Writer's block

I've really struggled to come up with new content for my blog over the last few weeks. So, ironically, I'm going to write about having nothing to write about.

I don't think anyone (apart from my mother) notices or cares if my blog is a bit quiet for a few weeks, but I do. I've set myself a schedule of publishing a new post every Monday at 5pm, and it irritates me if I have to deviate from that. As I mentioned in a previous post, I plan every aspect of my life with military precision and I'm also a perfectionist, so I hate it when my plans don't come together.

So, in the interest of having some new content to publish at the allocated time, why have I got writer's block at the moment?



No photos

I've got lots of ideas for new posts on my blogging Trello board, but so many of them need new photos to supplement them. New photos require time and good lighting, and I haven't had an abundance of either over the last few weeks. I haven't got a professional camera or fancy lights, and all my photos are taken on my phone. One way around this is to use stock photos, so I've made use of Unsplash a few times when I don't need highly specific photos. It's not something I want to do too regularly so a lack of decent photos can be a big barrier.

Photo by Jessica Lewis on Unsplash

No time

I'm always really busy during the week. By the time I've been to work, been to the gym, walked Jessie and eaten dinner, there's not much of the evening left. This makes it difficult to find time to blog, particularly if I want to write a more reflective piece of content that needs a lot of thought. Consequently I try to use my weekends to blog, but that also becomes impossible if I've got lots of plans or want a screen-free weekend.



No room in my head for new ideas

I've had a lot going on lately which means I've struggled to think of new ideas for my blog. My brain is chock-full of a jumble of various stresses and this isn't ideal for the creative process. I always make sure I use whatever brainpower I've got left to do my job well, so there hasn't been much left by the time I get home.

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

No energy

Following on from the last point, I've been feeling completely exhausted and wiped out for weeks. The last thing I've wanted to do is get my laptop out and write after getting home in the evening. I've barely been able to keep my eyes open long enough to watch Neighbours, let alone anything else.



No recent holidays!

Holidays usually provide me with lots of blogging content, but I haven't been away since our trip to Venice in March. We also haven't eaten out anywhere new recently which means I haven't had any opportunities to write new restaurant reviews. We've got some exciting plans for the next couple of months, including a trip back to the Gower with Jessie, so hopefully those plans will provide me with some new content.

Have you got any tips about how to overcome writer's block? Or do you just go with it and start writing again when you feel up to it? Let me know!

A letter to Josie Cox

I read a Guardian article written by Josie Cox last Sunday. The piece focused on why 'commitment-phobic millennials' are choosing to have dogs instead of having babies.

It made me cry, it made me really angry, and it really really hurt. I won't be the only person it had that effect on, and I need to write about why it was so upsetting.

That journalist will probably never read this, but I hope it'll make me feel better if I get it written down and out of my head.



Dear Josie,

I want you to know how damaging your recent article was. I'm yet to figure out if you published it purely to generate clicks or if you genuinely believe what you wrote, but either way it was hugely distressing.

I felt a range of strong emotions when I read your article, but I've decided to focus on five of the most upsetting and frustrating elements for the purposes of this letter.



1. It's not always a choice  

You state that 'whether or not to reproduce is probably the most personal decision you will ever make.' Unfortunately, not everyone will have the privilege to make that decision of their own accord. When you're growing up, you never think that choice will be taken away from you. You assume you'll get to a certain age and decide whether you want children or not, then you'll take the necessary actions or precautions depending on the decision you make.

However, this isn't the case for everyone. I can personally tell you that it feels like a sledgehammer when you realise you no longer have control over that 'personal decision'.

You insensitively published this article just before National Infertility Awareness Week. My own circumstances are quite rare, but 1 in 8 couples are faced with infertility. That's a lot of people who have no choice in the matter. Some people, like me, have definite reasons for their infertility which they have to come to terms with. Other people will never know why it didn't happen for them and will have to keep wondering for the rest of their lives, and others desperately wanted children but never ended up in the right circumstances.

Not everyone has the choice.



2. What gives you the right to act as if you're better than everyone else because you chose to have a baby?

This article is dripping with condescension and self righteousness, and the tone was just as upsetting as the words themselves. Choosing not to have children, losing a child, or not being able to have them in the first place doesn't make someone a bad person. Plenty of people will decide they don't want children for hundreds of different reasons, and that's absolutely fine. So what if people are 'travel-obsessed' or 'career-prioritising'? You don't have the right to criticise other people's priorities. Believe it or not, women (and humans in general) don't exist purely to reproduce.

You talk about 'the lady I'd identified as childless' as if she's mind-numbingly stupid. You describe her as 'doe-eyed' and scoff that she can't possibly take part in your conversations about looking after your newborns because she's only got a 'fur baby'. It probably took that woman a lot of courage to turn up to your gathering because of this very attitude. Why shouldn't she talk about her new puppy? Just because she hasn't got 'the burden of raising a tiny human', that doesn't make her a bad person and it doesn't invalidate her experience.

You describe people who haven't got children as 'commitment-phobic' and 'scared of lifelong responsibility'. You've already stated that it's a personal decision, so what gives you the right to be so condescending? You made your choice, so please let other people make theirs.



3. A pet IS a massive responsibility and an integral part of the family

You imply that it's laughable when people compare having a dog to having a baby. I know people who have both, and they're very ready to admit that some elements of having a dog are comparable to having a child.

My dog relies on me for food, water, exercise, toilet breaks, entertainment and clean bedding, and always will for her whole life. You state that having a child means 'bearing full, unconditional responsibility for a person's basic survival', but that's also exactly what it means to have a dog (or any pet). The sense of responsibility doesn't diminish just because my dog isn't human.

You say that 'canines don't exterminate your social life in the same way as mewling tykes tend to do'. Actually, it could be argued that dogs affect your social life even more and for a much longer period of time. It's more than acceptable to take your baby to most places, but dogs aren't so welcome. When we want to go anywhere with our dog, we have to make sure there are dog-friendly walks, pubs and restaurants nearby. I'm yet to see a sign anywhere that says 'babies and toddlers not welcome'.

I've had my dog since she was 14 weeks old, and we've shaped many elements of her little personality. I'm fully responsible for her 'physical and emotional wellbeing', just as you are for your child's.

You flippantly say 'fine, call it part of the family.' My dog is 100% a part of our family and has been since the moment we brought her home. I sign her name on all the cards I send out, we celebrate her birthday every year, she has Christmas presents like everyone else in the family, and she's a massive part of our lives. So don't tell me that having a dog bears absolutely no comparison to having a child.



4. You've never even had a dog, so how can you possibly comment?

You state in your article that you've 'never had a dog'. So what qualifies you to talk about this subject? How would you know about the guilt I feel when I go out and leave my dog on her own, or the terror I feel when another dog growls at her, or the sheer joy I feel when she bounds towards me with her tail wagging, if you've never experienced any of it?

You clearly have no idea how much comfort a dog can bring, or of the enormity of even owning one in the first place. You say that 'parenthood is all-consuming', but how do you know that having a dog isn't all-consuming if you've never had one?

I'm not pretending to know what it's like to have a child, because I haven't got one. But I do know what it's like to have a dog, and you're way off the mark. You can patronisingly extend your 'bless you, fur mama' comment to me if you like, but how can you possibly comment so strongly on something you know nothing about?



5. I'm well aware that a dog isn't a substitute for a child, but I love my dog with all my heart. Who are you to ridicule that?

Throughout your article, you emphasise that having a dog is nothing like having a baby and that 'nothing can substitute for that'. You ram it home that having a dog can never be a substitute for having a child. Don't you think I know that my dog can never be a complete substitute? I'm well aware that I'll never know what it's like to carry a child and give birth to that child, and that knowledge still hurts every day.

My dog means the world to me and she came into my life during my darkest days. I call her my baby and I treat her like a princess. You ridicule people who buy 'only the finest for the little darlings', but I'm always going to buy the best things possible for my dog to make sure she's healthy and happy, just like you undoubtedly do for your child.

However, I love my dog in her own right and not because I see her as a substitute for what might have been. Although I believe there are similarities between the two and I love my dog like a child, I don't 'pretend that a canine companion is the same thing'. Having a dog will never fully heal that ache in my heart, and articles like this rip open that wound and leave it fully exposed.



I hope this letter has gone some way towards explaining to you why your article was so hurtful. You might have 'had a chuckle about it' when you flippantly said your piece, but I can assure you that it had the opposite effect on me.

Remembering what makes me 'me'

Lately, I've started to realise that significant life events can change the way you define yourself. In fact, if you let them, they can quickly become the only things that define you without you even realising it.

These events and their consequences can taint all the interests and accomplishments you had before they crashed into your life, forming unhelpful associations and thought patterns. When these thought patterns are prolonged and become second nature, you slowly start to lose sight of your authentic self.

Photo by Anton Gorlin on Unsplash

These events can be big, small or seemingly insignificant to other people, and everyone's story will be different. For me, this momentous event was my cancer diagnosis in August 2016.

The traumatic impact of the diagnosis and everything that's followed has been pretty damaging. It's had an overwhelming impact on so many aspects of my life, both emotionally and physically.

As a result, I've let the cancer and the situation I now find myself in completely overshadow me as a person until it feels as if that's the only thing that defines me. I struggle to think about myself and who I am without bringing my diagnosis into the equation. My friend Fee has written about this struggle of losing all sense of who you are far more eloquently than I ever could if you're interested in having a read.

On top of this potential loss of identity, we live in a world where there's a lot of pressure to be a certain way, to look a certain way and to get angry about certain things. You often get swept along with the tide and end up trying to be what everyone else thinks you should be rather than just being 'you'. All this pressure combined with the aftermath of those life-defining moments can make you completely lose sight of who you really are.

Photo by Daniele Levis Pelusi on Unsplash

I was on this earth for 30 years before cancer barged into my life. I had hobbies, quirks and passions just like everyone else. There's no denying that I've been through a traumatic time and that it still affects me in a big way, but I'm ultimately the same person as I was before my diagnosis.

With this in mind, I thought it would be useful to try to summarise all the things that make me 'me'. Over the next few weeks and months, I'm going to try to grab hold of these things with both hands and remind myself that my diagnosis doesn't have to define me. It's undeniably given me a new perspective on things which is often unhelpful, but I was a whole person before it happened and I can still be a whole person now.

Photo by Brigitte Tohm on Unsplash

I'm very introverted and my 'recharge' time is really important to me. Although I feel as if this has magnified over the last couple of years, I was definitely still that introverted person before my diagnosis. I have always been and will always be an introvert, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I love words. Reading words, writing words, proofreading and editing other people's words... I love anything to do with words. However, I don't love words which have mistakes in them. I'm a stickler for accurate spelling, grammar and punctuation and I make no apologies for that. It's my thing.

I'm very organised, to put it mildly. I have to-do lists for everything and I (try to) plan all aspects of my life with military precision. If you ever want to buy me a gift, pretty stationery to support my planning obsession will always go down well.

I love going for walks. I particularly love cold, crisp and sunny days, and I love seeing beautiful trees and white wispy clouds against a bright blue sky.

Catching up with family and my best friends always makes me feel a bit more 'me'. Although my aforementioned introverted self sometimes struggles to summon up the energy to catch up with people, spending time with my favourite people is vitally important because they know and like the real me. This proves that the real me is still there, deep down.

I take a lot of pride in everything I do, and I'm a bit of a perfectionist. Whether it's my work, my blog, my Instagram posts, my house or my gym sessions, it's important to me that everything I do is the very best it can be. This does mean that I'm often too hard on myself when I don't live up to my own high expectations, but I'm glad I still have that passion to succeed.

I have a firm set of values and a strong moral compass. These values serve as constant markers in my day-to-day life, and they're a helpful reminder of who I am and what I really care about. Their rigidity can sometimes be unhelpful when I feel as if I've compromised on those values (see above point about being a perfectionist), but for the most part they help to keep me grounded.

I love the fact that Neil and I go out for a hot chocolate every weekend. It's something we've always done since we first started dating nearly eight years ago, and there's something very comforting about keeping this tradition alive.

I love sleeping. I need a lot of sleep to be able to function like a normal person, so it's lucky that I love it so much. As a very important aside, I also love pyjamas, cosy socks and my dressing gown.

I'm a big fan of accessories and always have been. Give me shopping for jewellery, hats, scarves and handbags over shopping for actual clothes any day.

Disney makes my world go round. I love old Disney films, new Disney films, Disney princesses, Disney animals, Disney merchandise, Disney parks, Disney music... you get the picture.

I'm fiercely patriotic and am hugely passionate about the importance of respecting the Welsh language and keeping it alive.

I completely conform to the 'girls love pink and glitter' stereotype. I'm perfectly fine with that, and I don't need to pretend otherwise or to justify it to anyone.

Jessie, food and cwtches from Neil can instantly put a smile on my face, however bad my day has been.

I worry a lot about what people think of me, and that's definitely not a new thing. However, I'm trying hard to remember that I'm fundamentally a kind, caring and empathetic person. I make mistakes like everyone else, but above all I always try to be nice to people. I don't think many people will remember me as a particularly remarkable person, but if people say 'she was nice' then that's good enough for me.

Photo by Federico Bottos on Unsplash

What makes you 'you'?

Two years in the clear

Last Friday, I had one of my regular check-up appointments at the hospital and was thankfully given the all clear at the two year mark.

This might sound strange and a little ungrateful, but being told I'm in the clear doesn't immediately fill me with elation and make me want to celebrate. If I'm completely honest, it always feels a little... hollow.

I've blogged in the past about how anxious these appointments make me feel, and it takes me a long time to recover afterwards even if the outcome is positive. And, in addition to the lingering anxiety, there's always that small voice in my head that says, 'But things aren't positive, I'm still left with the impact of the cancer and the surgery and nothing will ever change that.' When that little voice gets louder and more vociferous, it's quite easy to slip into a pattern of feeling angry about the whole situation rather than focusing on the good news.

I've now progressed to annual appointments after being on six monthly appointments for the last year. Again, I've had lots of mixed feelings about this. Part of me is pleased because of the dread that sets in before these appointments, but another part of me likes the reassurance of being told by an expert that there's nothing sinister lurking around. I've also got ongoing appointments at the hospital about related issues which means I won't be able to enjoy a twelve month break away from the place in reality.

So, as you can see, there are currently lots of mixed feelings circling around in my brain and it can sometimes feel as if there's no room for anything else. That's probably a whole other blog post in itself.

Back when I had my first post-op check-up in January 2017, we started a tradition of going out for a nice meal after my appointments. Even if we don't feel as if 'celebrate' is quite the right word to use, it's always important to acknowledge good news, to enjoy the little things and to have something to look forward to. This time around, we decided to book a table at Penarth's Pier64. I'd never been before, but it came highly recommended from Neil and a few of our friends.

I put on a pretty new dress and my favourite burgundy accessories, and we headed to the restaurant by 7pm after a quick photo shoot with Jessie. 

We decided to go all out and order three courses... why ever not? In case you're wondering, I was VERY careful about rolling my sleeves up and not splashing food on my very white dress while I ate. 

I ordered deep fried cauliflower florets to start, sirloin steak with caramelised onions and red wine jus for my main, and lemon posset for dessert. The food was lovely, as was the general atmosphere and decor, and I'd definitely like to go back to Pier64 next time we're celebrating a special occasion. 

How do you 'celebrate' after difficult appointments or occasions? Let me know if you've got any tips on how to deal with the mixed feelings I've mentioned in this post... 

Two years on... learning to live with it

A year ago from now, I wasn't in a good place.

Two years ago, I'd just received that fateful letter and had no idea what kind of nightmare was hurtling towards me. Fast forward twelve months to last July, and I'd sunk into a very low place mentally which was just as traumatic as the diagnosis and surgery itself.

I did start to feel much better in October/November last year, but it was a slow and sometimes frustrating process. In October, I blogged about how I shouldn't be feeling guilty about my state of mind and also berated myself for not being more open with people about what I was going through. Ironically, now that my mind is clearer, I can see that I still felt guilty and was trying to justify myself to... myself. I still felt angry that people were skirting around the impact of my diagnosis and surgery even though I desperately needed to talk about it, and I shifted that anger onto myself for not being more honest about my feelings. My mood deteriorated in December for a number of reasons, so 2017 finished just as negatively as it had begun.

I'm pleased to report that, so far, 2018 has been a lot better than the previous two years. It had a rocky start as I was still trying to get through my low patch, but I managed to turn things around. I forced myself into a few situations I didn't think I could handle, and I did handle them. This made me feel stronger and made me realise that I'm more determined and resilient than I give myself credit for.

I'm not going to pretend everything is brilliant all the time. I still have days where I want to scream, cry, withdraw, or all three at once. I had an unexpected 'I hate everything this cancer has done to me' meltdown as recently as four days ago, all because I had a call from the hospital about yet another appointment I need to arrange. Some triggers still hit me like a punch in the stomach, particularly when I'm not expecting them, and I think they always will. However, on a 'good' day, those triggers aren't as all-consuming as they used to be and I'm able to take a deep breath and try to focus on something else.


I can pinpoint a few things that have helped me to feel better over the last few months:

• Spending time with Jessie, my beautiful Corgi puppy. She makes me smile every day and makes everything seem a little bit better with one wag of her tail. 
• I started a new job in March and I absolutely love it. Although leaving the place where I'd worked for ten years was scary, it was 100% the right decision for me and gave me the fresh start I needed. 
• I've been trying really hard to practice mindfulness. I've let this slip over the last couple of months so need to pick it back again, but I think it's made me more aware of my downward thought spirals and how to combat them.  
• Even though the funding for my support group abruptly came to an end a few months ago, I'm still in touch with the lovely ladies I met through the group. Speaking to people who 'get it' makes all the difference in the world. 
• As I mentioned earlier, I've forced myself out of my comfort zone and pushed myself into situations I know I wouldn't have been able to handle last year. Even though these situations were difficult at the time, they're enabling me to slowly build up that 'milestone' bank. 

Having said all that, some things are still very distressing and I suspect they always will be. I now have check ups at the hospital every 6 months rather than every 3 months, and I think people are starting to see them as a formality as time goes on. This obviously isn't the case for me. My anxiety levels still peak a few weeks before each appointment and stay high afterwards if I've got to wait for any kind of result. Also, this might sound incredibly ungrateful, but being given the 'all clear' at these appointments is quite difficult to celebrate. Cancer has taken something irreplaceable from me and all the all clears in the world won't bring it back. But on the plus side, those good results do give me a sense of relief to cling on to until the next appointment looms. 

Every twinge, ache or slight abnormality makes my heart feel as if it's beating out of my chest. I suffered with health anxiety for years before my diagnosis, but this is on another level. I no longer have that tiny voice of reason telling me that it's very unlikely to happen to me, because it HAS happened to me. And as I've said in a previous post, that uncontrollable fear that 'it's back' is hideous. I had an MRI scan after my last check-up because the doctor was slightly concerned about one of my symptoms, and I nearly drove myself mad during the three-week wait for results. I no longer believe that 'no news is good news' as my initial diagnosis took so long to be confirmed, so I morphed into a massive bag of nerves as time went on. Thankfully, the MRI scan showed no evidence of recurrence so I can breathe easily until the next ache or pain comes along. 

Taking the good and bad into consideration, I do feel so much better than I felt this time last year (and two years ago, for that matter). I've worked really hard on helping myself as much as I can, and I do feel as if I'm making slow progress even if it is a tough slog at times.

I finished last July's blog post with a very stark statement: 'Cancer may have left my body ten months ago, but it will never ever leave my life.' Although that statement is still true and will always be true, I do feel as if, one day, I'll be able to learn to live with it. 

Learning to appreciate the present moment

I used to think mindfulness was a load of mumbo-jumbo. It was one of those things I thought might be a nice concept for other people but would never work for me. However, now that I've got a better understanding of what mindfulness is and what it's trying to achieve, I feel as if it could make a huge difference if I give it enough of a chance.

I started seeing a counsellor from Macmillan last summer during a very low point. It was the one year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis and I was struggling. I was dreading the sessions because I didn't feel strong enough to talk about and delve into all my feelings, but these sessions were very different to the previous counselling I'd experienced and were based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.

The counsellor focused on finding ways to help me to live life after cancer in a meaningful way and to enjoy what matters to me, rather than dredging up the past. As part of these sessions, she encouraged me to look at mindfulness in a completely different light. She also referred me to a few group sessions run by Macmillan on 'Living with Uncertainty' which further helped to quash my skepticism about the topic.

Let's start by talking about what mindfulness ISN'T (and what I used to think it was).

- Mindfulness isn't about trying to stop, block or change your thoughts.
- Mindfulness isn't about trying to control your thoughts and feelings.
- Mindfulness doesn't have to take up loads of your time.
- Mindfulness is nothing to do with relaxation.

Mindfulness is all about anchoring yourself in the present moment. If you're anything like me, your brain spends an awful lot of time in the past and even more time in the future. There have been times when I've got to work and can't remember anything about my drive to the office, or when I've eaten a chocolate bar and haven't got a clue what it tasted like. I hardly ever focus on the present moment because my brain is always frantically flitting between the past and the future. I'd never thought about it in that way before, but it means I'm missing out on all the pleasurable things the present moment might have to offer.

Crucially, mindfulness isn't about stopping those thoughts about the past, the future and everything in between. If it was, no one would be able to do it. As much as we'd all love to, we can't control our thoughts and feelings. Mindfulness is about acknowledging that your thoughts have drifted, noticing where you've drifted off to, and bringing yourself back to the present moment (if you want to).

Different things work for different people when it comes to mindfulness. I find that focusing on my breathing helps to bring me back to the present moment, but others find that focusing on sound,  smell or taste is more effective. Whenever I feel myself spiralling off into an anxiety chasm which won't end well for me or for anyone else, I'm trying really hard to take a few deep breaths and focus on my breathing. How it feels, how it sounds, how my lungs expand and contract.

I'm getting a little better at realising when I'm about to spiral, rather than only noticing when I've wasted half an hour and thought about every possible worst case scenario for the next twenty years. However, I've got a long way to go and I need to make sure I persevere with it and try to bring myself back to the present moment more and more often.

On that note, the great thing about this simple 'grounding' method is that you can do it anytime and anywhere. You can do it at your desk in work, on the sofa while you're drinking your hot chocolate, on your daily commute, while you're eating out, or while you're in bed trying to get to sleep. It only needs to take twenty seconds, and the more you do it the more it'll become second nature.

Along with trying to be more 'mindful', I'm finding that writing everything down helps me to process my thoughts and to get to grips with why I'm experiencing such strong feelings. To help with this, I've got a 'thought journal' where I write down why I'm anxious, angry, sad etc when it all gets too much. I find that writing down my thoughts takes some of the power out of them, and I also feel as if I've got a lot out of my system when I sit and pour my brain out on paper for half an hour.

I also bought this daily journal from Next a few weeks ago and it's helping me to reflect on each day, rather than only reflecting when I remember to do so or when I'm in the right headspace. It's very easy to go to bed thinking that you've had a terrible day and everything is awful and you're rubbish at everything, when actually there will most likely have been a positive glimmer in there somewhere.

Even if the only good thing you can think of is the nice baguette you had for lunch or a smile from a random passer-by, make sure you write it down! I also love the 'three things I'm grateful for today' section as I don't think any of us are ever appreciative enough about what we've actually got. My 'good things' and 'things I'm grateful for' entries are often very simple, and it's making me realise how important it is to appreciate those little things in life and to fill your time with what matters most to you.

This journal is helping me to think about why I might have felt a particular way on a particular day, rather than just accepting it. I'm starting to recognise triggers for certain moods which might eventually mean I can avoid them happening so often if I work hard on changing my mindset. I do try to put the 'what I'll do differently tomorrow' pledges into practice, and if I completely forget about them I move them over to the next day's entry to give myself another chance.

Although I tend to frantically say 'I haven't got time!' when it comes to any kind of self help or self improvement, I'm learning that self reflection is important and can teach you a lot about yourself. And believe it or not (and I'd never have believed this myself six months ago), it can help to make a bad day very very slightly better. I've never said 'I haven't got time' when it comes to worrying about anything and everything, so why should making time for self reflection and/or improvement be so difficult? If I can easily waste half an hour of my energy wading through nightmare scenarios that might never happen, it makes sense to try to put that time to better use.

Have you tried any of these techniques to try to appreciate the 'present moment'? Have you got any more tips for me? Let me know!

My Jo's Trust support group - a vital lifeline

When I received my cancer diagnosis last August, I was given a pack containing a booklet about the operation I'd need, a detailed Macmillan leaflet about cervical cancer, and a flyer advertising Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust support groups in my area.

Although I'd heavily relied on the Jo's Trust website and online forum in the weeks leading up to my diagnosis, the thoughts of joining a support group massively stressed me out. 'There's no way I'm ever going to a support group. Why would I want to sit around and talk about my diagnosis? I don't want to talk about it ever again!' Little did I know that, nine months later, that support group would be a huge source of strength for me.

I've already blogged about my downward spiral earlier this year which started around the time of my 31st birthday. When this slump set in, my husband suggested that I signed up for the Cardiff Jo's Trust support group as he knew how isolated I felt. I made some enquiries and there happened to be a meeting in a couple of days, so I reluctantly turned up for my first meeting at the end of June. I haven't missed a meeting since!

So why has this group been such a valuable support over the last few months?


1. It's shown me that I'm not alone 

For me, the most valuable thing about my support group is learning that I'm not the only one going through this ordeal. The group is living proof that several women in the Cardiff area alone have been affected by cervical cancer over the last few years. I previously felt as if I was the only woman in the world going through it, and certainly the only woman my age going through it. Then I went along to my first support group meeting and realised that I'm not alone. There are other people (many of them my age or younger) who truly understand the lifelong impact of this disease and who I can be completely honest with. I've made some good friends through this group, and many of us keep in touch between sessions which has been a huge support during my more difficult days and weeks.


2. It's shown me that everyone's battle with cancer is different 

Before going to my support group, I was very tunnel-visioned about my cancer and I honestly thought I was in a worse situation than everyone else who'd been through the same diagnosis as me. However, the group has really opened my eyes to the huge variety of circumstances people find themselves in following their diagnosis. It's also taught me that there's no such thing as a 'worse situation'. As a lady at my very first support group jokingly said, 'It's not top trumps!' Everyone's problems are the biggest problems in their world, regardless of what those problems are.


3. It's shown me that I can use my experience to help other people 

I didn't think I was anywhere near the point where I could start supporting other people on their own journey. I thought I was too wrapped up in my own issues to help someone else with theirs. However, I've learnt that I can use my experience to help other people who aren't as far along the journey as I am, or to offer a different perspective for those who are further along the journey. Even sending a quick message to a friend from the group to find out how they're getting on after a particularly bad week makes all the difference. So, much to my surprise, my support group has very much become a place where I feel I can support others as well as feeling supported myself.


4. It's shown me that support groups don't have to be all doom and gloom 

I put off attending a support group for months because I thought it would just be a load of people crying and talking about their problems. I didn't feel as if I needed the strain of listening to that on top of my own sadness. In reality, the group isn't like that at all. We all talk about our difficulties and frustrations, and sometimes there are tears, but we also make each other laugh. And, very often, we share the same difficulties and frustrations which lifts the burden somewhat. We even go for lunch after the support group has finished which is a great way to meet in a more informal setting and to get to know each other even better.


5. It's shown me that things do get better with time 

Every time I've been to a support group meeting (I've been to 4 so far), I've felt a little better. There are ladies in the group who were diagnosed three, four, or even five years ago and, although they still have their struggles every day, they do acknowledge that things get a little easier with time. It's given me hope that, although the impact of my cancer is life-changing and I'll never fully get over it, a time will come where it doesn't infiltrate my thoughts as much as it does now.


If you've been putting off going to a support group, whatever and wherever it may be, I hope this blog post has persuaded you to reconsider. Similarly, if you've never heard of support groups but would like to meet up with people in a similar situation to you, I'd advise you to carry out some research to see if there are any support groups in your area.

I promise that talking to people who are going through a similar ordeal will have a noticeable impact and will go some way towards reconciling that crushing and overwhelming feeling of isolation.

Thank you, Jo's Trust!

We need to talk about mental health

I always thought I was someone who took mental health seriously and didn't belittle or stigmatise the potential impact of a mental illness.

Until it happened to me.

On 13th July, I blogged about how I was struggling emotionally after my cancer diagnosis and resulting hysterectomy last year. When I wrote that post, I was feeling lower than I ever had done before - yes, even lower than I'd felt immediately after the diagnosis and surgery. I was at breaking point. By the end of July, I'd been signed off work and my doctor had confirmed that I was suffering from 'extreme low mood' and needed some time out.

As well as feeling overwhelmingly low and exhausted all day and every day, I felt guilty. Guilty about being off work, guilty about worrying my friends and family, and guilty because I wasn't able to cope. Would I have felt guilty if I'd broken my ankle or had a violent migraine? I suspect not. Would I have constantly told myself 'you need to snap out of this' if I'd broken my ankle or had a violent migraine? Definitely not!

No one was making me feel guilty and no one was pressuring me to get better any quicker, so my guilt was entirely self inflicted because I was subconsciously ranking physical pain above mental pain. Lots of people even told me I was brave after reading my blog post, but I just thought 'Me? Brave? Surely I'm weak, not brave, because I'm not coping!'

I even felt a little guilty if I went out to see a friend or went into town to do some shopping. Shouldn't I be staying at home all day if I'm unwell? When, actually, I should have felt confident in the knowledge that I needed that time out of the house for my mental recovery (and also to give me a little break from Jessie once in a while). I should have stopped belittling the impact of my mental health problems and started to acknowledge the importance of doing what I needed to do to get through the day.

I decided back in July that I didn't want to go on medication, even though the doctor offered it as a potential solution. Although I'm still managing without medication, I do sometimes wonder if I'm making the right decision. After my operation last year, I'd have laughed heartily in your face if you'd have suggested that I shouldn't take any medication and should just grin and bear it and let the pain take its course. I was literally counting down the minutes until my next painkiller. So why is it that I feel as if I need to fight my mental battles on my own? Why is it that we're so ready to seek help for all our other body parts when they break down, but not our brains?

When people asked me how I was during those very low days, I tried to sugarcoat it and didn't go into any amount of detail. I only opened up to a small handful of people about what I was going through because I convinced myself it was 'too awkward' to talk about. When random people asked me if I had a day off because I was walking my puppy in the middle of the afternoon, I'd tell them I'd booked the week off as annual leave to avoid telling them the truth. However, if I'd have been off work with a broken ankle or a migraine, I wouldn't have hesitated to tell people. So I was actually contributing to that stigma I'd always criticised so strongly and, again, hiding and therefore belittling what I was going through.

For the last few weeks, I've genuinely been feeling much better. I'm back in work and life seems a lot more manageable on the whole. So of course, when people ask me how I am, I brightly say 'I'm fine thanks, I'm feeling much better!' However, perhaps it would be more useful for me and for everyone else if I said 'I'm feeling a lot better but still have low days now and again.' Just like that broken ankle or that migraine which takes time to heal and tends to linger for a little while, my mental health isn't completely 'better' yet and it'll most likely be a very long time before I get to that point.

I feel so frustrated and isolated when people feel uncomfortable about talking to me about my mental health and choose to act as if nothing has happened, which they wouldn't dream of doing if someone had that broken ankle or migraine I keep harping on about. But do I really have any right to be frustrated when I always put my breezy mask on, even on my lowest days, and don't give my mental health problems the standing they deserve? When I repeatedly shy away from telling people the truth about how I'm really feeling to avoid that 'awkward' conversation and their equally awkward response? I'm in a difficult position because people find my cancer experience hard enough to talk about, let alone the resulting emotional issues, but I need to learn to speak out and normalise these discussions. If I don't, then who will?

So when I say 'we need to talk about mental health', I wholeheartedly include myself in that statement first and foremost. I hope this blog post goes some way towards starting that conversation.

Image credit: www.mentalhealthplatform.com 

A year on, and it's not getting any easier

This was originally supposed to be a cheery blog post about my birthday. However, I found my birthday really difficult this year and I’ve been in a bit of a downward spiral ever since, so I thought I’d write an honest account of how I’m coping instead.

All the anniversaries are coming up for the horrors I went through last year. It’s been just over a year since my smear test, and on Saturday it’ll be a year since I received that terrifying letter. All those dates are etched in my mind and I can’t erase them. My mind keeps lurching back to this time twelve months ago and I can’t do a single thing to stop it.

My birthday was particularly difficult because I kept thinking back to my 30th birthday last year. I had no idea that there were cancerous cells multiplying inside me and I enjoyed a lovely few weeks of celebrating with family and friends. I was doing well in my job, I was looking forward to our holiday in September, we were making lots of exciting plans for the future, and it felt as if things were looking up. Then, out of nowhere, my whole life got turned upside down and everything fell apart.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that everything still feels just as bad (if not worse) and as raw as it did right at the beginning of this cruel journey. I’ve suffered a huge loss, and I’m grieving. Grieving that I’ll never carry my own child or experience any of the milestones that go along with that, grieving that cancer has taken something so precious and irreplaceable away from me, grieving about the impact this has had on my husband and other family members, and grieving that this had to happen to me.

I always feel as if I need to try to be positive, or try to be grateful that the cancer was caught early. But actually, right now, I don’t feel positive and I most certainly don’t feel grateful. I feel angry, sad, anxious and isolated. And, to top it all off, I feel guilty about not feeling positive or grateful.

Most people probably aren’t aware that I’m still going back to the hospital every three months for check-up appointments. Although it’s reassuring that I’m seen regularly, these appointments are hideous. The stress and anxiety beforehand, the drive to the same hospital where it all took place, sitting in the same waiting room where I sat for 45 minutes before hearing the worst news of my life, the discomfort of the appointment itself, that hollow feeling when the doctor tells you ‘it’s all fine, nothing to worry about’ but deep down you feel as if nothing will ever feel fine again… it’s all hideous. I’ve got one of these appointments tomorrow and my stomach is currently tied in knots and has been for weeks.

I live in constant fear of big gatherings where I don’t know many people just in case someone obliviously asks me ‘so, when are you having kids?’ I want to yell ‘are you crazy?!’ at people who ask me if I want to hold their newborn babies, but I just smile and politely decline. I feel sick when I’m within earshot of a conversation I feel uncomfortable with, and I still feel as if I’ve been punched in the gut whenever the tiniest of triggers pops up as I scroll through my social media feeds or turn on the TV. I sometimes lie awake for hours with thoughts tumbling around in my head, and it takes every fiber of strength I possess to get out of bed in the morning on a really bad day. And those niggling physical symptoms I mentioned in a previous post? They're all still there. My inner critical voice is constantly screaming that this was supposed to get easier with time, so why is it getting harder?

Possibly the biggest struggle of all is feeling as if I can’t talk to anyone about what’s going on in my own head. I’ve become steadily more skilful at hiding my feelings and pretending everything is fine, and it's become pretty commonplace for me to go a whole day on the brink of tears without letting them spill over. If they do threaten to spill over of their own accord when everything gets too much, I escape to the toilet for ten minutes then emerge with puffy eyes and carry on with whatever I was doing. I often wonder why people aren’t asking me if I’m okay and why they just don’t ‘get’ the enormity of it all, but in reality I’ve probably become so good at pretending that other people wholeheartedly believe the lie. I’m caught up in an endless cycle of feeling low, then feeling lower because I feel so isolated. I rage internally because I’d prefer it if people just said ‘I don’t know what to say’ rather than not saying anything, but perhaps people don’t even realise that I need them to say anything at all.

Even now, I still feel as if I should try to finish this post on some kind of positive note or with a 'things will get better and I need to stay strong' platitude. However, for today, I’m going to leave it on this more honest note instead.

Cancer may have left my body ten months ago, but it will never ever leave my life.

Getting used to a new 'normal'

It's been eight and a half months since I received that terrifying letter and my world was turned upside down. Tonight, I'm at the hospital for an MRI scan which will hopefully come back with a 'no evidence of disease' result.

I've been on an emotional rollercoaster over the last eight and a half months (does that phrase remind anyone else of Ronan Keating?) and it's showing no signs of slowing down. I'll have days where I feel truly happy again, and others where I feel as if I want to hide in a corner and cry my heart out. Certain triggers can send my mind spinning out of control, even something as simple as an Instagram photo, a TV advert or an overheard conversation between two strangers. This can feel hugely frustrating, particularly if it happens during a week where I initially felt a lot better. I also have some niggling physical symptoms which serve as a daily reminder of the whole ordeal, and these tend to exacerbate my emotional turmoil during a bad week.

I had a scare a few weeks ago which meant I had to go back to the hospital for an urgent appointment. Although it thankfully wasn't anything to worry about, it catapulted me right back to square one and brought back haunting memories of that horrible six weeks in July/August last year where I was constantly thinking the worst and waiting for news. Living with the life-changing consequences of what's already happened is challenging enough, but living with the dreaded fear that 'it's back' is even worse. When I have a day/week that's hideously bad, even simple tasks can feel completely overwhelming and I feel as if I have to drag myself kicking and screaming back from the brink to function like a normal human being.

On that note, one of the things I've struggled with the most is the concept of 'getting back to normal', when 'normal' will never be the same for me again. I have major emotional swings from feeling as if no one understands what I've been through or what a big deal it is, to berating myself for making too big a deal of it myself because others are going through much worse.

I even debated with myself for weeks about publishing this post - what if people think I'm attention seeking? What if people think I need to forget about it, move on and just stop talking about it? What if I make people feel awkward? Actually, I need to learn to focus on my own feelings rather than (probably inaccurately) psycho-analysing everyone around me. I HAVE been through, and am still going through, a massively difficult time and I mustn't convince myself otherwise - to do so would be doing myself a disservice.

I also need to articulate these feelings to the people around me rather than internalising everything. People aren't mind readers, so how are they supposed to know I'm struggling if I put my brave face on and act as if everything is fine, even when it's not? I wouldn't hesitate to tell people if I had a headache or a bad leg, so I need to learn to be honest about my emotions too.

While we're on the subject of being brave, I need to be proud of how well I've handled the situation overall and how much I've achieved since being diagnosed and having major surgery. It's important for me to focus on getting back to a new 'normal' whenever I feel well enough to do so as I need to build up my bank of post-diagnosis positive experiences, and to do this I need to be kinder to myself. Although I often criticise myself for not getting better quicker, I've achieved all the following things since my operation:

• I went back to work full time in January and got back into the swing of things straight away.
• I'm going to the gym and going for long walks regularly, and I did my first post-op Spin class last week.
• I've found the time and the motivation to blog once every week since December.
• I've been on lots of mini breaks (London x2, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and Milton Keynes to name a few).
• I had a really lovely Christmas and spent lots of time with some of my favourite people.
• I've done lots of long drives in the car, including a five and a half hour drive up to North Wales.
• We booked a holiday to Walt Disney World and we'll be there in just under 4 weeks.

That's a pretty impressive list and it feels good to see all those achievements written down. I should revisit this post a year on from my operation to see what else I can add to the list! Of course, I couldn't have got this far without the support of my amazing husband and parents, as well as all the other people in my life who have supported me, and I'm grateful for that support every day.

So, although I know I'll still have bad days, so-so days and better days for the foreseeable future, I hope that building up my positive experiences, being kinder to myself and talking about my feelings will ensure that I continue to move another step closer to my new 'normal'.

And, in the meantime (just to make sure this post isn't completely filled with seriousness), I'll continue to watch videos like this when I'm feeling a bit sad...