wanting to be normal again

Monday 14th September

It's really weird. This time last year, I was like 'GI Jane' – hair 2mm SHORT and feeling completely and utterly crap / ugly / lucky / miserable / exhilarated / deranged / happy / sad / tearful / depressed / frightened – bring it on, I felt it. All at once. Barely able to make it up the hills of Porto. Planning my next step, seeing it in my mind and wondering if I'd make it. Just the next street sign…just the next hill. Counting my footsteps, and breathing each one. Hurting and silently screaming that I did NOT want to do this…but forcing myself anyway.

This is me, in Porto, last September. We had a fabulous holiday for a week. It was incredible – Aj arranged an amazing apartment, and my friends were there for me – we had a brilliant week. The sun shone every day. It seems a lifetime away now. I can't BELIEVE I looked like that! I can't really understand what happened…it seems like a dream now. Or maybe a nightmare? I can't believe I made it up all those steps we had to get to the apart. No lift there! I can't believe that this was actually me; this weak and frail person. This tottering 'thing'. I am amazed at how much I complained!! and I am amazed at how much I achieved. But hindsight is always crystal clear isn't it?

Bloated face from the steroids, loads of extra weight due to the same. A great big scar up the middle of my hitherto fore pristine belly. Oh I bitched and whined about those things…but to be fair, those things saved my life.

This is me now – I feel so lucky!!! Look! Hair! Lots of it…

It's easy to forget that this time we have is an 'extra'. If you will. We are all struggling to stay alive. People [like I used to be] without cancer or the threat of it. People with their horrible diseases [yeah, lets not forget – there are many horrid things you can get, just as bad as cancer!] and people who just have a cold, or feel tired, and think it's the End Of The World. To them, perhaps it is. I would be happy for anyone that this should be the worst that could happen to them. I wish it were the worst that had happened to me.

But we are in 'extra time' – a few years back, we would have been dead. But we aren't. Thanks to modern technology, new insight and incredible scientific breakthroughs, we are alive. I wonder what is in the heads of those scientists? Is it that they want to save us? Or is it that they want to be famous for saving us? Do I care? No. I don't. Bring on the boffins – they have extended my life so far. I hope they will carry on doing just that. I don't want to die. No, not yet, not until I am about 95!

I want to be able to complain about 'The Youth Of Today'...I want to be able to bitch about my pension…I want to see Aj with hardly any hair ;o)

in short – I want the chance to get old. I want the chance to feel normal again. For a long time?