Saturday 2nd May

Today dawned bright and sunny again. Well, during the managers’ meeting, the sun came up. Last night I was not so lonely in my canvas ‘house’, as Sarah is here and we both snuggled into hour cocoons to keep warm.

Apart from all the paddling, yesterday had its little excitements, so hopefully today will be a quieter day.

The first excitement was the ‘great battle to secure a K4s for the girls’ – which actually began on Thursday and was a stupid battle, anyway. The long and short of it is that I won the war, the girls paddled and our first team won a silver medal! Yay, Parktown!!

The second excitement was when one of the girls swam during the long distance event. Two of her teammates, in fact the two most inexperienced paddlers on the team, first tried to help her get back into her boat, which was too full. They then stayed with her until the rescue boat came for her (which was another whole battle of its own kind) and didn’t finish the race properly. Parktown spirit!

My own personal battle with the sore knees seemed to intensify today and even extend into my legs and feet. What next! I do find, though, that when people make sure they slip into any conversation you have with them that they have a particular condition, or suffer from some kind of chronic discomfort, or the like, that I am getting more and more intolerant.

In some ways, I want to say, me too! Or, you are not the only one. Being me, I just grin and look as sympathetic as I can – then move as soon as I can, too!

I’m sure I could generate a whole lot of sympathy and even admiration if I told my whole story, with all the gory details of how it is still affecting me. Why, though? What on earth would I stand to gain?

Those that matter know. I know. That is all that matters.

Sometimes, I do find it a little difficult to be to be the one who has to keep going through this, even when real life has mostly moved beyond it all for everyone else. This does not mean that those closest to me don’t realise what has happened, or know the hugeness of it. It’s just that, as the crisis time has been moved beyond and it is about long-term effects, it all settles itself on me more specifically, as I have to deal with the consequences of the processes and the thoughts of the implications almost all the time, while they are not quite so real or urgent for the others anymore.

Just how it goes.

What I do know is that I wouldn’t swop this around if I could, not if this had to happen to one of us. I am not glad that it was me who had cancer. I am eternally grateful, though, that it was not anyone else close to me.

I can deal with the reality. I can deal with the aftermath. I can deal J