I’m still so numb. I know I should be feeling more – more sadness, anger, despair but I’ve been purely operational for so long that I don’t know how to kick start the emotional side of my brain.

I started working with a trauma therapist yesterday who has helped me in the past. She’s not at all surprised that I can’t feel anything properly and that I’m not crying very much. As she said, when you’re in fight or flight mode, you have no room for feelings. If the house was on fire, I wouldn’t be sitting and crying about it, would I? I’d be fighting that fire or running away from it.

I am still in fight or flight mode because that’s what trauma does – it leaves your brain believing that you’re still under threat when you’re not because it can’t file away the traumatic experience properly. Essentially, I need to process what has happened in order to move forward.

Having said that, today, I did have a massive cry. I mean, loads of loud tears in the privacy of my room. It’s the most I’ve cried in months and I just let it happen because I know it’s part of the process to recover – feeling is healing.

Woody has been at the children’s hospital in Birmingham this week. He had a procedure to check on the pressures of his blood going through the shunt to see if they can close it – effectively repairing the defect. Sadly, the pressures they measured are too high so a simple closure seems unlikely. If they did close it, the pressures going to the liver would be dangerously high.

So we need to wait and let all the specialists talk. Woody’s case will also be discussed at the international forum in early October so I hope there are some other options for him. I cannot bear the idea that he would have to live with such high levels of toxins in his blood, it terrifies me.

I feel so strongly that this defect is trapping my boy – not letting him learn and develop as he should be. I just want him freed from it – I want him to be able to thrive and to connect with everyone and everything around him. This defect is holding him back so much, I want to uncover his full wonderful self and watch him reach his potential. I hope there’s something they can do for him.

I’ve been working hard with several health professionals to get Woody back to nursery and there is consensus that he is ready to return but it will need to be a phased and gradual return. The nursery have been so supportive but ultimately, they need to make sure he is safe, well and happy when he is there. I really hope he enjoys being back there, with his friends around him. I think he’ll learn a lot from being amongst his peers.

And me? Well, today, I finished working for Marie Curie, a job I had for seven years. I’ve just taken up a role (again, as a Community Fundraiser) for Ronald McDonald House Charities. I’ll be covering fundraising in Scotland but based in the Edinburgh house, where we had family accommodation while Woody was in hospital. Obviously, it’s a cause that’s very close to my heart and in a way, I feel it’s meant to be, but I am quite daunted. I haven’t worked for about 18 months now, it’s going to be a big change. I am also worried that I’m a bit too fragile for this sort of change. But it’s also a chance to get a bit of me back. I’ve been buried under pregnancy, newborn baby, COVID, Woody’s health, etc, etc. At every step, more of me has either fallen away or been restricted. I’m hoping this new role will give me some identity, some new motivation and a sense of satisfaction that I so desperately need.

I don’t respond very well to uncertainty but I’m going to have to find a way to manage it over the next few weeks, until the dust settles. Until Woody is back in nursery. Until I’m in my new job. Until we have a plan for his healthcare. Until we have some sort of routine and control over our lives once more. I haven’t felt like I have had any control in my life for a very long time.

In the meantime, my goal is to work through my trauma and allow myself to feel, to process and to file away the last few awful months in a proper place. I don’t want to forget it, but I don’t want to live it forever. I’m so tired.

I harvested the seeds from my beautiful sunflower the other day and I hope to grow even more of them next year. Magnificent towers of strength to inspire me.

So, I think there will be a lot more tears and heartache over the coming weeks. A lot of emotional ups and downs but I’d rather feel these things than remain numb and distant. It’s time to feel things again.