I’ve spent most of the last six weeks waiting to be told I’m about to die. I realise that’s putting it bluntly, but it’s not the sort of thing that’s easy to slip gently into conversation. I’m not, by the way. At least, not for the reason I thought I was. Obviously I’m no less likely than anyone else to get run over by a bus. Possibly more likely, given the amount of time I spend on a horse with a strange tendency to leap into the path of oncoming traffic.

(Six-week)-long story short, after a few appointments with a few of the medical superbrains who’ve been treating and monitoring me for the last couple of years, I’d seen more thinly-veiled expressions of concern than I was comfortable with, and had displayed several worrying symptoms and test results which, according to the medical superbrains, could, in isolation, have been explained by a number of different things, but put them all together and… well, it didn’t look good. And of course, nothing instils confidence in a girl quite as much as being referred for three of the most expensive full body scans the NHS can’t afford, ‘just to be on the safe side’.

Anyway, during my six weeks on death row, I made a list. Actually, I made two. My bucket list of things to do before I died, if there wasn’t long to do them. And the list of things I promised myself I’d do, or change, if I was lucky enough to have good news. I wasn’t really expecting to have much use for the second list. So now it turns out I do have a use for the second list. It turns out that each of my worrying symptoms and test results, seven in total, was caused by a reaction to medication or a general unexplained condition of a non-fatal nature. Which is, obviously, incredibly good news. So, one of the things on my second list was a promise to myself not to take this second chance for granted.

I’m generally quite cross, or worried, or some other permutation of the kind of emotions that create the need for frequent botox. The level of worry connected with expecting to be told you are about to die, really puts into perspective the kind of worry any other situation might cause. Suddenly, worrying about how much work I have to do, or how unreasonable my colleagues might have been, or how I’m going to fit a load of social engagements and life admin into an already busy week… well, you get the picture. So I was absolutely determined, I would remind myself that none of these things really matter in the grand scheme, and if I couldn’t stop feeling worried or stressed despite knowing that, I would just walk away. Chucking my job in to buy a campervan and go round the world suddenly felt like a completely realistic option. I was actually looking forward to feeling stressed, just to give me the excuse to do it.

Obviously what has, in reality, happened is that it’s taken me about four days of feeling on top of the world, before I’ve been sucked back into the day to day worries and stresses of a normal person, without their impending demise dangling ominously overhead. And obviously, because I’m not a normal person, I’ve responded with an abnormal level of worry and stress to these day to day issues. In the top trumps of my life, terminal illness definitely trumps all, but if you don’t have that card, there are some surprisingly high scores against work, family, non-terminal illness, equestrian logistics and all sorts of other unexpected categories. And those cards are all coming out now.

However. I’m trying really hard to focus on the good news story: all this stuff is really quite stressful, but at least it looks as if the choice to be here and deal with it is mine. It’s all about the transport at the end of the day. Watch out for buses if you want to stick around, jump on a campervan if you don’t.