Archive for July 2011
On The Up
It’s been five months since my last blog post and life is slowly improving. My wife has gone through the hell that was six months of chemotherapy and come out of the other side. She still has radiotherapy to come (starting today), but that is much less daunting and will hopefully be far less painful too. All through the last six months, her resolve and strength have amazed me and continue to do so. To watch her cope with the demands of chemo and still manage to be a mother and a wife is a phenomenal achievement. It’s one thing to have to look after two kids, but when you throw this big one into the equation, well that’s a hard ask for any healthy person, let alone a cancer patient!
Along the way my wife has taken great strength from the support of her friends and family. The many of you who sent her a card, phoned her, cooked for us or helped with the kids. Every little bit helped and will continue to do so as she finishes up her treatment. Everything is in a much better place now and from her most recent mammogram, the outlook moving forward is positive too. All of that can change of course and is difficult to contemplate, but having met other women who have not been as fortunate as my wife, I am confident that should the worst ever happen, she has the strength and the support to fight it all over again.
The most important thing that the support from our closest friends and family allowed us to do, was maintain a reasonably normal life at home. For that we are so unbelievably grateful. It’s difficult to deal with something like this alone without having to consider what impact it might have on your kids. Fortunately our son appears to have handled the whole thing amazingly well and if his school report is anything to go by, he seems completely unaffected by this year’s events. He even has a good understanding of how cancer works now thanks to a cool comic (free on the NHS) that explained it all for him.
I would also be remiss if I didn’t thank the amazing staff in the Macmillan Haematology Oncology Day Unit at Milton Keynes General. The very first visit may have felt a little scary, but the staff there were so warm and welcoming. You could not buy better care than we got and I hope that recent and upcoming cuts to the NHS don’t impact on that service. A special mention is reserved for George, the giant Romanian nurse, because while each chemo treatment was a daunting experience, he made it so much easier for both of us.
My wife now has the joy of four weeks of daily trips to Northampton General to look forward to. It’s a complete pain, especially when you’re trying to manage with one car and two kids to collect from school, but I guess it could be worse. Once those four week’s are over, we can finally try to enjoy our summer. I hope for my wife’s sake it’s not too hot (as she hates the heat), the diet she’s now undertaking goes well (-6lbs in one week so far!) and that her hair grows back quickly (not for my benefit, for hers).
There have been plenty of difficult moments in the last six months, but I still have my wife by my side. Nothing could give me more happiness than that.
