Barcelona Flashbacks....

We always find ourselves looking back on events and comparing them to the present. A week after a summer holiday that memory of being by the pool whilst you're sitting at your desk or that amazing night out as you arrive at your desk on a rainy Tuesday morning.
I've been having that in reverse this week. I'm in Barcelona with the husband at our favorite hotel that we have been staying at for 11 years. Our "home in Barcelona". Usually I'd leave the memories until I got home. But this year all I can think about is being here roughly a year ago.
I'd finished chemo a week before and I really wasn't supposed t be traveling. This was to the extent that twelve hours before the flight I was overdosing on spinach and iron tablets because my blood count was too low to allow me to fly (its something to do with oxygen in your blood and altitude), the final blood test came out about .2 above the allowable level. It didn't matter. I'd already packed my bags.

The trip was vintage Barcelona. Amazing new restaurants and bars and sun. But it was muted. I was confined to the shade and no late nights and a length of the small pool was enough to send me to bed for a snooze.  But I was just happy to be there back in routine.

Now. I'm on a sun lounger (coated in SPF 2000) and sipping on a cava. But I'm looking across the deck at a former me. Thin, hairless, pale and tired. Above all, so tired, and its hard not to cry.

I just found this on my phone after returning from another trip to Barcelona. Again it was vintage but already the memories aren't as raw. I could discuss what happened to me in a logical way without the emotion. The tiredness I'm feeling now is from lack of sleep and too much partying rather than side effects. I'll roll with that.

Does anyone ever use the word 'poignant' anymore...? (except for Kuldish and Matt behind the bar..)

Ok. So this is going to be short but, to use a word that two people have used in the past two days to describe what is going on, it's going to be 'poignant'.

Today marked one year since I finished my final round of chemo and was released back into whatever semblance of normality i've been living for the last 12 months.  It's been a fantastic, inspiring and fun 12 months, but it's also been exhausting and uncertain.  I have written a number of blogs in manuscript but they haven't made it to posting because i've been trying to 'move on'.  I've realised there really is no moving on though.  This experience is something that's going to be with me for the rest of my life.  Simply because it threatened my life, defined my life and changed my life.

I'll try and restrospectively put up the other blogs because they will explain something of where this post is coming from, but for now you'll have to fill in the blanks yourselves.  Try and think of the most outrageous reasons for everything.  It makes me sound more exciting.

I'm typing this whilst overlooking Sunset Boulevard traffic, with the flashing billboards advertising one reality or talk show after another.  I'm in LA baby!  It's unreal, even to the point that i'm sharing the hotel with One Direction.  I think I saw one of them last night but I cannot be sure. #officiallyold
It couldn't be further than that taxi carrying a heaving and sobbing Topher through Hammersmith.
I've made some drastic decisions since then.  I am currently 'between jobs' and where I end up in a years time is anyone's guess.  It's a slightly unsettling but exciting feeling.

I met a mate at the hotel earlier who is now living in LA and heard myself basically saying my future is up for grabs and I don't care.  Sitting here now though I still accept that the more day to day and material matters will also have an impact on my plans.  That's where i've realised the sheer effort that successful people put into their lives.  Some things do just happen to you; winning the lottery or having cancer.  But other things have to be worked for.  Hard.  I've had the cancer so now if i want to continue my trips to the Sunset Strip i'm going to have to return to a little normality.  

I'm looking forward to it.

Oh... and I also got a tattoo to commemorate the occasion...  For real.  It was the weirdest thing.  As I was lying there on my back staring at the ceiling with a feeling like someone was etching letters into my skin with a white hot shard of glass, all I could think of was April 21 2012 when I was lying on another bed waiting for a man to come and tell me that my body had betrayed me.  The pain from the needle felt like a scratch from a thorn after remembering that.

The recovery can be more painful than the treatment.

A few days ago was six months since I finished my chemo and said goodbye to Baxter.  In the car on the way home I did nothing but cry for forty five minutes and update my Facebook with the comment "I did it.  F**ck you cancer.  F**k you."  It was supposed to be over then.
But i've found that in the months following the needles, tubes and pills, i've had more opportunity to dwell on things than I did during treatment.

You may have seen recently that the TV presenter Jeremy Kyle was diagnosed with testicular cancer before christmas and underwent surgery and preventative chemotherapy.  He described his chemo as like having a constant migraine and being shot in every limb.  As you'll know from previous blogs.  I didn't really have any of that, a very lucky man.  But since i've finished treatment, that's when i've noticed every little pain and niggle in my body.  If I feel anything remotely similar to that ache last April i'm immediately focussed.  My solution to this has been to worry a little then seek displacement activity as I know that i'm under very good observation so if there is anything to worry about then I will know when I need to.

The form of this displacement has recently been the gym.  I'm nearly back in the office full time so I thought I should start back in the gym more often and was very surprised with the results.  Any issue with my lungs seems to have cleared up because i'm a demon on the treadmill and cross trainer at the moment (it's far too cold to be running outside at the moment) and i've also impressed myself with some good weight training.  Now, being able to do the exercise is one thing.  Recovering from it is a whole different ball game.  Over the last week i've been going to bed ridiculously early but not sleeping well and today I was aching from exercises I did four or five days ago.  When I say aching I mean Jeremy Kyle style aching as though shot in my limbs.  So I suppose i've pushed myself too far in my striving for normality.  A few strides forward, many many back.

It's annoying that this has to come now.  I'm trying not to let what happened to me define who I am but it seems it's too soon to let it go just now.

I'll just have to try a few less physically demanding diversions for now.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent..

Yesterday was my 35th birthday.  It means I made it to another milestone and that i'm now in a new age bracket on questionnaires...

The husband and I went away to Genoa for a long weekend, one of those places that we haven't been, and had a lovely time.  The weather was not ideal but good enough for wandering around the mazes of alleyways and palazzi.  We ate well too.

Topher Tip:  if you're thinking of a trip there, stay at the NH Marina rather than the Gran Savoia.  The latter is the archetypal grand hotel by the train station with all the trimmings but it's just that little bit on the edge of town, up a hill, that makes it seem an effort to get back to after a couple of limoncellos at the end of the evening.

Today also marks my return to the office for six hours a day, up from four previously.  I can foresee a fair bit of tiredness ahead but i've planned a regime of light gym sessions amongst it all to try and boost the energy levels.  We'll see how it goes.

Update:  I wrote this on the train this morning and have already skipped a gym session because it's so cold outside!

It surprised me how easily I slipped back into work.  The usual adage of 'it's like i've never been away' seems to apply but i'm trying to balance that against ensuring that I leave on time and don't take on more than I can manage.  The new skill is making sure I say 'no'.

In health news; my lungs seem to be improving and my leg isn't twitching as much as much, although it's nowhere near normal.  But does something become normal if I get used to it?  I have a thick thatch of new hair that is exhibiting some curly/wavy tendencies, but nothing too extreme thankfully.  I've also had a few twinges recently that have put me on edge.  I'm seeing my oncologist this week so hopefully he'll be able to put my mind at rest.  I suppose any unexplained pain is going to worry me for a while but I know I have the best looking after me so if there is anything that needs treating, it'll be done straight away.

Ok, the train is about to pull into the station so time to put my notebook away and put on my work frame of mind.  I wonder what the person sitting next to me thinks of the guy frantically scrawling away in a little black notebook.  Maybe I should start writing a 'list' and see what he does.  I can see his name from his ID badge around his neck.  Mr Jones, you're next.......