Something I have learnt quickly with this whole “journey” (hate that word a little bit) is that there really is no point in having a plan of what the next few days, week, month is going to look like. I started this week off feeling on top of the world, and like things were sort of getting back to normal – in terms of daily life. Admittedly I’m still drugged up to my eyeballs, but after the past couple of weeks in hospital and then recuperating at home, it felt good to go back in to work and see people carrying on with life, having regular conversations (not about cancer hoorah!) And then 2 days in to the week I find myself back at the hospital. 

I’m learning to roll with it, and this is a cliché but I truly do take the positives from every scenario right now. For example, I felt, and still do, completely well in myself. No pain, no headaches or nausea, no fever – just a return of the colitis that landed me in hospital a couple of weeks ago. As inflammation of the bowel is one of the most common side effects of the immunotherapy drugs I’m taking, and can be quite nasty if left untreated, it’s crucial that the team investigate thoroughly. So back on intravenous steroids yesterday and today, and tomorrow I see the gastroenterology team at the Heath hospital in Cardiff. They will decide if I need an additional drug to the steroids in order to calm everything down, with the overall aim of getting things back to normal as quickly as possible ahead of my next rounds of immunotherapy.

I have to talk about WNO, and my fabulous colleagues. I work with a unique team of people at Welsh National Opera. We are relatively large for an education and community outreach department of an arts organisation, and the Director of our department has done a really fantastic job at forming a tight knit, supportive of one another, generous team of people. We are colleagues, but we are also friends. My team came to our wedding over Christmas, and even though Rich and I had decided on a small(ish) wedding with only family and a couple of close friends, I just couldn’t imagine not having them there.

When I was diagnosed at the end of June, they were the first people I told after my family. I can be completely myself with each and every one of them, cry, laugh, talk, not talk. It’s refreshing, uplifting and exactly what I have needed over the past couple of months! They seem to get the balance perfectly between asking how I am and taking on all of my many and varied updates, and then carrying on with general conversation and work chat.

The flexibility my boss has granted me with my comings and goings has also been invaluable to both my physical and mental health over the past couple of months. Technically, I have been signed off work for at least 13 weeks – which I think my consultant would ideally have liked me to have taken in full. However, when I’m feeling well I want to be doing something productive that I enjoy and that I’m good at. And sitting at home alone with my own thoughts for 13 weeks makes me actually want to jump off a cliff. I know that lots of people in a similar situation to me don’t get as many options when it comes to work and sick leave. Some people don’t get any, some people can’t be flexible due to the nature of their jobs and have to take all or nothing. I therefore feel very grateful to work where I do, but more importantly to have the team that I do. I don’t think they’ll ever fully understand how much they’ve done for me, or how much they all mean to me!