A Life Update

This isn’t a post that I’d expected to be writing, yet here I am.

I found out last month that I have breast cancer. 

I had surgery last week and I’m now on the road to recovery from that before my treatment begins, which will depend upon the outcome of my surgery.

It’s a funny thing, getting a diagnosis like this. 

You imagine you’ll react in a certain way, process things in a certain way and yet I don’t think you can ever really know what you’d do with this unless you have lived it yourself. 

It’s a lot to get your head around.

It’s been hard having to let people know. It’s hard to upset the people that you love so much.

It’s amazing how quickly you start to understand different terms, the variables that come with this kind of cancer, a whole new world opening up to you, a world you never wanted to be a part of.

At this stage, it’s also all very much an unknown path, a path that you didn’t imagine you were about to embark upon. 

Why am I sharing this here? I know a lot of people choose not to share something like this publicly and on social media, and I completely understand that. 

For me, I am sharing this for two reasons.

Firstly, this is my business. This isn’t a hobby blog and social channels. I need to keep on earning, I need to keep this going and I need your support.

I’m self employed and I felt that it made sense to share this with you, so you’d understand if I am a little quieter here and elsewhere than I usually am or I’m a little slower than normal getting content out, Patreon parcels out, arranging activities, designing products and so on.

I will get back to it, and I hope to stay on track as much as possible, but I am also going to be prioritising my health over the coming months and listening to my body when it tells me to rest.

Secondly, I wanted to raise awareness and remind you all to check yourself and act if you see or feel anything unusual going on in your body.

1 in 7 women in the UK develop breast cancer during their lifetime.

I am not a high risk for breast cancer. I barely drink, I’m relatively fit (I walk around 100 miles a month, I think that makes me relatively fit?!), I’m not over 50, I’ve not had a previous lump and I have no history of breast cancer in my family, or any female cancers at all. 

And yet here I am. Check yourselves and if you’re unsure, get it checked. And if it’s tricky to get a doctor’s appointment (believe me I went through this one), do not give up, keep trying and get yourself seen. 

For now, I am focusing on what I need to do at each point, and then I am getting on with life as normal as much as I can, when I can.

It’s my birthday tomorrow, so 46 isn’t quite beginning how I thought it would, but then when does life do exactly as you want it to?

I’ll still have a good day, I’ll still have gifts and cake and I’ll still spend it with the people I want to spend it with.

The prognosis is good at the start of this journey, it just wasn’t how I was expecting this year to go.

Bear with me, folks.

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