almost exactly a year ago. The phone calls, the hurried appointments, the uncertainty and the surreal feeling that we were going pinch each other and wake up and out of the nightmare. The girls know something is going on, we've told them as we always do, that I have to have some more scans. Looking into their eyes and telling them that we don't know what's happening is one of the hardest things. I can remember the utter joy and relief of telling them I was in remission and now all I keep thinking is what if, what if it's back, is it the same, is it different, is it better or worse, do I have the physical ability to do treatment again. Do I have the mental ability to do treatment again.

I don't really have a choice. I have too much to live for.

I appreciate that my head has been full of rubbish but I've been taking it out on the wrong people, the people who are closest to me get the grumpy miserable git who snaps and is generally bad tempered. The dog has had short shrift on a few too many occasions, but we're closer than we were, he's sat on my feet as I type this. Why is it that I can't take it out on something else, an inanimate object, something that doesn't have feelings. I try to be so careful at work, there are so many opportunities for the odd snide remark but then I would become the teacher that I swore I'd never be.

In a weird way I thought going to a funeral would help my head, not any random funeral as rent a crowd but a relatives. It was one of my mum's cousins and although we'd never been close I wanted to go for his mum, Connie who is an absolute hoot and my mum who has supported Connie through many trying times.

Well I was wrong. The vicar or bod who does the service read a preprepared script about someone who I knew not. A popular person who'd worked hard his whole life and was excellent with kids at parties. Now this wasn't the person I had met, maybe it was the families memories but I could feel myself getting more and more irate and had to stop myself asking who are they talking about!

Then my mind decided that it'd had enough of listening so started working overtime placing me in the coffin and Wend and the girls in the front row. I decided there and then that I wasn't having them go through the rubbish I'd just had to sit through so I started thinking about my own funeral and how it could be and the Indian food feast afterwards and the music and the bikes and bikers and then the Shadows started playing Apache. Although I like the track and it was on the first ever album I bought, on cassette none the less, I thought you can bugger off you're not playing that at my funeral. They weren't, it was actually playing at the crem that bright and sunny afternoon. I so wanted to do air guitar down the isle but I refrained, just.

I get the results of the MRI scan next Wednesday and fingers and everything else, that will cross, crossed that it's nowt to be worried about it's just the damaged muscles and veins repairing themselves.

It's easy to type but it's bloody hard to keep the fascade going. But it's life and it's there for living so until someone stops me I'll keep on, hopefully in a better mood!

Well I'm back.......

I made it. I'm getting back into the groove of getting up going to work coming home and going to bed. No I'm not working all the hours sent to me just two in a morning but it's knocking me very sideways. I feel better when I've been swimming or for a bike ride so it's not a physical thing. It's a head and heart thing.

There's no point being a teacher if you're rubbish at it, the kids will eat you alive and then you get stressed and no-one smiles then.

It was a lovely welcome to morning briefing, people saying hello and welcome back and just being really nice. Then it was mentioned in briefing that I was back and people clapped and cheered. It was an unbelievable reaction, I haven't done anything to warrant such a reaction, but it was an honest and unprepared emotional response which gave me an incredible feeling inside. I managed to keep my emotions together but it was a close run thing!

My lesson wasn't as good as the previous one, the computers had developed a glitch which had to be sorted so it was a case of thinking on my feet which was a little more stress than I'd planned for. But the kids learned a few things, I kept my calm and made it through.

As I got home I could feel myself going, I made a cup of tea and started checking emails. I got half way down the tea and didn't read the emails before going to bed and sleeping soundly for an hour or so. Then I was nearly asleep in my tea, so I made it to the royal time of nine pm before going to bed again. Apart from my old man's bladder I slept soundly and only woke when the alarm went off to do it all again.

Today was similar but different, I wasn't actually teaching but I had paperwork to catch up on and ICT issues to try and sort. But it was talking to a lady in one of the offices who's been through cancer that really brought home to me how important these two days are. They are the first steps to being normal, well as normal as I get, they are the routine I haven't had, the challenges that for the last year I haven't had to face. Yes I've had a fair bit on my mind but that was all about me and my family. Now I have things to do that have no emotional attachment to me, they are just problems to solve and in a way that is very refreshing. The emotional drain is being nice to people all day, remembering their names even if they forget mine and remembering the bigger picture. Life is too short.

Well I've made it to 9:20 just and I'm going to bed. It's amazing being back at work, being able to go back is something that wasn't particularly certain for a long time. One thing that is certain is how lucky I am to have had the support from friends, colleagues and family. But it sealed the deal when I came down on Monday in my shirt and tie and Carys beamed up at me and told me how smart I looked, George gave me a big hug and Wend just smiled. One of those smiles that lights me up inside and gives me strength, it's a smile that gives me faith in myself, if I could bottle it it'd be worth a fortune. Actually it'd be priceless.

Occy health say yes

I had a meeting with occupational health yesterday to determine if the plan to return to work was sound and whether or not I was sound to go back too! Well I must have been on best behaviour as they think it's a good plan to return on as they said they're happy with the plan.

So the plan, I'm dropping Wednesdays (completely forever done) and will start back by working the first two periods Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and see how it goes. If I'm knackered as is possible then I have Wednesday to rest. If that goes well for the first couple of weeks then I'll build up to doing all morning on those four days and then when that feels sustainable then go back in full time and see how that works out. I want to go back but I want to go back once, so I'm going to take my time and make sure that I get it right first time.

Bring on Monday morning.........I'm as ready as I'll ever be.