My last few blog posts have been somewhat dark.
I’m not quite sure why but it probably has a lot to do with being on sick leave after the Campath treatment and spending far too much time at home on my own.
It’s definitely got nothing to do with the fact that I will be turning *40* on Tuesday (gulp). Not at all. Not even a teensy bit, although I am being rather melodramatic about it – ‘that was my last ever Thursday as a 30-something’ or’ that’s the last full moon I’ll ever see in my thirties’, before reaching for another chocolate chip cookie to console myself.
So in an attempt to cheer myself up, I am compiling a little list of things that have made me smile over the last few weeks (in no particular order):
- I’ve almost finished my last ever essay for my university course. Six long years. Nearly pulled out two years ago when my brain decided to stop working, but got there in the end.
- An old friend I haven’t seen for years and years got back in touch.
- Re-discovering the joy of toast.
- I’ve been shortlisted for the MS Society Digital Media of the Year award – chuffed beyond belief, and The Teenager is coming with me to the awards ceremony in London (if he tidies his room and promises to behave).
- I put a whole load of grated carrot in The Teenager’s bolognese and he didn’t notice.
- A friend in America sent me over a package filled with fabulous presents.
- Wandering round Ikea and managing not to buy any candles for the first time ever.
- Cutting my own fringe with dodgy MS hands. So bad, it’s good.
I was talking to someone the other day, who asked me if there were any unexpected good things about MS. Without hesitation, I found two. First, the support from other people with MS. Who knows where I would have been without it. Second, the fact that something like MS makes you scale life right down to what’s important. I appreciate everything now, however insignificant.
Life is looking up. I will soon be ready to re-launch myself into society again and I can’t wait.