2008 May 20th - Hangovers

So.......where was I? It's so hard to keep up these blogs now I'm back in the "real" world of work, socialising and the like! I'm pleased to say I'm still going to the gym and although I still have fat in places I really don't need or want it, the muscle is developing well underneath it.



Work is going really well too (yeah so my boss and workmates haven't ACTUALLY said so, but they haven't sacked or lynched me yet). Little things come back to me, like I remembered F4 repeats formatting functions, I wrote a lookup formula without even thinking....pivot tables again, was OK with those. I can even remember bigger issues around our industry, which to be honest I thought I didn't give a rat's arse about (and we know how I feel about rats, especially in my kitchen) but my work ethic doesn't seem to have changed dramatically. I won't be taking work home ever again, I won't be rushing into full time work at all if I have anything to do with it. Everyone tells me it'll be a year or so before I wake up and realise I'm better. Nurses, chemo nurses, MacMillan nurses, my oncologist. So I shall indeed be taking things slowly.

Oh, also as well as the fantastic healthcare package through work and the insurance which kept me at half pay for all this time they're trying to make me to go to REHAB! I actually was saying no to start with, but on reflection I think I like the extra attention.

I should explain, it's a rehabilitation back into the workplace service. I have a woman ring me up and check how I am and offer to help me with suggestions on working around my problems and supporting me in any way she can. This could be by talking to my employers should I find myself wanting to ask something but unable to myself. Right now things are working out, I was doing three days Wed to Fri, but my line manager suggested Thu to Mon so I still get continuous work days. I was worried that if I alternated days off I'd lose continuity or have to keep dumping work on team mates, or worse it would affect the relationship with the partner whose titles I work on. (See perfect work ethic I have there, if you're an employer). This week I worked Monday and spent today doing housework, well........there's always more to be done but I'm not burning myself out on my days off! Tomorrow I'm out for coffee and cake mmmm and then probably more housework. Two days at work, then it's the weekend by which time the house should be fairly tidy.

So, what else have I been getting up to.....hmmm. Well I managed to go on three dates with three different men in three weeks. The first two were Hmmm no ta, Hmm no ta and the third I really like, but I'm at the stage where I don't actually know if it was a DATE date or just a really nice day out? On paper I think he likes me "like that" by the amount of contact we have, but I can't help doubting things, until proven otherwise. I'm trying really hard to enjoy his company for what it is, very good company. I feel like a normal person, a woman in fact which I've not really felt for a very long time. I don't feel like a patient, a sick relative, a mother who cannot mother. I'm just me, the new slightly improved, slightly battered me. I like it.

So that's great you're all thinking? Until I decided after stressing myself into being awake half the night and having to call in sick (sick, you've only just come back to work woman) about the bleeding and the threat of cervical cancer (must stop saying that, there's no real reason to think it could be that, except.......history) or the thought of never being able to NOT bleed. It's boring. It's upsetting and it's not really condusive to an "adult" relationship........not that I need to worry about that yet. So after a stressful week of seeing doctors and surgeons and throwing me back into the medical world again, I got drunk. Not just tipsy, not at home had a bottle of wine over a few hours with a mean drunk. Absolutely MEMORY LOSS, totally incapacitated, possibly incoherent, BLADDERED.

I didn't plan it! I was staying at my sister's the night before we travelled to London for the Beating Bowel Cancer patient voices event........more about that later. I dragged her out for ONE drink, then we had laptops, Facebook and msn, oh and doritos for the rest of the evening planned. Perhaps painting nails and face masks. And an early night. Over a bottle of red wine later (I usually drink rose because red makes me ill and need the loo lots at night) later I'd left the pub for some "fresh air" I think. We'd been having some fun and banter with some locals. Actually they were having fun with us taking the mickey over various things, but with good humour, we had a top night! The DATE/not date man was there and came out to check on me........and that's my last memory until 5am the next morning when I awoke in a strange bed (my sister's) fully clothed (so far so good), and alone (phew). With a bucket (and red wine esque contents) next to the bed (oh heck).

Quite how I drove the hour to Peterborough train station without feeling too bad I'm not sure. An hour train journey and half hour cab journey later we were outside the most amazing building on Pall Mall. During the cab journey I discovered, thanks to mobile phones, that I'd launched myself on DATE/not date man and tried to "rearrange his tonsils".

OMG.

I'd previously discovered that the bucket contents weren't the only fallout from the red wine......the pub meal I'd eaten was mostly residing in my sister's backyard drain grille. Great. Hang on, where did the tonsil hockey take place? Yep, you guessed it, shortly before I emptied my stomach over my sister's backyard in front of the poor bloke I'd been molesting and claiming I "really really liked" to his face..........he helped her turn off the outside tap after she hosed the yard down.

So he gets brownie points for still talking to me! I think I've lost any I ever had :o(

He insists it doesn't matter, it's fine. I think I'll wait and see.