Number Thirty Three: The Fabulous Normal

I’ve always been a ‘get carried away’, ‘bit too excited for my own good’ ‘feet first-think later’ kind of a girl. But something I can tell you for sure is that there is nothing like a half a year of feeling poorly, waiting to get better and back to feeling yourself to get you inspired for ‘normal life’. To me the prospect of normal life is a fabulous and tantalising thing- for normal do not read mundane read fabulous!

I am officially ridiculously excited about the prospect of ‘normal’! Back to healthy, back to being an active mummy, back to work, back to thinking about something other than chemotherapy symptoms. I think reaching the half way point in the tough part of the treatment has been a real mental weight lifted- I’m on the home straight! (if we put a pin in the radiotherapy, forget the herceptin for a min, oh and rudely ignore tamoxifen) In five weeks time I will be recovering from the final chemo, time always goes so fast so this is amazing news.

I am currently being inspired by everything- I see people exercising and think- that’ll be me! (It won’t… I’ve always loathed exercise- I’ve had breast cancer not a personality transplant!) But to see people with energy is something I’m currently jealous of so I do wonder if cancer was the shock I needed to begin living a more healthy lifestyle. I’m so so pathetically, sadly, geekily looking forward to getting back to work- this for me will really symbolise the end of this dreadful period of 2011. I’ve even been inspired by my brother-in-law! He’s a very important head of PE at a local secondary school and I went to watch his sports presentation award afternoon last week- it was brilliant! I left feeling like I not only wanted to pursue ‘From Playground to Podium’ in my own school but was wanting to take up a sport myself AND quite fancied having a re-run at secondary school (just need a time machine then!) I’d forgotten what fun being a carefree teenager had been- life’s got a bit serious of late!

I am still determined to believe that the whole cancer experience will have an overall more positive than negative affect on me and my family- the downsides are obvious but the good things that are to come out of it are becoming more apparent too. 2011 has been quite rubbish for a few people I know- this led to a dinner table discussion with ‘usband about whether or not our 2011 had been the worst. Despite everything… operations, wall punching, tears, fatigue and constipation, we agreed that we still had it pretty good. Brace yourself for the most romantic quote of the decade from the ‘usband… ‘I still can’t help thinking that we were really lucky to find each other in this world full of dicks!’ Hopeless romantic that one! Truth is we are sickenly happy together and thanks to cancer will treasure our time together rather than speeding all blasé through our lives.

The prolonged timeout of work has given me great new perspective and renewed energy for the job… it’s tough to feel enthusiastic about returning to work following maternity leave- feeling guilty about leaving a young baby but double that timeout and you’re raring to go! I think everyone would benefit from a little timeout every ten years!

The other thing that inspires me is the longer term future- those of you that know us will know that we’re not exactly planners- our life is a little more organic than that- we kind of bob along wondering what to do with this afternoon rather than where we’ll be in five years time. Not anymore! Now I’m planning holidays, house moves and skiing trips- grabbing the future and enjoying it! I feel that now is a good time to confess that yesterday I bought my three yr old an aged 5-6yrs ski jacket- impulse buy? No no no! Absolute bargainous necessity and perfectly sensible purchase! I’m so excited when I look at it and imagine my little family of four atop a snowy, silent mountain. Can NOT wait!

So, getting back to normal is my summer holiday target- on my down days I could be heard moaning that it was unfair that all I had to look forward to was ‘normal’ but now I can assure you that normal would be lovely, perfect and fabulous! In the words of Davina… ‘Normal, I’m coming to get ‘cha!’