00:00When this year started out, one thing that wasn't on my 2024 bingo card was getting a brain tumour.
00:05Yet here we are! One moment I'm crushing PBs at the gym and celebrating 40 years of my recovery
00:10from alcoholism and drug addiction, the next a neurosurgeon is slicing into my skull and having
00:14a good old route around in my cranium there. As it stands, we're currently waiting for the
00:18results of my biopsy to determine whether or not I need further treatment. In the meantime,
00:22you better believe I'll be milking this for as much attention as possible and making brain tumour
00:26jokes left right and centre. At least I know my poor health symptoms weren't all in my head after
00:30all, eh hat? When I first got sober, people told me it wouldn't all be sunshine and rainbows,
00:34but honestly I wasn't expecting this. I guess life happens whether we're self-sabotaging with
00:39reckless abandon or looking after ourselves with green juices and journaling. For now,
00:43I'm staying grateful that this challenge has come at a time when I'm clean,
00:46sober and emotionally stable. I'm a bit scared about the prospect of going on a cancer journey
00:50right now because it would be quite the inconvenience. I have so much care and support
00:54around me, especially from my cheery golden retriever partner Steph who balances out my
00:58cynical black cat ways. But the time has come for my second brain surgery. This tumour is cancerous
01:03as f**k so we gotta cut the sucker out. How am I feeling? Strangely confident. Recovering from
01:08my first craniotomy was a pain in the arse, but I know what to expect this time. Just like my
01:12addiction recovery, my mental illness management and healing from the part of myself who was
01:17mangled by trauma and spent her entire life falsely believing she was irredeemable human trash,
01:21I'm taking each day as it comes. It's incredible how much my outlook on life has changed.
01:26Last month I was wishing the days away and wondering what I was doing anything for.
01:30Now I'm feeling immense joy when the kind nurse brings me a cup of cracked coffee and a packet
01:34of biscuits, like literally bouncing off the walls at a chocolate bauble, and because my ability to
01:38make simple choices for myself has vanished and another human being has done something nice for
01:42me. Listen, I'm not going to pretend I'm not scared, because I am. There are obvious risks
01:46that come with brain surgery, and I'm nervous about what state my body is going to be when
01:50I wake up. The surgeon was very clear that my left side is going to be fucked up and I'll have
01:55to spend weeks learning how to move again, but there is so much out of my control. All I can do
02:00is love myself, love each day, and take each challenge as it comes. Oh, and hope that my very
02:04nice, genuinely very skilled neurosurgeon, Dr Butterfingers, doesn't drop my skull fragment
02:09on the floor this time. If you could find out when you were going to die, would you?
02:13Hi, I'm Abby, and this week the doctor told me that the tumour in my brain is a grade 3
02:17oligodendroglioma, and although research is not up to date, and I am a unique human with an
02:22individual case, he thinks my life expectancy is going to be about 15 years. In my last video,
02:27I spoke about how much time I wasted being unspeakably cruel to myself due to my chronic
02:31and honestly pointless self-loathing, which, by coincidence, also lasted about 15 years.
02:37Well, now that I know I have approximately the same amount of time left on this earth,
02:41you'd better believe that I'm going to continue my self-compassion journey. I'm just so happy I
02:45made those changes when I did, because to find out now that I might not make it past my 50s,
02:49and to know I wasted even more time deliberately making myself sad for no reason, would hurt even
02:53more. And hey, a lot can happen in 15 years. That's a whole teenager worth of enjoying life,
02:58loving myself, and putting good into the world. So, if you're stuck in this cycle of self-hatred
03:03and self-punishment, this is your sign to start treating yourself with love and respect,
03:06because life just is not that long.
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