What is going on here?

Normally when I sit down to write a post for this blog, I have some vague idea of what I want to have written at the end. Often the drivel I publish is only tangentially related to the idea I started off with, but the fact remains that I started with an plan of sorts. Not so today. Today, I am thirteen-year-old Abi, the kid who was so confident in her own writing ability that she consistently refused to plan any of the work set for her, despite repeated appeals to the contrary. Admittedly, I was still pretty good for a thirteen-year-old, but I don't doubt that a quick flick through my year eight English book would yield an awful lot of stylistically precocious rambling, as lacking in direction as this post is bound to be.

Let me level with you. The reason I don't have a plan for this post is because I have no idea where I am at the moment. I know that my general outlook is somewhere in the ballpark of 'sad and pissed off', but my head feels rather like it is full of bees, and to work out my feelings more specifically is to risk coming out the other side covered in stings. Nonetheless, the bees cannot stay cooped up forever (that would obviously be classified as cruelty to bees) so maybe this is some attempt to let them out? I assure you that I am as confused as you are.

(I know I have used images by rubyetc before. She is my favourite, you're just gonna have to cope.)

Medically speaking, I am beginning to notice a pattern: the doctor tells me a number of things that might happen, I weigh up the possibilities, and of course, because everything is given to me in uncertain terms, I cannot help but hope for the better option. I then speak to my doctor again, and they inform me that we are in fact in a Very Terrible Situation. It happened when I first noticed my alopecia, and was told it might be limited to one spot, or it might spread. It happened when I was first sent to A&E in September and they told me it might be something very minor, or it might be something very major. It happened again when I saw the haematologist and I was told I might be able to go back to uni that year or I might not. And now it's happened again, and I am having to prise my fingers from the hope of returning to Durham in the autumn. I'm desperately trying to let go of all the visions I've held onto of a future full of children, because I know that may never happen now. And through it all I'm furiously trying to tell myself that everything is going to be okay but after a while they're just words, because life keeps on trying its best to convince me otherwise.

So many times over the past year, I've felt like I'm at a turning point, like things might start looking up soon, and then another worst-case scenario comes and punches me in the kidneys and I'm once again left trying to fit the pieces of myself back together again. Wednesday grabbed me by the ankles and flung me back into the shadowy depths of what's-the-pointsville, and frankly I'm exhausted. 

I know there are people out there who are going to want to tell me I'm very brave and very strong and very inspirational, but our tendency to cover the ugly subject of cancer in frills and ribbons is perhaps the most infuriating thing about this whole affair to me. The discourse of inspiration and journeys and battles and wars is so far removed from how I actually feel about it, that it may as well be from a different planet. In truth, it just feels like an angry dog has been using me as a chew-toy, and my agency - my 'bravery' - has about as much to do with it as a giant squid (ie. nothing). In fact, when the world prattles on about these 'journeys, it only serves to make me feel even more alone and misunderstood. It's like I'm caught in a crowd of people all chanting 'FIGHT YOUR WAR YOU'RE SO BRAVE YAY!' so loudly that nobody can hear me shouting that I'm actually really, really frightened.

I feel this is quite poorly expressed as far as my posts go, but I don't think I want to go back and edit for tone and humour because it's also the most honest I've managed to be on this blog. Maybe I'll come back in a week or a month with something a bit more lighthearted, but that's not happening today; my head is too full of bees.

Abi xx