Honesty

I managed to sleep last night, for the first time in weeks.

I'd spent the whole day in bed because the pain was so bad. The new drug regime knocked me flat for the whole afternoon. I ended up having to take another top-up dose late last night, but that still meant it was a lower-morphine-intake day than the previous one.

I think the other reason I managed to sleep was that I had a very frank conversation with my sister.

She has always steered clear of wanting to know how I see this all panning out, but this past week had made me feel very strongly that there was stuff she should know. I felt it would be much harder for her when it came to it, if she didn't. So I really wanted to talk to her.

It was difficult though - I didn't want to foist information on her that she wasn't ready for, but I felt like I was lying to one of the people I love the most, simply by not telling her.

So I worked out a gentle way to ask just how out of the loop she really wanted to be. It turned out she'd been thinking about this too, she had questions but wasn't sure she wanted to talk to me about it; she had bee thinking of talking to my best friend about it.

Once I'd started asking, though, she said she had to know now, so we talked. It was a very honest conversation - I told her all that's happened this week and the time frame I feel it leaves me with.

My sister was lovely about it. She hated what I was saying, she said she wanted to shout and scream at me, but couldn't because she understood. I desperately wanted to be able to say 'don't worry, it's fine, it won't really happen', but I couldn't do that, because it wasn't true.

We talked through all the recent medical appointments, the things I've been trying, the medication, what's worked and what hasn't. I told her very frankly about how much I've lost since the accident and what I wanted to have been doing at this point in my life.

We talked for a good hour, then managed to move on to lighter topics. It ended with quite a cheery chat and actually a bit of laughter.

I felt so much lighter after talking to my sister. It was like the weight of keeping a huge part of my reality from her had finally been lifted. I was worried this morning that all that was at the expense of her having a shit time, but she says she's OK. I hope she is.

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