I have had two white nights in a row now. For those who are unfamiliar with my technical (or made-up) terms, a white night is what I call one of those nights where every time you squeeze your eyes shut a million thoughts start jumbling in your head and as you glance at the clock for the 18th time only to see 7 minutes have passed since you last looked, it becomes apparent that sleep is in fact not going to happen.

Wednesday nights took me completely by surprise, it had been my first day of double training sessions and I thought I would be really tired. I was so surprised in fact that I may have tried to blame it on a drug I am not v keen on taking, but actually I don’t think it’s anything to do with that so I shall be good and not pursue that avenue. I am fairly sure it is my brain just catching on to what has happened (I am blonde therefore it is bound to be slightly slow) and just having a bit of a hissy fit about it all. Whilst I am a world away from where I was at the end of July, the only word they will use to me is "stable". Doesnt quite have the same ring to it as "better" does it? But I'm not stupid, we all already knew that I need this transplant to achieve the latter.

When my mind is getting too “busy” I try to think of good things, favourite memories, happiest moments etc, to push the other thoughts out. Main two problems being I have the attention span of a flea and an overactive imagination. So, if I was recounting a scenario in my head that lasted more than a few minutes instead of starting to get sleepy my mind would declare itself bored and bounce off thinking about something else. Happy thoughts became twisted by my overeager imagination (actually it wasn’t that creative, it would tend to go “am in the sea in Greece, lovely sunshine…ooh lung collapses. OK try another one. Am in the garden, sitting in the shade of the apple tree…ooh lung collapses.” You get the picture).

After failing to sleep at all on Wednesday night, last night I decided early on that I wouldn’t just lie there pouting and grumbling at the ceiling, and decided to put on my classical CDs, which A’s sister bought for me when I was in intensive care (and incidentally did manage to lower my heart rate to about 160 which had been steady at 185 for some time). I switched on the light and made a vain attempt at searching before getting cross and quite rationally picking up my phone and ringing poor A in the early hours of the morning to ask if he knew where it might be. Truly reasonable and not at all needy then. CD triumphantly located, we chatted for a bit, and on discussing the positive feelings to concentrate on he pointed out if all else fails the simplest one surely after last month is “I’m still here”.

My first instinct was to feel a bit perturbed, just being here isn’t good enough - obviously my day to day life isn’t going to hold much material for positive thought right now. However this made me deconstruct my day, and as I went back through it, I found myself smiling at all manner of things, just tiny things, passing comments, silly moments (one in particular being me trying to describe my gorgeous Kings Road necklace to friend but somehow managing to make it sound that she could fashion it out of string and various household items by stating that it was “like a charm necklace except they are really big and not charms they are real”. Yes I still don’t know what I mean, worst description ever). It was one of those glorious moments when you just laugh and laugh with a friend over something completely obscure, and thinking about it really does make me smile.

I think I’ve said this before, but try to look at life as lots of tiny fragments. Sweetiebobbles if you will (ah conveniently small, colourful and bountiful). If I viewed “Life” as just one solid aspect I think it would quite clearly just whack me over the head and beat me into the ground. However if it is in teeny tiny fragments, you can spend time focusing on the best bits, extracting the bad bits, crying about/sulking about them and then moving on. It also ensures that I cant ever state that life is “good” or “bad” as there is so much variation and diversity and so just as sure as there is a blip around the corner there will be something else to lift me back up again.

I don’t think I am making much sense. Blame it on lack of sleep or something. But it’s making me smile to type this nevertheless so I think I shall post it anyway.