I can’t remember who I wrote this for or why, but it was probably important at the time.
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Five ways I have seen myself today
Still got health stuff to sort out which I’ve asked my doctor for a referral for. Nothing major but I’m sick of dealing with it every time it flares up and at the moment it just seems like it’s one thing after another to deal with, constantly, all the time.
Go for a drive after dark.
Drive out into the countryside.
Do it on a clear night.
Take yourself somewhere quiet.
Pull over into a layby, by a field or on a hill.
Make it somewhere where you can see the important things. The stars. The moon.
Lock the car doors.
Take off your seatbelt. Make yourself comfortable.
Look up at the sky.
Look for the North Star and the big dipper.
Look at the city lights across the way.
Look at the fields.
Look at the nothing.
Feel the nothing.
Be at peace.
Hello! This blog post is all about how to give yourself an enema in preparation for having an endoscopy, sigmoidoscopy, etc. Just like my
last blog post, the stuff I talk about here is true for my local hospital here in England and might not be exactly the same for you.
Hello! I had my gastroscopy and flexible sigmoidoscopy (aka endoscopy) on Friday and I thought I’d do a blog post to give you an idea of what both are like. I know lots of people get worried about these things, aren’t always sure what to expect if it’s their first time, and therefore look online for other people’s experiences to find out what’s going to happen. I know this because I’m one of those people, and even though I’ve had both procedures before, this time I still had a little look online to try to reassure myself that it wouldn’t be too bad.
Before we get going, let me point out that I live in Northamptonshire in England, and some things might happen differently for you if you live elsewhere or outside of the UK.
look at us all sitting here
with pieces missing
acting like we’re whole
I don’t think I have ever been so stressed out about going for checkups before.
I don’t know why this time feels so much worse. I don’t even like being distracted because every time the distraction goes away it’s like waking up from a good dream and remembering that everything is shit. Actually, those couple of minutes when I’m just waking up are the best part of the day because I’m still half asleep and haven’t yet remembered anything.
But I’ll be out with friends and family on Thursday night. And Friday is basically a day off work, taking some drugs in the morning, and spending the rest of the day on the sofa watching Netflix. And hopefully everything will feel better and I’ll be back to my normal self. Because these past few weeks have not been fun at all.
Whenever someone says they don’t have a choice about something, I always think, well there’s always a choice – no matter what the subject matter is. You can just do nothing. You can sit still, hole up, you can struggle or not struggle, whatever situation you are in. You can keep hoping or lose hope. You can try or not try. You can keep going or give up.
So the other day when I was thinking about how I deal wih being a cancer survivor and I thought ‘well I have to deal with it, I haven’t been given a choice or been asked if I wanted it or not’, I immediately thought – as an involuntary reflex – ‘you always have a choice’.
So I thought about it, and I’m right. I don’t have to do the things that I do. I don’t have to go to screenings or checkups, and I never had to go along with genetic testing. I don’t have to do anything at all, ever. I could just bury my head in the sand, but I don’t. I’m making the right decisions. I’m doing as well as I can in the circumstances. I have a choice and I am making the right choices. And if you’re going to checkups, and monitoring yourself, and keeping on top of all your health-related stuff. you’re making the right choices, too. And I think that’s a little bit affirming. A little something to hold onto.
Next Friday I’m going for my checkups and I’m trying to be positive about it, so this is a post to say that it’s good to have checkups. They’re just checkups – it doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen, it just means if anythng bad did happen it would be dealt with quickly, so it would be less of a problem.
And I have the day off work, and my boyfriend is taking me to the hospital and has the day off too, so we can spend the afternoon on the couch together, and we’re going out for an early Valentine’s day, shopping and dinner on the Sunday, which will be good, so it might just turn out to be a nice long weekend.
I’m sick of feeling messed up by this stuff. Positive vibes, positive vibes!
It’s been a stressful week.
I just realised it’s only Wednesday.
Well, shit.
Well, no, it’s actually okay now. Basically I went to see my consultant in October and he said he would send me for a gastroscopy in January, but not bother with a sigmoidoscopy this time around. At the end of December I got an appointment through for this coming Friday.
