Anniversaries are like a letter on your door step. There's a past where it might be a letter from a loved one or a postcard with a twee seaside image. But now you're in the present and each anniversary is a bill from the DLVA, a hospital appointment or cat food from amazon that the courier for some reason put in the bin.

My anniversaries started in November with a year since my diagnosis. Then it was a year since my radiotherapy started. Now? I'm creeping up on a year since my surgery. The surgery was hard. Even more hard was the healing after. But the last couple of months feel like the hardest part so far. Mentally at least. I feel like I'm on a come down. Whilst technically everything is better my brain hasn't quite got the memo.

blocks

In support gr/oups I've found myself in discussions about "now what". When you're getting treatment or healing from surgery you have a team you see once or twice a week and to be frank, you also have some tasty drugs. I could get through the physical part of healing through adrenaline and morphine and because there wasn't anything else to focus on. Healing was the job.

Now the job is Be A Person. And it seems considerably more difficult than ever before. Before it was like breathing. Now it's more like riding a bike. In that I know techically how to do it but I've never been very good and my balance is horrendous. To be honest now I think about it I'm not very good at breathing. In yoga we're told to "notice" our breathing, not change it. But immediately mine goes all weird every time. And yesterday I followed it up with a panic attack.

A year on my brain has a scrapped knee and a bump on the noggin. In the last few weeks I've done some googling and found a nice helmet and some kneepads but I'm not sure if the anniversary of my surgery will be a gravel path, smooth tarmac or a brick wall. All I'm hoping is that my wheels stay on. Basically I'm just sending a call out. February 26th. Be extra nice to me, okay? I think I will need it.

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