Mirror, mirror

This week, I haven’t been sleeping so well. It’s hot, so I put my restlessness down to that. But the dreams have been strange and disquieting. In my dreams this week I’ve been losing things; I’ve been trapped behind glass; I’ve been talking to people I know well who don’t seem to know me.

Also this week, I’ve been looking myself in the mirror more often than usual. I’ve found myself scrutinising my appearance at every available moment, touching my skin, analysing my face. It’s my birthday in a couple of days, so I assumed I was having some sort of age-related crisis of confidence. Or still getting used to my hair. (General consensus: it’s very nice but maybe try a shade lighter next time.)

But yesterday, as I went to get on the tube – which is no mean feat while the tennis is on, I tell you, with Wimbledon brimming with tennis fans and tourists standing in clumps being perplexed by the fact that the tennis courts aren’t directly opposite the station – I realised what the dreams, the obsession with the face, are all about.

This time last year, I looked like this.

(If you weren’t around for the drug trial that went wrong, also known as the Amazing Exploding Head episode, start here, then read this and this and this.)

I tend not to keep a lot of anniversaries – especially miserable ones – but as the drug reaction started on the day Ned and I went to watch the tennis, and I watched Andy Murray play while I was in hospital, and recuperated to the semi-finals and finals, it seems that the coverage of the championships at Wimbledon has triggered an unconscious reaction to my memories of this time last year.

This seemed to make sense, although I wondered if I was overanalysing. (It’s not unknown.) But then Joy and I were talking, and she said, “I’m feeling a bit off. I think it’s because this time last year you had the horrible drug trial thing.”

Now that I’ve sussed this out I feel better. I’ve been back through the photos and the blog posts and the drug trial chapter of my book and relived it in the light of my recovery. I know that of all of the low points in my dance with cancer, this was the most frightening, so reacting to it this way is OK. I’m treating this anniversary and the reactions to it as part of my process of coping and healing.

And maybe next year I’ll be able to watch the tennis and only get the fun of tennis.