The Universe will catch you when you fall

Sometimes it’s tough

It has been a while since my last post as, if truth be told I have visited hell, but now I feel I can share with you a little insert of my recent visit to hell.

Having had cancer and then subsequent chemo my body is now in a pre-menopausal phase. This on paper is, apparently the normal course of things. But for me I feel I have been knocked about again. You see I had my third period since starting chemo in Jan 2016 (if this is too much info then maybe just stop reading right here!) and it was to put it mildly a humdinger! To the point where I couldn’t leave the house for a few days as my body went through its “natural” rhythm. But as my symptoms were so radically different a thought, a very scary thought, popped into my head. Do I now have cervical cancer….?

The Worry Never Stops

Meanwhile the kids were very sick so I had to postpone my ultrasound to explore this, so the worry built and built in the back of my mind. By the time I finally got in to see the sonographer, it was about 4 weeks after my humdinger! 4 weeks to fret and worry and wait. Was I about to go through the whole thing ALL over again. Bizarrely I ended up in the same ultrasound unit, and EXACT bed that I was last lying on when I was pregnant with my youngest. But this time, I wasn’t waiting to hear a heartbeat, I was desperately looking to see if I had a lump or anything that vaguely explained my recent humdinger. The final result was that I have a few abnormalities which will need investigating but no obvious signs of cancer. So phewwwwy….but I don’t feel quite out of the woods yet.

We all just want to be accepted

Since returning from a fabulous overseas trip in June, where I was privileged to celebrate two amazing weddings I have been working on Project Autism. Our eldest Orange Rocket has ADHD, Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) and High Functioning Autism (which used to be known as Asperger’s Syndrome). I have known since he was about 8 months that he was a little different to his peers, but was only diagnosed in May. So this has been a very long and stressful process to FINALLY get a formal diagnosis.

Since returning from my overseas trip, I have spent about 13 hours per week working on Project Autism. While some of you may be wondering why I would feel the need to share this, well for one reason: By continuing to share my story about mental health (of which Autism, ADHD and SPD qualifies) I hope to reduce the stigma in my life time. Wouldn’t that be nice? Mental health can be such a dark scary place, but I am shining the light on these taboo subjects to raise so we can all have a little more empathy and try to understand how others tick. For those of you who don’t know: we are all on the spectrum. Because that is mental health, a spectrum that you are on and float in and out of your whole life. We just need to refuse to give it any power and simply treat it with the compassion and understanding that it deserves. After all don’t we all just want to be heard and understood by our loved ones?

Finding faith

Naturally you can imagine the strain that this has put on our little family unit. There have been tears tantrums, the works from all of us. Even the cat disappeared for a bit to get some peace and quiet. We are making headway with our Orange Rocket and I will keep you up to date on my latest cancer scare. But in all this madness I am now starting to reflect, which says that the storm has past and we are now just waiting to be rescued once again. It is unfathomable some of the things that people can face and endure. I am not particularly religious but I have a few loved ones who have passed and I often feel that they are there for me, which gives me more comfort that I can articulate here.

So for today, I am asking the universe, what can I learn from this and how can I better myself so I can carry my family through to a period of calm and peace? The answer is simple faith in the universe and a whole lot of love. xxx