For Elaine Right, now I am going to leave last year behind. I was promoted from three monthly to six monthly check ups in September and the next one is next week. I don’t think about the likelihood of recurrence, not even on sleepless nights. We’ll just see how it goes.
Sometimes friends ask if the experience has changed me. The answer is no: I still have a weakness for glossy magazines (of the Country Living variety) and dark chocolate and wine of any colour and property programmes with Kirsty Allsop in them. I still love to garden and to cook and like nothing better than friends and family eating, drinking and laughing round the kitchen table. I still get carried away and bite off more than I can chew and talk too much and forget things. I still shout at politicians on the telly and eat too much and read far into the night when I should be sleeping. And yes: I work less now for a start. I have learned how to be still and how much I am nourished by silence. I am fractionally (possibly so infinitesimally that only I notice, I’ll have to ask him) less likely to argue with Ian when I think he is being overly controlling or unreasonable (what? Surely impossible, that saint of a man). I am fractionally more likely to pick up the phone to a friend, to think “No, I won’t leave it, I’ll do it now.”
I do feel that I have looked over the edge of the abyss, and been pulled back and that to live life well is the only response.
What did I learn, if anything? Well, it sounds odd but I learnt stuff I sort of knew already but then I knew it in the head and now I know it in the belly and the heart. I learnt that the good wishes of friends and colleagues and people you hardly know hearten and strengthen you and make you feel less alone. I learnt that, despite that, there are only a tiny number of people whose lives would be rocked to the foundations if they lost you and while I was very ill these were the only people I wished to see. I saw the depth of my husband’s love as he was with me on every single step of my journey that he could share, always there, holding my hand, keeping me warm, keeping me going. I saw my children grown to adults, loving and supportive and carrying me on their shoulders this time, giving back what they had received, making me laugh when I thought I could not. I felt the continued warmth of the family I came out of, the tug of blood in the love of my parents and brother and sister. I learnt the Philip Larkin line in the complex shifting poem An Arundel Tomb, “what will survive of us is love”.
I know everyone’s journey is different and this is only one person’s story. We can’t know what will happen to any of us. But I’d like to dedicate this to Elaine who I have never met to show her I am thinking of her and to wish her all the luck in the world.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
this is so beautiful Elizabethm. What a mercy that suffering has strangely enriched you instead of making you bitter. Now Elaine (and in a small way all of us) can benefit from that. I Love that line from the Larkin poem. and the tomb couple themselves holding hands so companionably. Eden.
Posted by EdenEising
March 15, 2007 01:31 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You've done it again Elizabethm....have touched me to tears with your words...so emotive... To Elaine...... warm wishes x
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 15, 2007 01:35 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I am reading this all alone in my little library as it is my lunch hour. I have tears in my eyes as I have been down the very same road and heartily agree with your every word. I wish you all the best. Happy Days, Caitx
Posted by Cait
March 15, 2007 01:40 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
As always, you put the truth of life into your words - you have to nearly go blind to truly see, and that would be my wish for the world: that it didn't take something bad to happen for us to see the wonders out there and truly appreciate them.xx
Posted by woozle1967
March 15, 2007 01:52 PM
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
March 14 2006 and March 14 2007
March 14 2006 and March 14 2007 Time sliding and elastic, two strands coming together. It is a year ago today that I went for my first check up.
A new consultant to see today, the oncologist. He is older than my surgeons, kindly, nearing retirement I think. They have said they will monitor me well beyond five years. I can’t think he will still be there even in five years time. But I like him. He examines me and listens carefully as I complain about my tiredness and lack of energy. He suggests that I keep a diary, saying that this will help me to see my progress. He arranges another scan and an appointment in June. In June we can talk about my going back to work.
Back at home I become obsessed with getting up onto the hills at the head of our valley. I know from talking to others that on the far side of the ridge you can see for miles across the rich farmland of the Vale of Clwyd to the mountains of Snowdonia and down to the sea but I fell ill so soon after we came here that I have never been. I thought about those hills when I was in hospital and dreamt about walking them one night when I lay tethered to the bed in intensive care. I am home alone now and I begin to walk a little further everyday, remembering that however far up the lane I get I need to save some energy to come down again.
It takes me a couple of weeks, each day going further and further, first just up to the bend in the lane, soon higher to the beginnings of a scrappy wood where greying wool is caught in the barbed wire fence, then to the end of the metalled road where the track begins. The fields are full of lambs running and jumping, bleating and calling to their mothers. Up the track takes longer, the stones slow under my feet, but I manage the hawthorn where the body of a fox hangs, sodden like dirty cloth, a warning to other foxes. Another day it is the curve in the track by the dewpond. The surface of the water looks cloudy and strange and then at the corner of my eye there is an eruption, a heaving as thirty or forty frogs mate in the sun. Soon I reach the incline high above the top farm where fifty years worth of farm machinery is stacked and stored in a widening arc around the farmhouse below.
The day I make the top I am not alone. My son and daughter in law are with us, the baby strapped into a carrier on his father’s chest, Ian too and my daughter in law’s mother all the way from Newfoundland and Chris and my younger daughter, Maddy. Through the metal gate and out onto the hill we walk. There are enough people who want to be slow for me not to feel I am holding others back. There is a wind in my face as we come to the edge and there it is, the hill dropping away in front of us into fields and farms, the river further away in the bottom, the tiny houses of Denbigh with the shape of the castle grey and strong, the Vale stretches away north to the sea and down to the south disappearing into yet more hills. Right at the limit of sight the shapes of the mountains march away. It is April and spring is truly here.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills
Baby steps, Elizabeth, baby steps, I found myself saying aloud when I read this!
Posted by suffolkmum
March 14, 2007 01:48 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
I can imagine the mixed feelings you have today on the 'anniversary'. And I hope you have see progress with the tiredness The sun is shining here as I hope it is with you now Elizabethm... warm wishes
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 14, 2007 01:49 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
Tom was monitored after his cancer for 13 years - it was quite scary when they finally let him go and told him to take his chances with the rest of the population. Well done, you.
Posted by ChrisH
March 14, 2007 03:59 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
You've come so far, you have been so brave, step by step you'll get back to your old self. Warmest wishes and blessings dear Elizabeth X
Posted by inthemud
March 14, 2007 05:08 PM
A new consultant to see today, the oncologist. He is older than my surgeons, kindly, nearing retirement I think. They have said they will monitor me well beyond five years. I can’t think he will still be there even in five years time. But I like him. He examines me and listens carefully as I complain about my tiredness and lack of energy. He suggests that I keep a diary, saying that this will help me to see my progress. He arranges another scan and an appointment in June. In June we can talk about my going back to work.
Back at home I become obsessed with getting up onto the hills at the head of our valley. I know from talking to others that on the far side of the ridge you can see for miles across the rich farmland of the Vale of Clwyd to the mountains of Snowdonia and down to the sea but I fell ill so soon after we came here that I have never been. I thought about those hills when I was in hospital and dreamt about walking them one night when I lay tethered to the bed in intensive care. I am home alone now and I begin to walk a little further everyday, remembering that however far up the lane I get I need to save some energy to come down again.
It takes me a couple of weeks, each day going further and further, first just up to the bend in the lane, soon higher to the beginnings of a scrappy wood where greying wool is caught in the barbed wire fence, then to the end of the metalled road where the track begins. The fields are full of lambs running and jumping, bleating and calling to their mothers. Up the track takes longer, the stones slow under my feet, but I manage the hawthorn where the body of a fox hangs, sodden like dirty cloth, a warning to other foxes. Another day it is the curve in the track by the dewpond. The surface of the water looks cloudy and strange and then at the corner of my eye there is an eruption, a heaving as thirty or forty frogs mate in the sun. Soon I reach the incline high above the top farm where fifty years worth of farm machinery is stacked and stored in a widening arc around the farmhouse below.
The day I make the top I am not alone. My son and daughter in law are with us, the baby strapped into a carrier on his father’s chest, Ian too and my daughter in law’s mother all the way from Newfoundland and Chris and my younger daughter, Maddy. Through the metal gate and out onto the hill we walk. There are enough people who want to be slow for me not to feel I am holding others back. There is a wind in my face as we come to the edge and there it is, the hill dropping away in front of us into fields and farms, the river further away in the bottom, the tiny houses of Denbigh with the shape of the castle grey and strong, the Vale stretches away north to the sea and down to the south disappearing into yet more hills. Right at the limit of sight the shapes of the mountains march away. It is April and spring is truly here.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills
Baby steps, Elizabeth, baby steps, I found myself saying aloud when I read this!
Posted by suffolkmum
March 14, 2007 01:48 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
I can imagine the mixed feelings you have today on the 'anniversary'. And I hope you have see progress with the tiredness The sun is shining here as I hope it is with you now Elizabethm... warm wishes
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 14, 2007 01:49 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
Tom was monitored after his cancer for 13 years - it was quite scary when they finally let him go and told him to take his chances with the rest of the population. Well done, you.
Posted by ChrisH
March 14, 2007 03:59 PM
Life in the Welsh hills
You've come so far, you have been so brave, step by step you'll get back to your old self. Warmest wishes and blessings dear Elizabeth X
Posted by inthemud
March 14, 2007 05:08 PM
March 5th 2006 Our grandson is born.
March 5th 2006 Our grandson is born.
In the evening we drive over to Manchester to see them all. My daughter in law has been in hospital for a couple of days and eventually Sam is born by Caesarian. So he is not squashed looking and redfaced as I remeber my own children being, but perfect with his navy blue eyes, smooth skin, tiny hands and surprising red hair. His father is dark and his mother fair and in time the red fuzz fades and he will become blond and green eyed. Now he sleeps in his father's arms. My stepson is a tall man, broad shouldered and strong, a rugby player. His hands holding the baby look huge. The tenderness in his face as he looks down makes my throat fill.
When I was at my lowest I tried to throw some ropes across to the future, a line to hold onto against the flood, and this was one. Let me see the baby born. Partly this was for me and partly for Ian who loves babies, even strange ones, never mind this baby, the new generation, his own stake in the world after we are gone.
I hold him and he holds Ian's finger. My daughter in law looks tired but triumphant. I see that she wants him back again and she holds him carefully, watching his face flickering with movement behind the perfect closed eyelids. As we drive home we do not speak but this is a new kind of silence.
In the evening we drive over to Manchester to see them all. My daughter in law has been in hospital for a couple of days and eventually Sam is born by Caesarian. So he is not squashed looking and redfaced as I remeber my own children being, but perfect with his navy blue eyes, smooth skin, tiny hands and surprising red hair. His father is dark and his mother fair and in time the red fuzz fades and he will become blond and green eyed. Now he sleeps in his father's arms. My stepson is a tall man, broad shouldered and strong, a rugby player. His hands holding the baby look huge. The tenderness in his face as he looks down makes my throat fill.
When I was at my lowest I tried to throw some ropes across to the future, a line to hold onto against the flood, and this was one. Let me see the baby born. Partly this was for me and partly for Ian who loves babies, even strange ones, never mind this baby, the new generation, his own stake in the world after we are gone.
I hold him and he holds Ian's finger. My daughter in law looks tired but triumphant. I see that she wants him back again and she holds him carefully, watching his face flickering with movement behind the perfect closed eyelids. As we drive home we do not speak but this is a new kind of silence.
Monday 6th February 2006
Monday 6th February 2006 Today I am to be readmitted to hospital. Ian is driving but out on the dual carriageway in the outside world everything seems frantic and frightening, the cars too fast, the lorries too big, everything huge and dirty, shuddering and shaking. I have not been outside our gate since I came home, sitting quietly in my green world.
In Manchester the streets are filled with people and blowing with rubbish. At the hospital I am given a different room and I unpack but stay in my clothes, sitting in a chair, not on the bed. I will not go through the back of the wardrobe this time. I will not be a patient.
Mr So and So comes. The catheter will come out this afternoon and someone will monitor me for a couple of days. They will do another scan to make sure that the bladder is emptying. If it goes well I only need to be in a couple of days.
And it does go well. Who would have thought that to be able to piss could be such a blessing and a miracle? I put on some lipstick to celebrate my return to the tubeless world.
At the end of the week, ready to go home again, I want to talk to Mr So and So about recovery and return to work, on a foolish high now, but he won’t.
“Go away and get better” he says. “I’ll see you in about six weeks and you will have to start seeing the oncologist then as well. He will be the one who will monitor you going forward. Don’t think about work at all until the summer. Take it slowly. Two of us worked on you for four hours. It was as big an operation as I’ve done in a long time. It will take a while.”
I try to say that I am not rushing. I had a hysterectomy a few years ago. I know it takes time.
“My dear” he says, “compared to what we’ve done to you, your hysterectomy was a walk in the park.”
For some reason this makes Ian and me crease up and when he has gone we roll around laughing –the phrase “a walk in the park” will set off one of the other of us for months.
Back home, but still to the cottage not the house, and Emma has come to look after me. Two years earlier she had a different sort of growth and I spent a week with her in her recovery in her London flat, cooking and shopping and venturing out with her gingerly into the crowd and noise of Bethnal Green Road. Now our roles are reversed and it is she who is sending me to bed, urging me to eat a little more, coping with my sudden attacks of angry tearfulness at my helplessness.
Something has happened to time in this illness. I have felt the fear of my three year old self, frightened and crying; seen myself at about nine, ill in bed, waking to find my grandmother sitting by me with a bottle of Lucozade and the next book of the Narnia series, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. I have seen the face I will have when I am old, all luminous bone, and been helpless and dependent, dignity and privacy falling away. The past and the future have mixed with the present in a strange elastic way.
My children have been all ages and as I watch Emma making some soup I see her at two, face flaming and streaked with tears, wracked with whooping cough. And again at about fifteen, in hospital for an operation which will result in a metal plate in her arm, cheerful, stoical, already close to the calm and strong adult she will become.
After she has gone I am for the first time left on my own in the day when Ian has gone to work although he tries not to be away for hours. I love the quiet, the sound of birds and the distant noise of a tractor working further up the valley. My life has become very slow and still. There are seats all over the garden and, wrapped in my fleeces, I sit very still for minutes at a time, looking at things, seeing the bark of a tree, the patterns on a cyclamen leaf, as if I about to draw them.
As February closes the days lengthen by painful increments. The snowdrops go over and the primroses come out. I walk outside every day and I watch the bare trees for any signs of life. The hazels in the hedge hang with catkins and tiny daffodils push up under the apple tree. I have never seen a spring so vividly, the earth rewakes along with my life.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
lovley blog im gled you can pee again .jep x
Posted by jep
March 12, 2007 07:19 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Yes, I loved the juxtaposition of piss and lipstick, in something so beautifully elegant, as usual. Just the scant experience of my caeserean and being in for 6 days gives a little understanding (albeit a "nice" reason) into the world of the hospitalised, and the not and the desperation, almost painful, to be one of the not. Almost sobbed when I emerged into the real air, to be beneath real sky and in the interim, it being September, it had somehow tipped from Summer into Autumn. More, please!
Posted by Milla
March 12, 2007 07:27 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I'm glad you lost your fashion accesory. And I know what it is like to spend time or even long weeks in hospital...and how good it is to come home and see family again... warmest wishes
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 12, 2007 08:00 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You write so beautifully about an experience that must be far from comfortable. Keep wearing the lipstick. Best wishes.
Posted by PreseliMags
March 12, 2007 08:34 PM
In Manchester the streets are filled with people and blowing with rubbish. At the hospital I am given a different room and I unpack but stay in my clothes, sitting in a chair, not on the bed. I will not go through the back of the wardrobe this time. I will not be a patient.
Mr So and So comes. The catheter will come out this afternoon and someone will monitor me for a couple of days. They will do another scan to make sure that the bladder is emptying. If it goes well I only need to be in a couple of days.
And it does go well. Who would have thought that to be able to piss could be such a blessing and a miracle? I put on some lipstick to celebrate my return to the tubeless world.
At the end of the week, ready to go home again, I want to talk to Mr So and So about recovery and return to work, on a foolish high now, but he won’t.
“Go away and get better” he says. “I’ll see you in about six weeks and you will have to start seeing the oncologist then as well. He will be the one who will monitor you going forward. Don’t think about work at all until the summer. Take it slowly. Two of us worked on you for four hours. It was as big an operation as I’ve done in a long time. It will take a while.”
I try to say that I am not rushing. I had a hysterectomy a few years ago. I know it takes time.
“My dear” he says, “compared to what we’ve done to you, your hysterectomy was a walk in the park.”
For some reason this makes Ian and me crease up and when he has gone we roll around laughing –the phrase “a walk in the park” will set off one of the other of us for months.
Back home, but still to the cottage not the house, and Emma has come to look after me. Two years earlier she had a different sort of growth and I spent a week with her in her recovery in her London flat, cooking and shopping and venturing out with her gingerly into the crowd and noise of Bethnal Green Road. Now our roles are reversed and it is she who is sending me to bed, urging me to eat a little more, coping with my sudden attacks of angry tearfulness at my helplessness.
Something has happened to time in this illness. I have felt the fear of my three year old self, frightened and crying; seen myself at about nine, ill in bed, waking to find my grandmother sitting by me with a bottle of Lucozade and the next book of the Narnia series, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. I have seen the face I will have when I am old, all luminous bone, and been helpless and dependent, dignity and privacy falling away. The past and the future have mixed with the present in a strange elastic way.
My children have been all ages and as I watch Emma making some soup I see her at two, face flaming and streaked with tears, wracked with whooping cough. And again at about fifteen, in hospital for an operation which will result in a metal plate in her arm, cheerful, stoical, already close to the calm and strong adult she will become.
After she has gone I am for the first time left on my own in the day when Ian has gone to work although he tries not to be away for hours. I love the quiet, the sound of birds and the distant noise of a tractor working further up the valley. My life has become very slow and still. There are seats all over the garden and, wrapped in my fleeces, I sit very still for minutes at a time, looking at things, seeing the bark of a tree, the patterns on a cyclamen leaf, as if I about to draw them.
As February closes the days lengthen by painful increments. The snowdrops go over and the primroses come out. I walk outside every day and I watch the bare trees for any signs of life. The hazels in the hedge hang with catkins and tiny daffodils push up under the apple tree. I have never seen a spring so vividly, the earth rewakes along with my life.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
lovley blog im gled you can pee again .jep x
Posted by jep
March 12, 2007 07:19 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Yes, I loved the juxtaposition of piss and lipstick, in something so beautifully elegant, as usual. Just the scant experience of my caeserean and being in for 6 days gives a little understanding (albeit a "nice" reason) into the world of the hospitalised, and the not and the desperation, almost painful, to be one of the not. Almost sobbed when I emerged into the real air, to be beneath real sky and in the interim, it being September, it had somehow tipped from Summer into Autumn. More, please!
Posted by Milla
March 12, 2007 07:27 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I'm glad you lost your fashion accesory. And I know what it is like to spend time or even long weeks in hospital...and how good it is to come home and see family again... warmest wishes
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 12, 2007 08:00 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You write so beautifully about an experience that must be far from comfortable. Keep wearing the lipstick. Best wishes.
Posted by PreseliMags
March 12, 2007 08:34 PM
January 2006 And so begins a strange, dreamy limbo time.
January 2006 And so begins a strange, dreamy limbo time. Who knew that time would pass if you did so little? In the years of children, house, work, juggling, plate spinning, rushing and running with diaries and schedules and frantic days in offices and on trains and planes, who knew that if you did absolutely nothing at all the clock still moved?
Ian stays with me for the first week. By the time I have left my bed, breakfasted and dressed it is 11 o' clock. "Go away and practice walking" Mr So and So had said as we left the hospital so every day we venture out. On my second day home I walk across the gravel to see the snowdrops and on the next just a little further to the bend in the drive. How could I not have noticed before how steep it is? Each day just a little further - the holly bush, the big hawthorn, the blackthorn and finally on the fifth day the top gate.
The wind is blowing up here. The house is down and round the corner, tucked into the side of the hill protected from the winds and catching every ray of pale wintry sun. After a few days Ian lights a fire in the house. "Have a change" he says. "Come nextdoor."
We cross together from the holiday cottage to the house. In the sitting room it is warm and cosy but away from the fire the cold is profound. My beautiful house seems too much for me. It makes me shake and catch my breath. With relief I return to the small scale, the tidiness and the warmth of the cottage.
At the weekend my younger daughter comes up from London. When we first knew I was ill she had cried and cried but now she is cheery and competent, cooking for us and looking after her father whose face is grey with tiredness. She is my stepdaughter and there is a special sweetness in the love for and of a stepchild. It is a gift, different to the love of your own children which is deep and unstoppable, driven by the imperative of blood, but no less real and strong.
She goes and my parents come, releasing Ian to go to work again if he wants. It is years since we had so much time together. Another blessing.
I begin to write short notes to the people who have sent cards and letters. I have no stamina at all and fall asleep in the chair continually like a old lady nodding by the fire. In another few days I will go back into hospital for the removal of the catheter and after that my elder daughter is coming to look after me. I try to hold onto that and the thought of her. But at night in bed in the cottage with Ian asleep beside me I cannot lie as I want to because of the tube and the bag on its clumsy stand, tugging at me, tethering me. I lie awake for hours watching through the roof window the clouds running past the moon.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I have a step-dad and you are so right about that special something.x
Posted by woozle1967
March 11, 2007 11:33 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
you derseve all the love around you.your famliy sound wonderfull .jep x
Posted by jep
March 11, 2007 05:47 PM
Ian stays with me for the first week. By the time I have left my bed, breakfasted and dressed it is 11 o' clock. "Go away and practice walking" Mr So and So had said as we left the hospital so every day we venture out. On my second day home I walk across the gravel to see the snowdrops and on the next just a little further to the bend in the drive. How could I not have noticed before how steep it is? Each day just a little further - the holly bush, the big hawthorn, the blackthorn and finally on the fifth day the top gate.
The wind is blowing up here. The house is down and round the corner, tucked into the side of the hill protected from the winds and catching every ray of pale wintry sun. After a few days Ian lights a fire in the house. "Have a change" he says. "Come nextdoor."
We cross together from the holiday cottage to the house. In the sitting room it is warm and cosy but away from the fire the cold is profound. My beautiful house seems too much for me. It makes me shake and catch my breath. With relief I return to the small scale, the tidiness and the warmth of the cottage.
At the weekend my younger daughter comes up from London. When we first knew I was ill she had cried and cried but now she is cheery and competent, cooking for us and looking after her father whose face is grey with tiredness. She is my stepdaughter and there is a special sweetness in the love for and of a stepchild. It is a gift, different to the love of your own children which is deep and unstoppable, driven by the imperative of blood, but no less real and strong.
She goes and my parents come, releasing Ian to go to work again if he wants. It is years since we had so much time together. Another blessing.
I begin to write short notes to the people who have sent cards and letters. I have no stamina at all and fall asleep in the chair continually like a old lady nodding by the fire. In another few days I will go back into hospital for the removal of the catheter and after that my elder daughter is coming to look after me. I try to hold onto that and the thought of her. But at night in bed in the cottage with Ian asleep beside me I cannot lie as I want to because of the tube and the bag on its clumsy stand, tugging at me, tethering me. I lie awake for hours watching through the roof window the clouds running past the moon.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I have a step-dad and you are so right about that special something.x
Posted by woozle1967
March 11, 2007 11:33 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
you derseve all the love around you.your famliy sound wonderfull .jep x
Posted by jep
March 11, 2007 05:47 PM
Monday 23rd January 2006
Monday 23rd January 2006
Today is the day to go home. I gather all my cards together and slowly get dressed in a top and my Asda trousers. The tube for the catheter and the bag on my leg get caught up with trousers and the strangeness of socks and trainers.
"Bloody thing" I mutter.
"At least you're still here, Mum" says Chris matter of factly.
He is helping me pack. I hug him, my throat thick. He towers above me, a grown man now and a fine one. Strange, strange, strange. I have surely only just stopped picking him up from cubs and the interminable hours sitting by the swimming pool as he ploughed up and down and further back like a view down a telescope, but only a year or so ago surely, reading to him "Where the wild things are" again and again.
Ian brings the car as close as he can to the door. We say goodbye to the nurses. As for other patients, we have all been behind our closed doors in this private ward and I know no-one. I am someone who generally likes my own company but I was much happier in the shared ward.
Ian drives and I sleep for much of the way. I wake as we come off the dual carriageway and drive down through the village. It is a cold, grey day but dry. We come down the hill, cross the road and then up our hill, steep and narrow, woods on either side and then the hedges, sharp and bare. We turn down the track, through the farm and to our gate. At our bottom gate there are snowdrops out by the wall. The kitchen garden is windswept and empty, the branches of the apple trees black against the grey sky.
"It's cold," Ian says "let's get you inside."
We are staying in the cottage so I reluctantly turn my back on the house. Inside I sit down shakily. "Why don't you lie down?" Painstakingly I go upstairs. I lean against the bedroom windowsill and look out. In front of me the valley drops away to the stream and the woods. On the other side of the valley are two farms sheltered with their protective trees, bare now but the different shapes and forms clear and sharp. There are sheep in the fields and on the lane far below a red postvan moves like Postman Pat.
I look up. There are two buzzards circling slowly against the grey sky. Leaning into the window and looking right I can see up to the head of the valley where the ridge of the hills climbs up and away, marching down towards Moel Arthur, the iron age fort. This is what I needed. Don’t look forward, don’t look back. At least you’re still here, Mum. It is good to be home.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Great to be home, indeedy, and most partic after your vile journey away. And, ooh, Elizabeth, how truly delightful and exciting to be in your list. Thank you so much - although I have to say, ahem, that to me, the order looks just dandy! I always read you, too, and all the people mentioned below. And dear inthemud. Feral girl is a bit too good and cowgirl is lovely and mongoose is, too, and lots of others who, predictably I can't now call to mind. I just read as many as I can and pray to get a Go-Fast day on the site. Cannot bear your thing today about your son, though. So huge and yet weren't you only just now collecting him from Cubs! Too sad. My tiny has just started cubs, and I remember when my big one - also tiny, actually, and ten - started beavers (the precursor to cubs, maybe not around in "your day", oh dear, sorry, you know what I mean, I hope, shut up Milla) when the other Beavers, now minuscule of course, looked simply enormous and a little bit threatening. Being 6. [Modified by: Milla on March 10, 2007 05:42 PM]
Posted by Milla
March 10, 2007 04:11 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
There's no place like home to recover - hospital leaves you feeling so institutionalised doesn't it? Enjoy the weekend, Elizabeth.xx
Posted by woozle1967
March 10, 2007 05:39 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I'm as excited by your blog as if it were happening today. I misted up at the description of your son growing up, too. Also immensley flattered to be on your list.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 10, 2007 06:12 PM
Today is the day to go home. I gather all my cards together and slowly get dressed in a top and my Asda trousers. The tube for the catheter and the bag on my leg get caught up with trousers and the strangeness of socks and trainers.
"Bloody thing" I mutter.
"At least you're still here, Mum" says Chris matter of factly.
He is helping me pack. I hug him, my throat thick. He towers above me, a grown man now and a fine one. Strange, strange, strange. I have surely only just stopped picking him up from cubs and the interminable hours sitting by the swimming pool as he ploughed up and down and further back like a view down a telescope, but only a year or so ago surely, reading to him "Where the wild things are" again and again.
Ian brings the car as close as he can to the door. We say goodbye to the nurses. As for other patients, we have all been behind our closed doors in this private ward and I know no-one. I am someone who generally likes my own company but I was much happier in the shared ward.
Ian drives and I sleep for much of the way. I wake as we come off the dual carriageway and drive down through the village. It is a cold, grey day but dry. We come down the hill, cross the road and then up our hill, steep and narrow, woods on either side and then the hedges, sharp and bare. We turn down the track, through the farm and to our gate. At our bottom gate there are snowdrops out by the wall. The kitchen garden is windswept and empty, the branches of the apple trees black against the grey sky.
"It's cold," Ian says "let's get you inside."
We are staying in the cottage so I reluctantly turn my back on the house. Inside I sit down shakily. "Why don't you lie down?" Painstakingly I go upstairs. I lean against the bedroom windowsill and look out. In front of me the valley drops away to the stream and the woods. On the other side of the valley are two farms sheltered with their protective trees, bare now but the different shapes and forms clear and sharp. There are sheep in the fields and on the lane far below a red postvan moves like Postman Pat.
I look up. There are two buzzards circling slowly against the grey sky. Leaning into the window and looking right I can see up to the head of the valley where the ridge of the hills climbs up and away, marching down towards Moel Arthur, the iron age fort. This is what I needed. Don’t look forward, don’t look back. At least you’re still here, Mum. It is good to be home.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Great to be home, indeedy, and most partic after your vile journey away. And, ooh, Elizabeth, how truly delightful and exciting to be in your list. Thank you so much - although I have to say, ahem, that to me, the order looks just dandy! I always read you, too, and all the people mentioned below. And dear inthemud. Feral girl is a bit too good and cowgirl is lovely and mongoose is, too, and lots of others who, predictably I can't now call to mind. I just read as many as I can and pray to get a Go-Fast day on the site. Cannot bear your thing today about your son, though. So huge and yet weren't you only just now collecting him from Cubs! Too sad. My tiny has just started cubs, and I remember when my big one - also tiny, actually, and ten - started beavers (the precursor to cubs, maybe not around in "your day", oh dear, sorry, you know what I mean, I hope, shut up Milla) when the other Beavers, now minuscule of course, looked simply enormous and a little bit threatening. Being 6. [Modified by: Milla on March 10, 2007 05:42 PM]
Posted by Milla
March 10, 2007 04:11 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
There's no place like home to recover - hospital leaves you feeling so institutionalised doesn't it? Enjoy the weekend, Elizabeth.xx
Posted by woozle1967
March 10, 2007 05:39 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I'm as excited by your blog as if it were happening today. I misted up at the description of your son growing up, too. Also immensley flattered to be on your list.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 10, 2007 06:12 PM
January 20th 2006
January 20th 2006
Today Ian wants to say thank you.
"Do you think you can make it to reception?" he asks.
I look dubious. The hospital's reception area is twice as far as the conservatory.
"Maybe. What for?"
"I thought if I got some flowers and you could make it we could both say thank you to Mr So and So's secretary."
On the day before Christmas Eve this was the lady who had broken all the rules to put us directly in touch with Mr So and So on his car phone. The tumour was growing apace, the alien life within me far outstripping the growth of our new baby grandson waiting to be born. What would have happened if I had had to wait for my operation is a thought that must be buried too deep to contemplate.
It takes us forty five minutes, with stops at the conservatory and a variety of seats along the way. This place is used to the need for rest. The secretary comes down and to our delight she remembers us. "In all my years working here I've never been given flowers." We smile at each other. So many people to thank.
Mr So and So comes again. "How about home on Monday?"
I gesture at the catheter and the bag. "What about this?"
"I'll get someone to teach you how to change it. Go home, recuperate for a couple of weeks and then we will bring you back in and remove the catheter again under supervision. Keep you here for a few days to be sure you are all right."
I do not say what if it is not all right. Just as it was aeons ago when I was moved from the High Dependency Unit, I am afraid of the next stage, afraid to move away from the security of this place. The splendid isolation of our lovely house now frightens me. What if anything goes wrong? I am weak as a kitten. I try not to voice these fears and, seemingly without my having said anything, a plan emerges: Ian will stay with me the first week, then my mother will come. The following week I will be back in hospital again and the next week my elder daughter will come and look after me.
"And by then you'll be racing," Ian says.
I have nothing to wear to go home in, gentle around the middle, wide in the leg for the dratted bag. Ian comes in with some trousers from Asda. Good job I am not a label queen. The central heating is still not working at home so we will move into the holiday cottage. I am explaining to the nurse who comes to teach me how to change my bag. "I'll just use my other house," she says. "How cool is that?" I look out the window onto the concrete yard and the dirty brick. Yes, it will be good to be home.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Lovely blog as always, Elizabeth, and yesterday's too..... I too would murder for a good deli sometimes, and definitely agree with mongoose about the joy of seeing films other than the mammoth blockbusters... hmm, good cafe, shops....ah heck, good thing I'm going to the CL fair next week!! Hurrah!
Posted by exmoorjane
March 09, 2007 01:44 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Hi Elizabethm. I am sorry I haven't been able to comment on your blogs for the last few days. It's not very often I am stuck for words. But all the words I want to say to you seem so inadequate... I do hope you are getting what you need from your blogging and it is not in itself too emotionally draining for you. Your words convey everything of how you felt then and the lasting effect this trauma has had on your life... You make me feel very humble Enjoy your weekend...you deserve it... Warm wishes x [Modified by: ChickenLicken on March 09, 2007 02:11 PM]
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 09, 2007 01:50 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
The things you don't say are as powerful as the ones you do, Elizabeth. We're all rooting for you. Eden.
Posted by EdenEising
March 09, 2007 02:32 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Phewee! And for yesterday's. Just today at lunch I was talking with a friend about her chemo (half way through 4 out of 8), the sickness, the baldness, but what she really hates is the thing in the hand (aargh, name?? begins with c) through which the chemo is leaked. It freaks her. The dark paths some of us have to walk, leaves the rest of us humbled.
Posted by Milla
March 09, 2007 02:59 PM
Today Ian wants to say thank you.
"Do you think you can make it to reception?" he asks.
I look dubious. The hospital's reception area is twice as far as the conservatory.
"Maybe. What for?"
"I thought if I got some flowers and you could make it we could both say thank you to Mr So and So's secretary."
On the day before Christmas Eve this was the lady who had broken all the rules to put us directly in touch with Mr So and So on his car phone. The tumour was growing apace, the alien life within me far outstripping the growth of our new baby grandson waiting to be born. What would have happened if I had had to wait for my operation is a thought that must be buried too deep to contemplate.
It takes us forty five minutes, with stops at the conservatory and a variety of seats along the way. This place is used to the need for rest. The secretary comes down and to our delight she remembers us. "In all my years working here I've never been given flowers." We smile at each other. So many people to thank.
Mr So and So comes again. "How about home on Monday?"
I gesture at the catheter and the bag. "What about this?"
"I'll get someone to teach you how to change it. Go home, recuperate for a couple of weeks and then we will bring you back in and remove the catheter again under supervision. Keep you here for a few days to be sure you are all right."
I do not say what if it is not all right. Just as it was aeons ago when I was moved from the High Dependency Unit, I am afraid of the next stage, afraid to move away from the security of this place. The splendid isolation of our lovely house now frightens me. What if anything goes wrong? I am weak as a kitten. I try not to voice these fears and, seemingly without my having said anything, a plan emerges: Ian will stay with me the first week, then my mother will come. The following week I will be back in hospital again and the next week my elder daughter will come and look after me.
"And by then you'll be racing," Ian says.
I have nothing to wear to go home in, gentle around the middle, wide in the leg for the dratted bag. Ian comes in with some trousers from Asda. Good job I am not a label queen. The central heating is still not working at home so we will move into the holiday cottage. I am explaining to the nurse who comes to teach me how to change my bag. "I'll just use my other house," she says. "How cool is that?" I look out the window onto the concrete yard and the dirty brick. Yes, it will be good to be home.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Lovely blog as always, Elizabeth, and yesterday's too..... I too would murder for a good deli sometimes, and definitely agree with mongoose about the joy of seeing films other than the mammoth blockbusters... hmm, good cafe, shops....ah heck, good thing I'm going to the CL fair next week!! Hurrah!
Posted by exmoorjane
March 09, 2007 01:44 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Hi Elizabethm. I am sorry I haven't been able to comment on your blogs for the last few days. It's not very often I am stuck for words. But all the words I want to say to you seem so inadequate... I do hope you are getting what you need from your blogging and it is not in itself too emotionally draining for you. Your words convey everything of how you felt then and the lasting effect this trauma has had on your life... You make me feel very humble Enjoy your weekend...you deserve it... Warm wishes x [Modified by: ChickenLicken on March 09, 2007 02:11 PM]
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 09, 2007 01:50 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
The things you don't say are as powerful as the ones you do, Elizabeth. We're all rooting for you. Eden.
Posted by EdenEising
March 09, 2007 02:32 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Phewee! And for yesterday's. Just today at lunch I was talking with a friend about her chemo (half way through 4 out of 8), the sickness, the baldness, but what she really hates is the thing in the hand (aargh, name?? begins with c) through which the chemo is leaked. It freaks her. The dark paths some of us have to walk, leaves the rest of us humbled.
Posted by Milla
March 09, 2007 02:59 PM
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