i'm still here

i know it's been ages, but it's been a rough few months.

last october I got the news that my mum's cancer was back, but that it had spread and wasn't curable. that was one weekend i wont forget in a hurry. it was the big Party in Pink Zumbathon in London on the sunday- we even met Beto, it was one of the best and worst weekends of my life.


a hell of lot has gone on since then which is still way too painful to write about, but ultimately she passed away at 3:10am on April 11th, a month before her 61st birthday. she held on for my parents 36th wedding anniversary on the 10th. OK she wasn't conscious, she wasn't aware, but she was still with us.

I am still trying to get my head around it all. I think being a student nurse was both good and bad. on the one hand it meant I could kinda distance myself from the true heartbreakingness (is that even a word?) of the situation and just be there and be as useful as I could be, knowing that ultimately there was nothing i could do that would change the outcome. but on the other hand, it's meant that all the emotions from all those months were being pushed aside and are only just starting to be faced.

My parents had got tickets to the Olympics, mum had been desperate to see Jessica Ennis in the heptathlon and was delighted to get tickets for the first day. So it was decided I would go instead.

that morning I got up bright and early, I had some breakfast and went for a shower, and half way through getting dressed I had a complete and total meltdown, I started crying and I didn't stop for probably 2 hours. I desperately wanted to go and cheer Jessica on for mum, but the guilt just ate me up inside and I just couldn't do it, it just felt so wrong. Kieren ended up going instead.

I've been off of university since November, initially just on a sick line, but then when it became obvious things were moving with mum far quicker than expected i decided to go on time out. that was both an easy and a hard decision to make - I wasn't coping with the workload, my brain was point blank refusing to work, if i'd kept going i would have failed, even my placement picked up on something being up, I tried to go back to placement after my initial 2 weeks sick leave and managed all of half a day... but it meant saying goodbye to an amazing class and quite a few good close friends. these friends have now just celebrated the end of their student days and upcoming graduation, and that's been really hard.

I start back at University Sept 10th, and if I'm totally honest, I am scared out of my mind - I am really eager to get back to some sort of routine, some sort of normality, but I am SO scared that I wont cope, that small things will set me off when on placement, that I wont remember ANYTHING from before. I should be going back to the same team I was with before, I've known them since 1st placement of 1st year, so they know me well and I know they're understanding of the situation- but the anxiety and self-doubt is still there and mounting by the day.