Are you listening???

13 weeks since my op & pretty much everything is back to normal, well as normal as life can be beyond post preventative Breast Cancer surgery.

I use the term ‘beyond’ breast cancer in strict contrast to the term ‘after’ breast cancer. There’s no getting over it, pulling your socks up and getting back to before, because life as before isn’t there any more. At least, not the before that was before the word ‘Cancer’.

I just have to accept that now day to day life will involve that word. It will be there every day. It’s there when I bathe, it’s there when I look in the mirror, it’s my wardrobe, my sex life, it's in my conversations, on my twitter & Facebook, this blog & in the very depths of my being.

Last time I blogged I know I was whinging on about no one understanding how I felt & how everyone presumed I was all better just because I looked fine (amazing what a full head of highlights & a great mascara can do). I also said how I thought I needed therapy to help me through all of this, someone to wave their magic therapist wand & make me feel like me again. Well this time i'm gonna blog about still looking fabulous & feeling much much better with it, & i've only had one session! but in typical Joanna style that was enough.. let me explain..

I always presumed therapy was for people that needed help to talk about stuff, to sit & have a professional person do whatever it is they're trained to do to help people bring to the surface their deep dark thoughts that never normally get to see the light of day. Maybe they need this help because they have no one else to talk to, or maybe they just bottle everything up inside having done so for years & then find it difficult to open up & talk about what they're going through, their feelings, worries & fears etc..

That's not me.

As you've probably gathered I'm not one to mince my words, or find it difficult to share.. Never have done, if anything I find it hard to stop talking.. Like now!

So my first & only therapy session begins with me telling the very nice lady sitting opposite me my story, how I'm feeling, what upsets me, what worries me etc. The reaction I got was a room full of uncomfortable silence which caused me to babble on a bit more, until i've actually started to bore myself & she then tells me my time is up!

It probably would have been just as helpful to have sat in front of a mirror.

Maybe that's it, maybe I've counselled myself! What with this blog, my amazing husband, family & friends, the random emails & conversations with others in my position, friends of friends wanting to talk to me at parties, lunches, the street!!

Maybe I just don't need to share anymore, maybe I just needed to have the therapy to realise, I don't actually need it!

Maybe... Well I've got session 2 next week with someone else - just to make sure!