By Natasha Keating

Saturday 8 August 2015

I can explain....

Hello,

It is me! The girl that use to post on this blog but disappeared over a year ago. And as the blog title goes I CAN explain, the title at first was going to be ‘How my world turned upside down’ but I didn’t want to scare anyone away lol.

My last post was on the 9th June 2014, little did I know just FIVE days later I would wake up to the worse news I never dreamt  of ever hearing.

Friday the 13th, 13th June 2014, my mother was rushed into hospital with a pain in her side which was suspected gallstone.



Saturday 14th June 2014, I was woken by my Dad, to the news that my mother in fact had CANCER. (This would explain why my post title was going to be what I mentioned above.)

Without getting into the whole story or the details which someday I might put in black & white as right now I am not ready to but I will hit the main points.

My mother had an aggressive cancer in her bowel and at time of diagnosis it had already spread to her liver. My mother and I both were told we had IBS (Irritable bowel syndrome), which might be TMI for some people but it goes with the story, albeit my mother always suffered more with IBS than myself or most people which kind of makes more sense now. The symptoms for IBS can be confused with the symptoms for bowel cancer which would explain why my mammy was suffering with it without knowing it was something more than a flare up after she ate.
Since my mammy was diagnosed we knew that the cancer was very aggressive and even with treatment there would be a day, sooner than we ever imagined, that we would lose our mother. There were many trips to the hospital for treatment, overnight stays for infections, surgery and home visits from doctors and nurses for 6 months. 
  


After 6 months my mammy lost her battle with cancer, 12th December 2014. My dad was praying for it not to snow and all my mum was saying throughout her illness was that she just wants to see the snow and on the day she passed away it snowed not long after her last breath. 

So now my mother will be gone nearly 8 months. And I am writing this post on the 15th anniversary of my fathers’ mother coincidently.

My mammy loved Christmas and she was wanting us all to get Christmas jumpers to wear on Christmas day so we thought it fitting at her funeral everyone near and dear wore Christmas jumpers so all the family and friends wore them which you can see all the family with them on after the funeral below.


In the end the cancer had spread throughout her body. I am lost without my mother who was only 43 years old the day she died leaving it be now just my dad, my sister Elisha (now 21years old), my brother Nathan (now 17years old) and jack the baby (now 11 years old) living at home. But together we are getting there and hopefully now with blogging again I can be kept occupied doing something I enjoy. (No joke! It took me at least an hour to write this bit.)

I haven’t been properly blogging in nearly two years which would be about right considering for this last year being a nightmare due to our loss. But for the year previous I was suffering with anxiety and depression for a number of reasons, firstly I was going through a bad time in my love life which I won’t get into but mainly it was the stress of juggling final year at university as well as dealing with all the emotions you could be faced with.

I am now graduated with a 2:2 in BSc Hons Quantity Surveying, which yes is a great achievement to have completed and passed a degree but I was so disappointed with my final degree which today I am still disappointed but trying to not dwell on my disappointment and get past it. I was always doing well in my university work getting a first in mostly all my work and if not it was never below a 2:1 but due to everything that was going on in my life I allowed it to get in the way of my uni life and affect the whole year. I am not making excuses but just stating my regrets as it was only me that had to and did do the work to get the degree.

Only by writing this post is it allowing me to see and remember everything and the amount of things and changes I gone through in the past two years does it allow me to be grateful for where I am and appreciate life. I am only 24 years old, gone through more than most people in their 40s but I read a quote that the hardest struggles are given to the strongest soldiers (or something to that effect) and it’s so true. I believe am I a strong person and a stronger person for what I have gone through because I got through all the obstacles and getting through life when I could never imagined being able to.

I don’t know why I have even written this post as I don’t know if anyone will read it or need to know as I know I don’t have to explain myself but it literally feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders to be able to put everything in my head in black and white and to allow me to start blogging again to keep me occupied in my wait for a job and to avoid me feeling guilty by posting blog posts with a year to 2 years gap without some sort of explanation.

I am so glad to be back and can’t wait to get back to blogging more regularly.

Chat to you all soon, with a more upbeat post and beauty related, I promise.

Love,


Natasha xx
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