Maybe it’s the rum or the sun or the fresh food or the cool breeze or the sleep I’m finally getting, but I’ve been a little bit melancholy on what should have been an awesomely happy trip.

There’s been a day or two when I just needed some gentle reassurance that I’m okay and that I can actually have fun if I want to, but I feel like I’ve hit a wall in a bunch of ways and I can’t get around it. I‘ve tried compromising and that failed, maybe I should have been more assertive, but I didn’t want to rock the boat when we still had days to go before not sharing rooms anymore. I’m just feeling very much like this is something I am never going to be able to do again.

And I have the weight of more scans to be done as soon as I get home, which came up just before I left. My “oh just side effects” and “just Kate” neuropathy issues are gradually getting worse, and when I was finally able to fill my oncologist in on the scope of it because I’ve been seeing fellows instead, she’s ordered an MRI to see if I have cancer in my cerebrospinal fluid because apparently there’s literally nothing this mongrel bloody bastard of a disease can’t touch.

I had really unhelpful advice from my waxer just before I left, whose friend with heart cancer ate well and exercised and now he’s off meds and doing so great, so maybe I should go pescatarian and take up training for a marathon. I’m already doing a marathon, and that’s trying to survive and trying to do the things I’ve tasked myself with while I can.

I thought I wanted to live by holidaying all over the place and seeing and doing things, but now I’m confused and don’t know what I want to do. My first overseas holoday scarred me and it wasn’t until I had a good time the other times I travelled afar that I realised it is possible to have a good holiday.

I haven’t been so scared about anything before. The cancer advancing I’ve been expecting, but if you google the mortality rate for cerebrospinal fluid cancer… Holy fuck. Just don’t. I’m scared. Its permeating everything I do. Rollercoasters don’t scare me. Missing a flight doesn’t scare me. Being alone doesn’t scare me. Wearing a bikini doesn’t scare me anymore. But the thought of CSF cancer fucking terrifies me.

I usually have time to process things that go on with my health, but there was so much stress and so little time to myself before I left that all my anger and frustration is bubbling so close to the surface. I’m not myself. And I’m not apologising for anything that’s happened. I am allowed to feel the way I do, because this was my trip, and I’m frustrated with myself that I didn’t assert myself more and put my foot down more. I am frustrated that I have such a hard time asserting myself with my friends.

My health always comes before anything else and everyone else, because if I am not feeling good I can’t be doing the fun things that I have spent ten thousand dollars to do. And I won’t apologise for anything I do to protect myself. Also, I don’t have to apologise for anything. I have terminal fucking cancer, and you don’t know how it feels to be me. You don’t look at things the way I do, as “I am never going to get to do this or see this or experience this again”. Everything I am doing now is once in a lifetime. When people minimise my experience and wonder why I’m not having fun, they don’t know what’s ticking in my head.

Don’t get me wrong, I am feeling super grateful for the things I have been able to do, but it’s so bittersweet. I am doing this because I am dying, and I will never get to do this again. I don’t ask for much except a little compassion and understanding that if I do ask for something, it’s for a fucking damn good reason. I don’t get to do it again.

But, when I’m feeling anger, I stop, I breathe, and I look for three things that are good. So here’s my list for right now:

1. The beautiful breeze brushing past as I lay on a very comfy sunbed by a pool.
2. The fact I made it to Jamaica without a wheelchair or my walking frame, and survived seven days of walking to be here. I’m feeling those seven days now, walking up the stairs to my room is killing me more every time I do it. 
3. Laura, for giving me space because she knows I need it, without asking, and just because she knows. I am so glad we are friends again and that she said yes to coming here with me. There’s many others I wish could be here too.

So here’s me now, by the pool, with the breeze, resting my feet, on my own, and it is perfection. I’m just waiting for Laura to come and join me so I can tell her how perfect this is, for the millionth time.