It will be a Very Happy New Year!

So it's New Year's Eve, and I really won't be too sorry to see the end of this, a fairly tough year. My heart wants to party tonight, but my everything else is screaming "No Thank You". My body just probably isn't strong enough yet.  I'm absolutely great when I'm sitting down, but standing up and walking is a bit of an ordeal, with the weakest leg muscles I've ever had and breathlessness like I've just stepped off a porn movie set. I'm fairly certain this is all a legacy of the chemo boot camp I've just completed, and it's not too bad because I do quite enjoy sitting down.

Partying sitting down is a viable option, of course, but you haven't seen the state of the house, thank goodness. All the signs of a happy but very messy family Christmas still lurk everywhere, and to party means to clean and tidy,  which I simply don't have the energy for today. So I either only invite very short-sighted friends, or those who will get so drunk so quickly that they won't remember the mess, or for the first time in my life, I have a very quiet New Year. 

My kids are all having a good day today. One is off with a lovely family to London Zoo, another has gone bowling then onto lunch with another friend, and my daughter has just got the Christmas present that arrived late - a smartphone with contract,  so I doubt I'll see much of her until every last app has been downloaded. I am beyond grateful to kind friends who take my children out to fun places - the way I feel at the moment I'd struggle to even get as far as the car. I actually haven't left the house for nearly a fortnight - 12 days to be precise - but today, using a shopping trolley as a zimmer frame, the fridge and freezer will have to be restocked one way or another. 

This New Year neatly coincides with all the new lifestyle and eating resolutions I need to adopt in order to give myself the best fighting chance of seeing next New Year and hopefully, a fair few more. I'm not going to set myself up to fail by making too many changes at once, but today I'd at least like to write the list of the necessary changes, then take on one or two of them every couple of weeks. The biggest New Year's resolution has to be winning this breast cancer battle. 

If I didn't have cancer, my New Year's resolution would have to be to finally get around writing a book, or actually several. It's something I've always wanted to do, but never quite got around to it. It would still be lovely to get one written this year, but it's not going to be a resolution, because I really don't need that pressure. Stress and pressure reduction are going to have to be high on the list of cancer-curing resolutions though, which will be hard because I probably secretly thrive on the firefighting. 

2012 has been a difficult year, not just with all the horrid bi-lateral breast cancer stuff, but also with stumbling from one non-cancer crisis to the next. No wonder I'm breathless and weak ! It hasn't all been bad though. Friends and family have showered my family with a squillion acts of kindness, love and compassion. I've learnt a heck of a lot about myself and what really is important about life, and my precious relationship with WM has deepened and strengthened - he has just been a total rock at every twist and turn of the precarious last few months. 

Writing this blog has also been a really positive part of 2012. When I started it was really just intended as a way to keep the people I care about in the loop with what was going on, but it's become much more than that. I'm humbled that people from all over the world seem to enjoy reading it, and the feedback I get from comments, twitter, facebook and via email is just so warm and lovely. Thank you. The readership, whilst still quite modest, is growing all the time, and if anyone wants to encourage this growth by passing on the link to the blog to others, I'd be thrilled to bits. 

2013 already holds some promising excitement. We're turning the blog into a stage play for the Brighton Fringe May - that''s going to be a challenge, but also a load of fun. Then in June, I'll be speaking at an international medical conference about needle-phobia - helping to raise awareness for a very real, but highly embarrassing issue that affects countless thousands of patients everywhere. Neither of these opportunities would have come my way without this blog, which wouldn't have been sustainable without my lovely solid band of supportive readers whether I know you or not. 

A photo I really should have included in my previous blog is of our Christmas Tree, at the moment before the children were let loose to open presents. In our house, because of my learning disabled son who is the absolute king of Christmas with his excitement about presents, we have to hide every present until it's time to open them. This year, they simply wouldn't fit under the tree, so this photo shows the first wave of presents - later in the afternoon there were even more to replace them. Yes my children got far more than most years, but you know what, they more than deserved every last one with all they have had to contend with lately.

I'll write again very soon into the New Year, and meanwhile would like to wish you a very Happy New Year with lots of lovely moments all the way through it.