Learning to be grateful

After a wonderful, family holiday I have returned to reality and back on chemo.  After taking a 7 week break from the tablets that made me so poorly I could barely keep my eyes open and lost almost a stone in 3 weeks, I am back on a reduced dose to see if this will finally do the trick.  What have I to lose apart from a few more healthy cells and hopefully a ton of the bad ones as well?  Yesterday, feeling the post-holiday blues, I visited The Christie hospital for my 3 weekly check-up and to collect my prescription.  “Morning Melanie” the receptionist said.  Normally I would be grateful for the personal care and attention from someone knowing my name, especially if it were a nice restaurant, my local gym, corner shop etc., but not at the bloody cancer hospital!  It was at that moment when my oncologist walked into the room and without glancing at my notes said “Hi Mel how was your holiday?”  I knew I had become a ‘regular’. NO NO NO NO NO.  This is the last place I want to be a bloody regular!
I went from holiday blues to lump in the throat, fight back the tears, I don’t want to be here and live this way anymore in a Nano-second.  My heart felt heavy as he scribbled down notes and altered the dosage for my next prescription. I dragged myself along to the pharmacy where I was told to return in an hour.  An hour! GREAT! NOT!  Although the upside was a got to have a lovely massage and some reiki from the most amazing therapist during that hour, who helped me realise that its ok to feel shitty once in a while especially coming home to the this god awful weather.  “Be true to yourself Melanie, “she told me.  “It’s ok to feel down and to let people know this because you’re not being true to yourself if you’re constantly putting on a positive front”.
The holiday had left me with too much time to think and when one negative thought crept in another toppled it until I was overwhelmed with thinking about what might be.  Sometimes I feel like I’m trapped underneath a blanket of my own thoughts, and yet we all have the power to change our thoughts so what makes it so hard?  How come some people just know, they just know and yet I question everything, over analyse things and think far too far ahead when all that really matters is now.  What’s already been is over and done and can’t be changed so I no longer dwell on the past but the future which hasn’t even happened yet and could change at any point, seems to manifest in my mind.  Why?  Who knows what will happen tomorrow, so why worry about it?  It’s easier said than done when I feel like my mind has a ‘mind’ of its own and out of my control half the time.
But what I choose to do that helps me more than anything when my mind wanders is connect with people who tell me what I need to hear to get me through, teaching me to train my mind and thought process.  “Even if you have to fake it for a while” my friend Tiffany Kay text me.  And that doesn’t mean fake how I feel but to keep telling myself I am healthy, whether I believe it or not, if I say it often enough maybe the mind and body will catch on. And then I realise it’s not hard to visualise because I am healthy which has a knock on effect.   And reading, I could read till the cows come home.  Shelley Green another great friend posted a book called “The Magic” whilst I was away and in 2 days I’ve already learnt the importance of gratitude.
Why am I grumbling about the weather when there’s plenty of fresh air to breath?  Why do I grumble about money when it’s so clearly not important?  And why do I grumble about cancer when I am still healthy and active and I’m able to cherish each day as it comes and still have the ability to live life to the max.  So what’s stopping me?  Nothing really, I have everything to be grateful for.  I have learnt so much in the last 12 months about life, love, health and happiness and right in this moment I have each and every one of those things and more, all of which I am learning to be grateful for.  So the next time I write, I suspect there will be no autumn blues or moaning about the weather and the next step I take and the next hurdle I get over I will be grateful to do just that!
 

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