The 15th & 16th; Twelve years.

The 15th of August. 

This is always a weird day for me. Weird because I know that on this day twelve years ago, I was out with Dan Alani and the rest of Shoot, Panda!? in Birmingham, taking photos for purposes that I don't recall and it didn't matter in the end because life changed forever that day. I got admitted to hospital for the first time in my life and didn't leave until my blood counts would allow it after my first course of chemotherapy, provided I didn't leave the house all weekend and went back on the Monday to make sure they were okay. They only let me go because I cried in front of a doctor for the first time since my diagnosis, because my sister was leaving for university that weekend and I wanted her to have a kind-of normal memory of her family waving her off from the front door, even if her little sister was balder than she would have liked. They knew I didn't cry unless I really meant it. 

I don't know what kind of fancy point I'm trying to make here because I have nothing poignant to say apart from the fact that it's twelve years later and I cry at the drop of a hat now. Not today. Not last night either, when I tripped on my way back into the living room in the dark, and my entire body weight smashed into the floor through my knees. They're pretty tender today. This morning I wrote up a blog post, wished my friends a happy wedding anniversary and this afternoon I watched Venom with the kittens. Well, I watched, they slept on my lap. Yes, all three on my lap! I felt very smug, and it was very cute.

The 16th of August. 

Twelve years. I will never forget the moment that Mark told the three of us that they'd found leukaemia cells in my bone marrow, but it feels so far away now. There are chunks of time that I barely remember, mainly because there weren't any significant medical incidents. Christmas of 2010 was swine flu, rhinovirus, aspergillus and shingles. Between then and 2012, I finally decided I wanted rid of my eating disorder, although it will never completely leave my head, and there was the odd bout of biliary stones. February 2012, I had my bile duct reconstructed. September 2013, the klebsiella arrived and caused a lot of panic and upset, the liver team thought my death was imminent, the idea of a second transplant was squashed by my respiratory doctor, and I started writing this. November 2014, I had the pulmonary embolism. 2015 and 16 I think were fairly uneventful, medically? I had my veins inflated a few times and I finally stopped having photopheresis, but I don't think they count. March 2017, my lung collapsed and I had pneumonia for a couple of months (they treated it, I felt better, then it came back). I also had multiple venoplasties to try to deflate my right arm, which got fat in December '16, none of which worked. That was because it needed liposuction, which I had in July 2018. And of course there was September last year, which was probably the most scared I have ever been. Despite the agony I was in, I didn't want to go to hospital, because I knew what it might mean. When I was told I had cancer, when I needed a liver transplant, when I was told I couldn't have the second one...I don't think I was ever really scared. I was sad, deeply, gut-wrenchingly sad. Not scared. But in September, I was terrified. In every moment that I remember of the first week, I was scared. Scared of the pain, of not being able to breathe, of not being able to sleep, of the fact that I couldn't get my mouth to say the words that were in my brain, so scared that I would never get better that I begged the doctors to give me enough drugs to let me kill myself. Once I was more lucid, it terrified me that I had been so ill just a few days before that I wanted to die, when all I really want so much is to keep living. That infection and pain could addle my brain to the point where survival was no longer important or a possibility. It really hit me as I sat on my hospital bed, watching the first episode of the new Doctor Who, that I could have died a week ago and I wasn't even really mentally present enough to realise. 

You'd think, with all that, I'd struggle to celebrate today. Yet here I am! I bought some biscuits to congratulate myself on still being alive, Rosemary came for lunch, I petted the kitties, then my eye started threatening to misbehave so I went to lie on my bed in the dark for an hour. That was necessary because we went to Legna for dinner, so I wanted to be able to see. I had planned on wearing the dress I wore to Parliament, but the weather was not on board with that. Instead, I wore one of my Uniqlo shirt dresses, which was a bonus because it meant I could get very full and no one would notice. 

I had a glass of Veuve Cliquot, plus some nice white wine (I forget which one). I had some salt beef with celeriac roulade and apple, then tagliolini with crab, sage and lobster bisque. However, there was secret chilli in the bisque, so I sent it back and they made me another one when tomato and onion sauce which was still very delicious. Finally I had tortellini with lavender and a hen's egg. Really I just chose that because the lavender intrigued me, and it was excellent. There was no space for pudding, and no need! 

I'm going to bed with a happy, warm face and heart. Yes things have been hard, I won't deny it, but I still think I have more good days than bad. That's why September was so scary. I still want to live, and as long as that's the case, I'm going to celebrate every anniversary with everything I have.