Tenuous in The C Word

If I’m allowed to just keep my head down and plod on, I’m fine. If anything out of routine/plan occurs, I find I have very limited patience and a very short threshold for crying unexpectedly.

I feel like since Mum has been diagnosed it’s almost given her permission to admit how crap she feels at times, and she’s been spending a lot of time resting because she’s perpetually exhausted (hello shitty blood counts).

Subsequently, I’ve been doing more and more things alone that previously she’d have tagged along for. And feeling a bit down that actually this is my new normal, that I’m going to be doing everything on my own for the foreseeable as she’ll be having chemo, and transplants. My only hope is that she makes it through and it’s not a permanent thing. Don’t get me wrong, I do a lot of things with V on my own anyway, I’ve always been very much get up and go, but it’s always nicer to have someone to share it with, especially someone who loves spending time with her.

It feels a lot like every time things just get settled and we get into a nice routine, and I allow myself to finally feel like I’m in control of things, something comes along and completely derails it all. I know it can’t be helped and I know my Mum would give anything to change things and not have cancer but besides being spectacularly shitty for everyone, it’s just another thing that reminds me how difficult it is to be a single, working Mum.

Childcare is insanely expensive, because I’m at the top of my band I earn too much to receive any help with the costs until she receives her government allocated nursery funding at the end of next year, and I’ve been very lucky to be able to rely on my family for support with looking after V so I can work and provide for us financially. For long, drawn out reasons that I’ll dedicate an entry to some other time, I can’t rely on Joey for physical or financial help.

It feels like everything is so tenuous and finely balanced, all the plates were spinning nicely then the big old gust of wind that is cancer came along and all of a sudden those plates are spinning out of control. That’s what I can’t stand. The waiting and not knowing. We’re waiting cardiology review this morning, although the ECHO tech said everything looked ok to her, we’re still waiting on Manchester, hopefully that will be some time this week, I think the guy has been on annual leave but should be back this week. We’re waiting to see what treatment he’ll offer, when it will start, just how bad things are, what he thinks about prognosis. The big, scary questions that we want the answers to, but almost don’t at the same time because what if it’s NOT GOOD NEWS?