Back to the future...

Recently I have been giving some thought to the future, The end of chemo is in sight. I have two more, so not out of the dark side yet. When I went to watch my two younger sisters and two nieces run the Race for Life (well, they walked but quite fast) I was an emotional mess. My sister H, was diagnosed with breast cancer four years ago, and has, since then been a tireless campaigner for Cancer Research UK. She and the others all ran with my name on their backs, the other sister and the nieces had H on their backs too. H and I have never hugged each other so tight in our lives. I was profoundly moved by their public support and by the 7496 other women who were running in support of cancer sufferers. I intend to work as an Ovarian Cancer Action Voice, in the future, raising awareness of this particularly sneaky variant of cancer. I really enjoyed the day. We had strawberries and cream and ate jelly sweets. One of my nieces decided that I should have a 55th birthday party. This would not only celebrate my birthday but the fact that I will be there to see it! While we were chatting purple artificial flowers were handed out, I chose to wear mine this way.

The other part of the future I am looking to is returning to work. I am a primary school teacher and have missed work like crazy. Plans are now falling into place. Until the beginning of this week I did not know which year group I was going to teach. To my great delight I found out that I am to be working in Year 3. This is my favourite year group - challenging but fun. I am sharing my class with a student teacher all year, which is really lovely. I am working with a fab Team Leader and super teacher colleague as well. I am going to start back in September, three days a week, for two weeks, separated by a rest day in between. Then four days the next week and full time after that. I know it might seem very early to be looking in such detail but the schools close in two weeks and all this needs sorting.
All this positive looking forward has been very good for me. When in the depths of chemo treatment it is very easy to get bogged down in it and not able to see anything positive at all. The treatment cycles seem endless and the bad week feels interminable too. The good things in the future are a very bright light at the end of the chemo tunnel. I am heading towards that light with a big smile on my face.