disassociation?

Totally understandable! Even immediately after surgery it didn’t feel quite real, and I have a friend who had early stage bowel cancer who said the same thing. I think we go into a type of survival mode where we are just focused on getting through and it all feels a bit surreal. It wasn’t until about two weeks after surgery that it really sunk in for me and I have been quite emotional ever since (I am now 5 weeks post surgery). On one level you know what’s going on, but until you have gone through it you don’t know what it’s going to feel like so it’s hard to imagine. And it’s natural to want to pretend it isn’t real even though you know it is.