"How are you feeling?"

I've been doing pretty good. A month has passed since my last post and recovery has continued in the right direction. Physically I've healed amazingly, mentally I've been doing well too. But today I've wobbled.

Next week I return to work. I know!! Where has that 9.5 weeks gone?! I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to it. I'm actually surprisingly anxious about going back. I was thinking it was just the typical anticipation about what I'm going back to and how I may feel with the tiredness that I still have after my op. But today, I've been feeling quite emotional, and as I sat thinking it through, it dawned on me. I'm not sure it's anything to do with work itself, I think it's because it's "normal". Everything returns to normal when I go back to work. Right now I'm on medical leave, still connected to the hysterectomy, protected in this little bubble. But as of Monday, I'm back to normal life. Except, it's not normal, not for me still anyway, not in my head. Yes maybe its the new normal but normal before isn't normal now. And today I'm not sure I'm ready for that normal.

On top of work anxiousness, yesterday I opened my latest NHS branded letter to something I wasn't expecting. It was confirmation that my womb, cervix and fallopian tubes had been sent to the lab for analysis, which is of course standard practice. But my results showed an abnormality had been found on the cervix. I had known that my last two smear tests had returned abnormal results so this shouldn't have been a huge shock. And yet as I continued to read that I would need a vault smear at the hospital in 6 months to ensure all had been excised, I felt a sinking feeling that I wasn't quite expecting. Wasn't it all meant to just be simple now?! 

There were many things that I had focused on to help with accepting the hysterectomy, the obvious things like less pain and one less disease. But I also included the smaller things too such as no smear tests or no periods moving forward. Whilst some may think for goodness sake this is just one more smear test Amy sort it out, for me it was one of the reasons I repeated to myself over and over in my head to help me accept what I was doing. Yes it may seem small and yes it may seem silly, but I needed those small things too. Quite frankly, I've needed everything and anything I could get my hands on to get through it.

I think I'll struggle to post this today, just because in reality these things are insignificant, I'm still okay! And yet today they are HUGE in my head. Work, the letter, the smear test. Some days the smallest things can be overwhelming and today is that day for me.

"How are you feeling?" something I still don't quite know how to answer...

A x