Here for a Reason

I am digging in the garden, slowly moving the soil with a trowel from the once sloped bank into a leveled flowerbed, and while I am digging I keep seeing a robin who seems to be waiting for me to throw him some worms. But this robin doesn't look like a normal robin, he has barely any redness on his chest and his head just looks like he is missing feathers or is covered in scabs or white patches… he either has some disease or had a very close encounter with a cat? 

In fact if he didn't act like a robin I wouldn't really be sure he was one. However, whatever the reason is for his scars 'scabby robin' is just continuing to do what he has to - which I assume is feed babies - and he is in my garden for days, waiting for me to feed him the worms and grubs that I dig out.

I take a picture of him and see if anyone on my Facebook wall has any ideas on why he looks so bad… they don't, but also assume he must still have a nest as he is constantly eating!

"He is eating the worms I have been digging...lots of them! and sitting about 1 metre away (but not when I have a camera)"

As I am watching him again I suddenly feel this, like he was sent here for a reason:

"I'm sure his head and neck has scabs on it so maybe he is 'my' robin. A slightly beaten up around the head with a few scars and war wounds, but alive, robin - just to make me smile 😊"

… the day after this realisation, scabby robin disappears… 

The Worst and Best Year

Not sure exactly what I want to write, but I just feel SO emotional. Like I could cry a river from all the emotions I feel right now, over the past year.

I don’t think its sadness – just enormous gratitude, relief, letting go of the fear, exhaustion (physical and mental), love, tinged with a bit of frustration as to why the world can be so evil and why others can’t see this way…

I finally got my driving licence back, hence I managed to go to FMG. (The group is energetically based on the pioneering work of  ‘The Journey’ by Brandon Bays and on the power of stillness for deep personal and spiritual transformation.)

I haven’t been able to go for a whole year and longed just to be allowed to ‘be’. Laugh, cry – whatever – it’s all OK! To be with others who ‘get it', get that emotions are OK and try to build spirituality into their lives.

It feels like I have sobbed since I let the floodgates open there. I still have so much I need to release.

Saying I had brain surgery still feels like it happened to someone else, but I have this fuck off great scar on my head, a hole at the front and numbness to remind me. Daily. Hourly. Every few minutes.

But the really, really odd thing is… that despite all those crap feelings, the lack of being able to discuss it, the whole experience when looked at as ‘one’ has been positive.

Or as the quote on Facebook said the other day…

"This year has been both the worst and best year of my life."

It actually seems a little mad saying it’s the best year – but I was given another chance of life. And that’s got to be celebrated!! 💖

Thing is, as totally terrified and scared that I was – I never thought that I was dying. Maybe I was and people never think that they are? Or maybe, deep down, I just knew it wasn’t my time? My fear took over at times – yes. I was so scared of what could go wrong. Numb from the shock. Had panic attacks so constantly that it seemed like they were normal days.

But after the op, that I knew I had survived it and had my angelic shadows in the room. I know there is something bigger than me, or what humans see on earth. We get support. There is a bigger plan.

I am still Jo

So it has taken me this long to put pen to paper again.

I’m not sure if it’s laziness or fear of crying a river if I truly feel the magnitude of emotions I have now and have felt over the past few months.

But I think I have had to shut part of me away, for I wasn’t ready to cope with it.

Only today, 7 ½ months after my operation have I dared look online at where the muscles, nerves and skull actually are in your head. I wasn’t able to look and deal with it before. And now I know – there is basically one big nerve running up the back on each side of your head. And mines been cut…

I didn’t realise this before or just after the operation (I’m not blaming the surgeon – he probably told me. I just didn’t listen. I wasn’t ready.) Only the day after the op did I realise they cut my neck muscles to get in my skull! (Ahh! That explains the huge neck pain and swelling!)

Yet I still thought the numbness up the sides and top of my head was an after effect of the op, but that it would go with the swelling. Damaged tissue or something.

But when I went back at 3 weeks he told me that the main nerve was cut. I would always have a numb patch, although the other nerves would try and compensate in time.

I know I should be grateful it is one of the worst side effects, but it was totally a bolt inside when he told me. I didn’t realise before, but I would never feel my head properly again!

It sounds stupid, but I had to mourn it. I was in shock. As he said it and the reality sank in, once again I was trying not to just be a blubbering wreck. I could feel my eyes welling up and I just had to bite my lip and not express the enormity of my emotions. But even as I was hiding the tears I also knew that I was so thankful for what I still had (The tumour had gone. I was OK) and not what I hadn’t now got. And the enormity of that gratitude also hit me at the same time, and so I wanted to cry tears of joy too!

And now…if I shut my eyes and relax now… I am still Jo. I can shut my eyes and still feel the same bliss inside, or I can feel pain. Sometimes the pain wins, sometimes the bliss.

Sometimes I feel it’s a circle of feelings: 

Itching – what feels like it is under my skull and I cannot scratch it. 

Tenderness – where I feel like I have a bruise near where the plate must be. 

Numbness – that if I lean on the ‘wrong part’ it feels like my whole right side of my head has an ½ cm thick layer of papier-mâché on it, it all moves and ‘digs in’ as one plate. Catching my hair makes it feel like this.

Nerve pain – where it feels like my hair has been ripped out and is sore.

Itchy scar at front – but the scar is too deep that I can’t touch it.

Blessings of a Brain Tumour

So for today's little rambling of the darkest days of the year...

Last night I was watching Dave play ... they were playing Freebird at the time... And suddenly I was sitting there (alone) singing along from what suddenly felt like the core of me and the emotions from the past year came up and I just continued singing the rest with tears of every emotion running down my face...

I had been to the local Buddhist temple earlier and they were talking about how peoples’ response can vary due to their life at the time... And how if you were driving and thanked someone they might not acknowledge you at that time due to circumstances that were nothing to do with you.

And suddenly the feelings of May came back... 

of knowing I had a fucking brain tumour... They were going to have to open MY head up soon ... There was a good chance I would need a blood transfusion... The chance of a stroke or something negative... The surgeon saying I might hate him after.... I might bleed to death... This might be it... Having felt dizzy (or as I remember the feeling of being drunk) for 4-5 months - solidly...not able to walk and touch one foot in front if the other...unable to turn my head without pain...exhausted from the fight or flight that hit me each time I wobbled (many times a day) and the pain of nightly headaches. I couldn't turn to look to cross roads ... Dave had to hold me each time ... Or even to walk ... Knowing that to live I had no choice but to have this op... To totally trust...

And I was being driven to hospital to go and get my increased headache checked - still not due the op for another 9 days (but what ended up being the day I went to hospital before op as they kept me in) ... And every single thing driving there was painful... Every red light... Every person crossing in front of us... Each person who pulled out...

And comparing it to going home after the op... I was leaving the hospital 48 hours after I came out of theatre (when I was told I would be there 5-9 days or possibly more... And I would not be able to leave earlier!) ... I hadn't needed a blood transfusion ... I was able to touch my feet together when I walked ... The neck pain had gone (although huge swelling and cut neck muscles replaced it) ... But I was alive!!!! And going home ... Going home to be able to cuddle my 'babies' (even if the youngest was 9) Tell them that it was going to be ok now...🙏💖 And not see the terrified look on their faces ... It didn't matter that I had 40 staples in my head... That I looked like I felt- and hadn't slept properly for weeks! ...

But this time even shitty parts of Tooting seemed amazing - like really seeing it for the first time as a tourist would ... Who cares if a car pulled out in front... Their day job might have been shit ... They can't help it they are stuck in the rat race... This thing most of us call life... They need the love and understanding - not me! We could just let them and their rushing or even aggressiveness go... I was going home and it didn't matter if it took 1.5 hours....

And so last night I experienced all these feelings -and more - in a few minutes... In one song ... watching couples hug and dance with each other...

And it reminded me just how blessed we all are to be alive...

To listen to a recording of Free Bird which Dave played after reading this-  Please click here