It is a week ago today that I called off the match with little pup. I feel confident  within myself that it was the right decision, but it is still a painfully hard one. I had to think with my heart and not with my head. I feel as though I am grieving a future I briefly had a glimpse of, I walked more upright and with more assertion when little pup was guiding me. I miss that, I miss the future I had pictured us having.

It feels like a kind of grief.

It feels like so much of life once you have a cancer diagnosis is about grief. I have grieved a lot. My eyesight, my health, friends, a life I thought I could have, it feels heavy and overwhelming at times. When i saw my therapist after the match fell through, and with the funeral of a friend and fellow ACC patient coming up, that was deeply sad and painful for so many complex reasons.  I had the space to recognise that actually cancer has taken a lot from me. Everyone with cancer will understand that life after the diagnosis will never look the same. I look at things through an entirely different perspective. Often a more sinical and resentful one. But that is ok for now, things are, really quite shit sometimes.

Guide dogs as an organisation have been very supportive though, checking in to see if there is any support I need, completely recognising the blow that this has taken on me, so actually whilst it was horrible, hard and so very sad, amongst guide dogs, my therapist, family and friends, I have been incredibly supported. Two things can be true at once, I can feel deeply upset, disappointed and supported at the same time.

People keep saying the right dog is out there for me, and I hope the right dog comes along and puts things back together a little bit, because right now things feel quite broken.