So I’ve been away for a couple of days (work does get in the way of leisure sometimes) and during my whistlestop tour of England I have come to realise that there’s actually two versions of me at the moment; ill me and fit me. In truth I feel fine and physically I’m back in shape, apart from I’m now sporting my own portable soap dish where my left shoulder used to be, but this isn’t obvious if I’m wearing a shirt (which of course I now do all the time as it’s summer & sunny).
My guess is, that as I act as though nothing has happened and there are no visible signs of surgery, everyone not really in the know just assumes that I’m OK. This means when I’m with my footballers they treat me as they always have – lots of banter, a nodding respect and their leader. In short, nothings changed as far as they are concerned. When I’m with them, even though they know there's something wrong, I’m fit Steve and I love it.
Last night I’m with a bunch of them having a laugh and a joke when the local tennis club turn up at the sports centre. A family friend is amongst the tennisers, spots me and pulls me to one side. She does the put the head slightly to one side thing and tells me how sorry she is to hear I’m ill etc. etc. Now she is in the know and to her I’m ill Steve and in many ways I feel slightly fraudulent as I feel like I should feel ill - but I don’t.
The same kind of thing happened when I met up with the companies sales team on Tuesday. Everyone knows I’ve been off on the sick but only the managers really know why – primarily because these are the people whom I’m most friendly with and speak the most often to, not because it’s any big secret. Anyway I do my presentation (two and a half hours worth – yes I can talk for England) and to the 14 or so not in the know I’m the same old me – I’m fit Steve. To the six that do know however I’m ill Steve – much tilting of heads sideways, lots of ‘You look much better than I thought you would’ (we’ve all had that I guess) and a few embarrassed silences. Although I must say that the girlies, Tara and Kat, were much better than the blokes – no surprise there eh? Us men don’t deal with ‘nasty’ particularly well, it might involve emotions and stuff, so best off saying something stupid and then skirting around the issue and I speak from experience because before this, that was me (just for clarity I am still a bloke)!!
Something else strange is going on and this is much harder to deal with. Although I’m the one with the disease it seems to have affected my lovely wife more than me. For the past two weeks she has gone into work on Monday morning, only to breakdown and be sent home for the rest of the week. It probably doesn’t help that she works in the histology lab at the hospital (where my various bits have been sent) but through her own admittance she isn’t coping, which is a first in our 26 years of marriage. This makes me feel like I should be treating this whole cancer thing as a much bigger deal than I am, but I feel fine and am determined that it won’t run my life, so currently I’m just carrying on as normal…..maybe I shouldn’t?
It’s all a tad confusing for a simple lad like me.
I should also mention that we haven’t ignored how Penny is – she’s been to our GP a couple of times for chats and upon my suggestion she called Mac HQ and had a chat with them, which apparently helped but hasn’t healed. We’ll figure it out eventually – it’s what we do. We have a great support network of family and friends and I reckon it’s time they earned their corn, ‘cos we’ve certainly earned ours over the years.
Ah well time for bed said Zebedee (not everyone will remember that). I’ve to rest so that fit me can continue conquering ill me - two of me - is the world really ready for this!!!
(I wrote this last night but couldn't post as the site was down hence the bed reference).
