It's been interesting working on the Caring Bridge blog posts, for both the artwork and editing for the possible book.

Thanks Emily, your link worked, so it's all on Word now (No promises regarding the book, I'm not sure if it will ever be a book, to be honest!)

However, I have found myself deliberately skimming through the blog posts instead of fully reading them. Sure, I need to skim to some extent as there's so much to put in order! I must check for capitalization, punctuation, spelling, headings, etc. and I'm not very good at all that! but that's all I'm doing, I'm skimming through it!

I said that I wanted to use the time that I produce the artwork, to be a processing time. A time to put things to bed for good and yet instead I'm skimming over the surface, not really ready, or prepared to dive in.

There are two reasons for that, I think.

One is that I think I'm too impatient to just get on and create the Artwork, instead of use the Art to process and work through it systematically and the other reason is I think I'm too afraid!

I'm too afraid to dive in and then realize just how shitty it has really been this last year and sink into the darkness and fear of it all, and it be something that I possibly can't get out of once I'm in that dark place.

But I think I probably need to go there, because anytime cancer is mentioned on the TV, I have tears that escape before I can reign them in!

I have been signed up to a yoga class at Guys Cancer Village. My physiotherapist said that it might be too much of a beginners stage for me, seeing as how I'm a yoga instructor and all that, but I explained that it is so valuable sometimes, just to go to a class and not have to think up the routines myself and that by being in a class, I'm able to just focus on my own yoga practice and truly stretch. I explained that I do not have the flexibility, or the stamina, or the strength now to be able to fully do my own yoga practice as I used to do, and so I can see the benefits of almost starting a new again.

Hopefully it will get me closer to where I was before. So, she put me forward for a class.

But as a result, I needed a phone assessment first. I had a phone call yesterday from the instructor because there is a class coming up and it starts on the 16th of May, every Thursday for 6 weeks. (I’ll miss one week for Chelsea flower show).

She asked me what I wanted to focus on, and I said mainly just releasing the stiffness in my hips and ankles, in order to be able to do more of what I love doing. Which is a stronger yoga practice and better walking abilities, plus I really want to start working towards my 5K in a better way than I have been doing.

But It's really quite shocking and de-stabilising when an oncology nurse, someone who works in a cancer centre, so is familiar with so much exclaims:

"Wow, oh my god, you've had a lot of treatment, haven't you? Like you've reaaallly had a lot of treatment, they have thrown everything at you haven't they!  That must have been quite hard".

I think to myself she must be dealing with lots of different people with breast cancer and possibly lots of other cancers as well, and yet when she looks through my notes, she's amazed at what I've had to go through. Just how different has my treatment been?

I suppose it's been that brutal and hard hitting, because they know that as it was in all my lymph nodes, I've a very, high risk of it returning, which I think is another reason why I'm a little bit hesitant to really fully read the blog again. I'm scared of what I might find as most of it I blurted out and then forgot about.

They say it takes at least two years to fully recover and I've not completed one year post all the treatments yet. I need to keep that in mind when I expect myself to do things and be back up to speed now.

But James said yesterday, "it's not just a case of reading it to see what you've gone through, there must be an element where you read it and go bloody hell, I'm amazing to have gone through that and come out this way"!

I might have to adopt that approach when I feel that reading it, sinks me a little bit too deep. I might be able to go yeah, but you know what! I got through it, and I got out the other side.

I can't really believe that we've already done over a year here in London, everything seems such a blur. James and I can barely remember what we did last summer! I just know that we did lots of walking and talking, which I think is how I got through all of this.

But I do have amazing strategies and so I do really think I owe it to myself to not just skim the blog post, but to dive into them properly and fully immerse myself so I can de-sensitize the cancer triggers. Yes, I will get sad and upset and hurt, because I have been anyway even when I've skimmed it, but I think in order to fully process what happened, I need to do this and I need to use all my different strategies including yoga, to help me rationalize, process and release.

Judging by what other people say on the breast cancer Facebook page, it seems very common that a lot of people do not fully understand what it means to go through cancer treatment. I heard someone on TV just say, "don't think you know what to expect just because you watched someone else go through it" Hell I've gone through it, and even I'm not really sure what it means now! Other than I find myself fit to cry a lot these days! Especially if there's a cancer research advert on, or a character having it as their story line!

I think a lot of people think mainly of chemoTHERAPY and once you've got through that then you're ok and I think because a lot of the symptoms and side effects of the drugs that you are given, are so similar to menopausal symptoms, that it's naturally downgraded from big, scary cancer to 'menopause'.

So, for many that's that really, you're just going through the menopause, which to be honest you are! It's just on top of everything else.

The fears, the scares, the wondering if you'll ever be able to just get through a week without worrying about cancer returning, without worrying about a cough that comes out of the blue, or a pain that comes into your rib cage, or a deep twinge in your hip, whether you will always be thinking that it might be cancer, or whether you can move on too and downgrade it to menopause in your own head. I don't know really. I know that the menopause is pretty s***** on its own to be honest! and I know that a lot of us women suffer and sometimes we are struggling, and we don't even recognise that it's menopause. There has been a lot of awareness regarding it recently and I think that's a very good thing.

Unfortunately, I am unable to take anything with any kind of hormone in and that includes things that have natural hormones in, so I'm a little bit stuck as to what I can do to remedy my problems, even if it is only the menopause, because a lot of the creams, supplements and ointments contain things I cannot take. And that is purely because I had hormone positive cancer. Anything with oestrogen in, natural or otherwise is going to feed cancer, I just can't take it. But I am researching things that do not contain oestrogen and therefore hopefully that will remedy some of my issues, provided they don't affect the medication I'm on.

I certainly noticed my symptoms got worse once I had to stop Boswellia Serrata! So, if you are menopausal but have no cancer, I can recommend you look into that supplement! Especially for joint stiffness.

Maybe I should just get off the Cancer bandwagon now and just accept its menopause now and move on. That might not be a bad thing. There's not much point going "but I had cancer, that's why!!!"

I should remind myself I HAD cancer! But it's gone now, time to move on. Stop trying to be special or have special treatment, everyone's got a battle of sorts, get over yourself!

"It's not all about you!"

That actually might be a refreshing attitude to adopt now.

Anyway, I have decided I will take my time to read the blog properly, so I can use my Planting Positivity and Somatic yoga techniques to release. It will take time because I do have time on my hands after all.

It's definitely worth doing now so that when I move up north it can be all done and dusted.

Oh, and Sorry, but when are TV actors going to realise, when you are playing a cancer roll, you don't just lose your hair on your head to chemoTHERAPY you are not just bald! You lose your eyelashes and eyebrows too! FFS!

I'm still drawing on my eyebrows and chemoTHERAPY finished a year ago on May 3rd! Omg I've just realised it's a year ago today!

On a positive note, I stopped taking the loperamide on Sunday, and so far, the symptoms they were combatting, have not returned! So that's one less drug I'm taking!

Today I had the guys from the NHS Education Media Department come to film me regarding my surgery. They said that they had a lot of useful material from me, that they felt would be so useful to help others going through the same thing.  They were impressed with my brutal honesty, and candour and how I presented myself, discussing something so painful, by injecting it with humour and numerous self-help strategies. So that's a good thing to come out of it. I can hopefully help others.

Right off to dive deeper into the blogs again. A case of "Suck it up, Buttercup!"

Lots of love

Jenni x