An Unpredictable Life

3. Where Did the World Go?

Where Did The World Go?

3

When you're in hospital it can sometimes seem like you're in another tiny world, where only you and the people you see every day exist. It can be quite a sad and depressing feeling. Especially when you do get to come home and you only have a few days to catch up on all the gossip from your friends, on the newspapers and programmes you didn't get to see.

Sometimes you feel like you're the only person in the world who doesn't know what's going on. It's like the whole world has disappeared. But then there are the rare days when you get to talk to someone and you think to yourself that you're the one stuck in the bubble and that the whole world is going on around you and you've been excluded from it. Sometimes you feel left out, as though, not only are you not included, but it seems that no-one has missed you while you were away in your bubble.

I know this will probably sound strange to most people. But to me, after spending a week's worth of my life in one room and then being given free reign on the world for two days before being condemned to four walls again for another excruciatingly long week…it makes perfect sense.

Think about when you first stayed away from home, and how it was kind of nice being independent, out on your own, taking the world by storm. But at other times when things weren't working out the way you thought, you just curled up in a ball and cried, desperate to go back home.

Well, that was how I felt. Except, that exciting, independence was on those few days when I got home and was allowed to go for two days without being pricked by needles or attached to machines and stands that limited my movements. Those few days when I could go where I wanted, when I wanted and not be stuck in my room. But then, those days when you just curled up in a ball and cried, desperate to go back home…those were every other day for me.

It wasn't the chemo or the sickness or even how ill I felt. The only reason I was so desperate to get out was because I felt isolated and alone. But then, doesn't everyone? There's always a point in someone's life when they feel like they're alone and the only person in the world who can know how they're feeling. But that's just not true.

Once I escaped from the ward, after my Stem Cell Transplant and all that was left was recovery and waiting for a CT Scan to see if the chemo had worked, I found that the world hadn't gone anywhere. I had. I had been on this little country road, taking all the wrong directions to find my way back home. I thought that by keeping up with the gossip and reading the papers and keeping myself a part of the world, that it would automatically include me in the world. But it didn't. And it certainly wasn't what I should have done.

What I know now is that those six months in hospital where precious. I should have used them for contemplation, to think about my life and work it out a bit. But I was too blinded by my need for normality to see that. I didn't focus on getting myself better or on planning things through properly, I just wanted to click my fingers and have everything back to normal. But that isn't possible.

Even now, I'll be 28 this year and I'm still not back to normal. My muscles are weak from being confined to a bed for so long and never able to get a proper exercise regime going because of bumps with my health. Thanks to all the little hiccups I had along the way and all the other side effects of the treatment, I'm having to work my way through getting back on my feet again. It's not as though I can't walk at all, I can. But only for short distances and for me, that just isn't good enough.

I'm fed up of it, even now and yet, when I try to exercise, when I try to walk around further than I know I'm capable of it still makes me mad that I can't do it. I have that tiny little problem of a lack of will power. I know I need to do it and I know that I should want to do it, but sometimes it's just so damned hard. Everything in life is hard and I know that. But when things suddenly turn around at the rate they did for me, and for most of us who go through this, then it's not always so easy to pick yourself back up and work things out for the best.