Ahh here it goes..

Following day, Wednesday 3rd February, I was just cracking on with work as normal and doing my best to be normal. I was expecting a call from the IVF clinic to discuss Tuesday mornings sample and they called in the afternoon and confirmed it was another good sample and I wouldn’t need to do a third visit as they got what they needed from me; I felt relieved at least that I’ve got something going for me and that positive was a little bit of light in an otherwise dark period.

I made the decision that a blog would be a good idea to help provide clarity for anyone, and so I started putting in place little bits and with the help of a good friend Becky, I was able to pick out an app for my blog. I made the decision to finally share my current situation with Twitter and the response I received was my mind blowing! The words I have for that moment alone will always fall short because of the sheer amount of people that reached out via responding to my message publicly or messaging me directly. The kindness and love being shown by complete strangers as well as friends, family and colleagues; made me realise that doing a blog may be the way forward so I can help provide that feeling of love, safety and clarity in a scary and overwhelming situation.

Thursday 4th February was very much a repeat of the day before, still trying to take in and dissect all the support coming my way but also making sure I had everything in place to reassure people and make sure the blog I was putting out there was done as professionally as I can manage and also keeping it to being very real and vulnerable; it’s an invite into my life and I don’t want to hide anything.

The only difference was that I was getting those jittery pre surgery nerves as I had no idea of what to expect, so it was very much maintaining my concentration with work and trying to keep up and reply to those fantastic supportive people reaching out to me.

I put out the first blog post that day and logged into Facebook for the first time properly in over a year to share my blog as well. Similar to the day before, I receive and incredibly overwhelming response and my only reason was that I was raising awareness for testicular cancer and cancer in general.

They advise you to go to surgery on an empty stomach and to have very little water past midnight, so I had my last meal at 7pm and drank pretty much normal amounts of water up until midnight. It was a strange night as I was tired and wired at the same time, I didn’t sleep much as I was worrying about the surgery but I got through the night and I had Ellen next to me to support me. And it’s morning; out of nowhere after feeling like I just closed my eyes, my 6.15 alarm was going off, I felt so tired and snoozed for 15 minutes before I got up for a shower. I didn’t know what the day had in store past a surgery, ahhh here it goes.