Birds have the kind of mobility most people envy.

Monday starts the same, a few hours sleep, breakfast in bed with pills and today’s difference is that Ellen has gone to work, so it’s just me and mum. One job for the day; I give the oncology number a call just to ask some questions.

Do I need to come for a check up? Pretty much got a no, unless you have problems.

When do I change my dressing? Well every 4-5 days if possible and you can get that from your doctors.

When do I get my results or an update? I was told anytime from 14 days following the surgery.

Do they recommend I move about? As much as your body allows you too.

Do they know if the full tumour was removed? Yes full tumour removed.

I’m pretty sure there was more questions as Ellen had written them all down, but I can’t for the life of me remember what they were.

So there I was; Monday morning, first ever doctors note day off from work, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. Except for being mildly delusional from the lack of sleep I’ve had the previous 3 nights I was positive and in a good place. I just lack mobility like a tired sloth who can barely stretch an arm out to climb that tree or that bird with a broken wing.

So I decided to crack on with learning my french and reignite my on off love affair with football manager and thus started a 3 week football manager binge like no other!

With every passing day, the variables don’t change but my mobility increases by probably 5-10%, slowly increasing my steps and my independence around the house. Mum turns into the cleaning fairy and has mine and els house in tip-top condition before she leaves on the Friday lunch.

As Friday evening draws in I’m mentally exhausted as I’m still averaging 1-3 hours sleep a night and I’ve never really been able to nap. My capacity to think is so limited, it’s probably best that football manager was my only worry. A week on from surgery and I’m shuffling around a lot better and Ellen managed to change my dressing earlier in the week.

A fly on the wall would have witnessed me being a big baby; not wanting to look at my incision whilst the dressing was taken off. I don’t know what I was expecting but images in my head was a massive open wound reminiscent of a walking dead zombie. ‘Yep healing nicely’ were the words that’s stuck with me before El applied the new dressing, reassuring me my body was doing it’s job alongside my brain.

Throughout the week I’d spoken to some lovely people who had reached out via social media, and one lad told me about the sleeping issue, and stated it’s the body’s hormones trying to balance out that effects the sleeping, and once they sort themselves naturally you’ll get a good nights sleep. So more reassurance heading into the weekend that maybe one night soon I’ll get a good nights sleep. Until then it’s the dread of bed time; knowing everyone around me is peacefully sleeping and I’ll be staring into the pitch black just praying I’ll switch off for longer than 2 hours.

Still a week on; I’m still only sleeping on my back to avoid any issues with the incision healing, and this is causing pain in my lower back so having to adjust every half hour to an hour to get comfortable is just adding to the joys of no sleep.