Fragility of life

My philosophy for the past couple of years has been to live every day like it's your last. Never go to bed on an argument or leave things unsaid. Tell L and my parents every day that I love them. Maybe this is stuff that everyone should do, but for the past few years, it has never been certain if I'll wake up in the morning. I'd go to bed never sure if my body would keep going long enough to see another day.

And so far it has.

But I'm nobody's fool; I'm fully aware of the fact that, while I may not be as at much risk now as, say 3 months ago, I'm still pretty damn ill and the risk will be there for a long period of time to come. Even if I "recover", get to a "healthy" weight, etc etc, I've done so much damage to my body that it could still conk out suddenly. L's dad once dated a recovered anorexic who suddenly died of heart failure, despite being at a healthy weight and physically well for years.

While my own mortality has been a major issue to my family and loved ones, I feel I personally have neglected the fact that others are just as fragile. The first example of this is my dear friend H, who underwent brain surgery to remove a meningioma at New Year. I had no idea she'd been ill; I was in and out of hospital so frequently, and recovering from my own serious head injury that when I hadn't heard much from her on her return from her holiday to Cuba, I just assumed she was caught up in her own life. To know that she went through traumatic surgery, then waited for the results of the biopsy on the tumour before I heard a thing, well, I felt like the crappest friend in existance. I know objectively speaking I couldn't have done a damn thing, being so ill myself, but I love this girl to bits. She means the world to me, and I felt like I should've been well enough to be there for her. All I could do was send flowers and cards. I wanted to be able to visit and watch chick flicks with her, paint her nails, just pamper her in general. When I'm well enough to travel, I want to visit her and spoil her rotten. She's been so incredibly brave. If I hadn't starved so badly I would've been a better friend to her. I just pray that the tumour doesn't recur, but if it does, I'll damn well be there for her this time. I can't let myself get so ill again.

The next reminder of how fragile life is is N's story. She was a colleague of my mum's but I knew her and got on well with her as she was - is - my age. She had breast cancer a couple of years ago and was doing really well. She got married last years and was pregnant with her first child...and then found another lump. The baby was induced at 8ish months, and N had the lump removed, only to be told she had liver and lung mets. She won't live much more than 3 months now. I feel heartbroken for her....she has a new husband and a new baby, and she'll never see her daughter sit up, crawl, walk, talk. She'll miss her first birthday and Christmas. Her husband will lose the mother of his baby. It's so damn sad. And a year ago they must've thought they had the world at their feet.

So yeah. A gloomy blog today but just needed to get those things out.

I need my ED, but I have to let go of it enough to be able to do stuff. Like fly out to see my friend Dagny when she conceives (or to help her pick up the pieces if the ivf fails), see my friend H and be there if she gets sick again, and just be there if and when someone needs me.