Melodrama and Perspective

These are the two lessons I have learnt this week. Well, perspective is a lesson I have learnt, melodrama is just how I went about it.

I literally spent every day last week thinking I was going to be raising my very young children alone. I would frighten myself by realising I was daydreaming plans of how I would cope, where we would live, where I would work, who would watch the kids completely calmly. And it was this that would send me into fits of tears and panic. Not that I would have to do it, but that I was already planning it.

The surgery on Friday went well. The cancer was cut out and now we are awaiting further analysis to see how ferocious it is and if it is likely to have spread. The surgeon was fantastic and refused to tell us either way what he thought the prognosis without the evidence of the results was which was strangely reassuring.

And so since then there has been less melodrama and more perspective. We have talked a lot about what will happen on results day. About what is good news and what is bad news and what is somewhere in between. There have been less tears and more laughter. Less tension and more love.

Because you see, no matter what the news is next week, we now know what it feels like to think you are going to lose one another. To think you are going to miss out on the big things and the small things. To feel like you are going to raise children alone, or not see your children grow up.

And whilst I am not grateful or thankful for this experience and we quite frankly could have done without it, I am grateful for the perspective it has offered me. Us. I am so very appreciative of what I have today, of how loved I am and how much I love. And I really do value every minute we have together as a couple and as a family.