46. The shiny desk

I went back to work this week.

Yes, I can hear you. Remember the Sorry Song! The Sudden Collapses!

I do remember. But my previous Good Week made me think that it might be possible to work again, even if only intermittently. I've had enough of navel gazing.

Crucially, I think that my soul has caught up. I'm ready to get up and go.

This is important. Whilst physical illness clearly prohibits productivity at work, the inability to focus my mind on anything outside myself has been just as debilitating. Which is a problem in my line of work. It involves thinking (and writing) objectively about jolly stuff like hospitals, cancer, dying.

I have heard people say that going back to work during cancer treatments is an excellent way of taking their mind off things and making the days go quicker. My work doesn't have quite the same effect.

The catching-up with life happened some time towards the end of July, almost four months post-diagnosis.

It's a case of vistas opening up. My world had shrunk to the size of my bedroom, but now it's growing again.

There is a new ability to read all of the newspaper and not just the bits about royal pregnancies and the Baked Alaska Disaster (for those outside the UK: I'm talking about a shocking development at a televised baking competition, which has inevitably gripped the nation).

There is a new and genuine interest in the people around me. I want to hear about my friends' health problems, pregnancies, bereavements. (Strangely, I seem only able to focus on this kind of thing. I cannot do the Been anywhere nice on holiday? question, except when playing hairdresser with my daughter.)

Fortunately, I was on annual leave during August, so I didn't have to rush back to work at the first tickling of interest or the first day without an afternoon nap.

I am lucky. I only work part-time, three days a week. I can do my work at home if needs be, spreading the hours throughout the week. Currently, I don't have any active research projects that need me to be out and about. I can just focus on writing papers about (almost) completed projects.

Worth a try, I reckoned. So, back to work it was. I have been on sick leave for 5 (five!) months. That's quite enough. 

I got out of bed on Monday morning with a spring in my step.

I waved off my husband and children, and suddenly the house was mine, but in a new (or rather, an old) way. This week, the lovely clear and quiet space was not for me to rest in, dividing my time between watching back-to-back episodes of Come Dine With Me and staring into space whilst waiting for my soul.

It was for Achieving Things.

This required a proper start that befits September. Sadly, there was no need to buy crisp new note books and sharp pencils. So I did the next best thing.

I tidied, or rather cleared, my desk. I dusted my desk. Not satisfied, I buffed my desk with furniture polish. (This is not normal. I've never, ever used furniture polish on my desk before.)

Still not satisfied, I dusted, wiped and washed the window sills and the cupboard under the desk. I stopped short of cleaning the windows, although that suddenly seemed a highly crucial task.This was getting out of hand. I have only cleaned the windows three times in the 20 years we have lived here. Each of these efforts coincided with the 39th week of pregnancy, when having clean windows seemed so important it was worth sacrificing my (and baby's) safety by balancing on ladders. Looking back this was a clear case of hormone-induced madness.

Whilst there are certain similarities between pregnancy and cancer (nausea and gherkins spring to mind), I drew the line at window cleaning. Who knows where it might end. If I wasn't careful, I'd finish the day with a perfectly clean and tidy house but an unopened email inbox.

So there I was, ready.

My shiny desk at home

Here are my achievements so far...

On Monday I deleted most of my 1000+ unopened emails, plus thousands of old emails to boot. That took all day, but boy, does it feel good. No longer will I be bullied by anonymous messengers warning me that I have exceeded my inbox quota. Nothing like a spot of cancer to make me realise that there are more important things in life (even working life) than ancient emails. Especially emails informing me that my colleague was out of office in 2011, or that I can still buy tickets for the London Olympics. The colleague has now retired, and I know for a fact that there are no Olympic tickets left. I have Moved On.

On Tuesday I dealt with the non-deleted emails. It kept me busy all day, but I can't tell you how. Short-term memory loss. This is where I start blaming Cancer for any inadequacies. It's a marvellous excuse.

On Wednesday I went into the office, although I'm going to keep that to a minimum. Partly to preserve energy. At home, I can occasionally rest my head on my shiny desk or even lie flat on the floor for a while, but in the office that would just alarm people, and I'd have to spend all the saved energy on reassuring them.

Besides, I need to minimise the risk of catching things and ending up in A&E with an infection I can't fight. (I can almost feel the risk, as I'm beginning to have trouble coping with friendly bugs. We've been happily co-existing, the Friendly Bugs and I, but now my tormented tongue is breaking out in tiny ulcers.)

Delighted colleagues made my day. It was full of Wonderful to see you and exclamations of how good I look. The word Amazing featured prominently. Of course I now know better than anyone that you can't judge a book by its cover, or a cancer patient by her looks. Still, it was nice to fake being Super Woman for a day.

It almost floored me, though. It took me ages to cycle home, and I was in bed by seven. (Got up at eight for the next episode of the Baking Competition, just in case there's a contestant with a Collapsed Cake Crisis. Can't miss that.)

Today (Thursday) I was going to test my brain power and start looking at the work I should have done this spring. But I've been procrastinating. I won't burden you with the full details, but the task involves writing a White Paper with European-wide norms and guidance for end-of-life care for people with intellectual disabilities. I had been looking forward to this for ages. It's been an exciting project involving experts from 17 European countries, and we had come to a consensus on the content. It just needs writing up properly, but that requires time and focus.

I thought I'd have plenty of time and focus in the spring, before Life (and Death, in my mother's case) took over. So this work has been sitting on a shelf.

I was full of good intentions this morning, turning my mind to the day's work whilst doing my lengths in the pool. The start of a Writing Day At Home is my favourite day in any working week.

There it is, the virgin day, stretching ahead in eager anticipation. It's like the moment before the first throw of Yahtzee, feeling the weight of the dice with a promise of five sixes. By mid-morning, I know whether I've got a Full House. By lunchtime, I'm either on a roll (literally) or it's Game Over (try doing something else, there's always plenty of other work chores).

Today, I'm afraid I have already used up my Chance and crossed out my Yahtzee option. Perhaps I fear failure. I am not quite ready for the discovery that my brain doesn't work, not even in a Good Week.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. For now, I'll just go back to some other, more tedious but less demanding tasks.

So if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do.