I’m tired. I am not sleeping well. I have things on my mind, not least the cancer-chemo dream team combo. I wake up repeatedly in the night, but it is not as bad as a couple of weeks ago when I was waking up and not being able to get back to sleep again at all. Lying awake in the darkness is metaphorical of cancer itself. Unless you are a specialist oncologist, you just don’t know enough about what is happening inside you to console yourself with anything concrete for long periods of time. As one concern is dealt with another one takes its place like rapid cell division. The small hours of the morning are the perfect time to wake up and fester in worry and confusion.

They are also a good time for creative ideas, and I do wonder if now that I’ve started writing again, I have somehow unplugged the cork that was bunging up my brain. I often don’t fully wake up enough to write anything down, or even remember what it was I thought of the next morning, but I do know I am thinking again, and not just about what I have to teach the next day or whether my retention figures and pass rates will be above the line of doom. Cancer – good for creativity and free stuff.