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
Chemo?
January 19th 2006
My parents come again to see me, making the long journey from Devon. My mother is calm and sits quietly by my bed but my father is edgy, jumpy, a man of deeds not words who finds it hard that there is nothing he can do. My mother sends him away to look at the Whitworth gallery and he returns with a bag of treats from Sainsburys.
I have my first non family visitor, a very good friend from work whose weekly letters and cards will for the next few months be my only connection with my London life. She is funny, lovely, dynamic, fizzing with energy. She tells me stories of what is going on at work but I find it hard to focus. Work is out there in the other world and I might never get back, the people she talks about move silently in my mind like fish in an aquarium. It is hard to remember who they are.
Mr So and So comes in and my friends slips out. Ian stays, always with me, always there.
"I have the lab results," he says.
"I thought it was tomorrow."
"I just slipped in to check and they were ready. What we have removed is what is called a borderline tumour - quite rare. There is malignancy but these things are self contained, they don't usually produce secondaries. A few years ago we would have given you chemotherapy but now we find we get just as good results through monitoring you. We would actually see you for as long as you like, we don't stop at 5 years unless you feel that coming back here is stopping you getting on with your life."
"So no chemotherapy?"
"No, you just have to focus on recovery from the operation, and of course we need to sort out this fella."
He means the catheter. He beams. "Any questions?"
"What do you mean by monitoring?"
"Oh, scans, blood tests, examination to begin with. We need to cut back on the scans as soon as we can. You've had quite a few. You will have to come three monthly to begin with and we will take it from there. I'll come back later when you have had time to take it all in."
He leaves and I fall on Ian's chest sobbing. I have tried to be brave and to tell myself I will manage but I am not as brave as so many of the people I have met in here and my fear of chemotherapy has woken me in the night like a branch tapping insistently on a window. I sob and sob. Ian holds me close. "There, love. It's ok. It's ok."
My friend reappears at the door, sees me weeping and turns to go again. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "No, it's all right, stay, good news." She sits with me while Ian goes to the dayroom to phone my parents and the children.
"My God, I am so lucky" I say.
She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "Well you could say the opposite, having gone through all this."
But that is not how I feel. I feel the luckiest person in the world and I feel that it is all so random. Why I am not facing the same relentless round of treatment and sickness as my lovely friends from the ward? No reason, no reason at all why my path should be easier than theirs. I am lucky, lucky, lucky.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Oh honey! What can I say? Having gone through 2 lots of chemo myself I know your dread, and you are indeed a lucky lady to have come through so much. Bless you.x
Posted by woozle1967
March 08, 2007 11:27 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
So glad you avoided the chemo. You've come through so much though.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 08, 2007 11:50 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Yipeeeeeee ..xx
Posted by ragrug
March 08, 2007 04:13 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
im so happy for you you have gone through so much x
Posted by jep
March 08, 2007 04:21 PM
My parents come again to see me, making the long journey from Devon. My mother is calm and sits quietly by my bed but my father is edgy, jumpy, a man of deeds not words who finds it hard that there is nothing he can do. My mother sends him away to look at the Whitworth gallery and he returns with a bag of treats from Sainsburys.
I have my first non family visitor, a very good friend from work whose weekly letters and cards will for the next few months be my only connection with my London life. She is funny, lovely, dynamic, fizzing with energy. She tells me stories of what is going on at work but I find it hard to focus. Work is out there in the other world and I might never get back, the people she talks about move silently in my mind like fish in an aquarium. It is hard to remember who they are.
Mr So and So comes in and my friends slips out. Ian stays, always with me, always there.
"I have the lab results," he says.
"I thought it was tomorrow."
"I just slipped in to check and they were ready. What we have removed is what is called a borderline tumour - quite rare. There is malignancy but these things are self contained, they don't usually produce secondaries. A few years ago we would have given you chemotherapy but now we find we get just as good results through monitoring you. We would actually see you for as long as you like, we don't stop at 5 years unless you feel that coming back here is stopping you getting on with your life."
"So no chemotherapy?"
"No, you just have to focus on recovery from the operation, and of course we need to sort out this fella."
He means the catheter. He beams. "Any questions?"
"What do you mean by monitoring?"
"Oh, scans, blood tests, examination to begin with. We need to cut back on the scans as soon as we can. You've had quite a few. You will have to come three monthly to begin with and we will take it from there. I'll come back later when you have had time to take it all in."
He leaves and I fall on Ian's chest sobbing. I have tried to be brave and to tell myself I will manage but I am not as brave as so many of the people I have met in here and my fear of chemotherapy has woken me in the night like a branch tapping insistently on a window. I sob and sob. Ian holds me close. "There, love. It's ok. It's ok."
My friend reappears at the door, sees me weeping and turns to go again. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "No, it's all right, stay, good news." She sits with me while Ian goes to the dayroom to phone my parents and the children.
"My God, I am so lucky" I say.
She looks at me with a raised eyebrow. "Well you could say the opposite, having gone through all this."
But that is not how I feel. I feel the luckiest person in the world and I feel that it is all so random. Why I am not facing the same relentless round of treatment and sickness as my lovely friends from the ward? No reason, no reason at all why my path should be easier than theirs. I am lucky, lucky, lucky.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Oh honey! What can I say? Having gone through 2 lots of chemo myself I know your dread, and you are indeed a lucky lady to have come through so much. Bless you.x
Posted by woozle1967
March 08, 2007 11:27 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
So glad you avoided the chemo. You've come through so much though.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 08, 2007 11:50 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Yipeeeeeee ..xx
Posted by ragrug
March 08, 2007 04:13 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
im so happy for you you have gone through so much x
Posted by jep
March 08, 2007 04:21 PM
The power of green
January 2006
I can’t look back and I can’t look forward, back to the life on the other side of the wardrobe door, forward to who knows what. So I live in the present. It is Tuesday, don’t think about results on Friday. What shall I do? I am normally a voracious, swallowing books at a sitting and ignoring the ironing reader, but I can’t seem to concentrate. The news on the television makes me cry.
I become obsessed with getting to the conservatory. I know I can reach the bottom of the stairs but I don’t think I can go any further. Ian says he will find me a wheelchair so we shuffle as far as I can go, getting all the way down the stairs. He wheels me the rest of the way.
In a couple of months when I come back for my check up I will come into the hospital this way and be amazed at how short a distance it is, like an adult revisiting a childhood home and finding that the hiding place at the end of the garden is not at a secret magic distance, but just across from the kitchen window, in full view of Mum all the time.
The conservatory sits in a garden at the centre of the hospital. It is winter but there is loads to see: a mound of skimmia, with glossy green leaves and red berries like Christmas; shoots piercing the earth which look like crocus; the bare branches of a rose arbour; an empty crisp packet caught in the bottom of a hedge. I sit for a long time, soaking in the green.
My mother in law died a few years ago in a hospice with a wonderful garden and at the time I read that green calms, soothes and, where healing is possible, speeds healing. I believe this passionately.
Back in my room the auxiliaries come round with the trolley. I am drinking very weak tea with lots of sugar as an alternative to eating the masses of unappealing food. I like to see how they look after Ian with cups of tea and offers of sandwiches. I am sure they do this with everyone but it seems to me that they are particularly kind to him because he is always there.
Mr So and So comes back to talk about the bladder problem. They don’t really know why it happened and he says they will send me home with the catheter in and bring me back into hospital to try taking it out in a week or two. This horrifies me. Will I spend my life with a bag and a catheter? I try to tell myself that people do, people have to deal with all sorts of things, look at them out there in the corridors with their bags and their pain and their sad bald heads. There is no reason why I am any different. If they can cope so can I. But every time I look at the bag on my leg I want to cut it off.
My son and daughter in law come. She is nearly ready to stop work to have the baby and is slow and soft. They bring a bag of DVDs, romantic comedies and light hearted stuff. For the first time Ian goes off to work for a couple of hours. When he comes Chris is amazed and amused to find me watching “Ice Age”.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You are so brave, Elizabeth. I am with you on the healing power of gardens. Eden.
Posted by EdenEising
March 07, 2007 11:15 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You are very brave writing this , it must be so hard reliving each moment. But I'm travelling the road with you. You write with such passion. Warmest wishes, Muddie xx
Posted by inthemud
March 07, 2007 11:20 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth-I have just caught up with yesterdays second blog. This really is compulsive reading. And I can only imagine how tough it is for you writing it. To think of what you must have gone through...Just imagining the horror of being faced with a bag and a catheter option....etc But it sounds that you have immense bravery and spirit. It is that, with the unwavering support of your family which has brought you this far. And it will now be huge therapy sharing your very personal story. You are obviously driven to have to tell it. You will then maybe be able to compartmalise that stage in your life and truly move on... I hope it will give you huge comfort to know that your CL friends are with you every step of the way... warm wishes PS My youngest one's favourite film is Ice Age x
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 07, 2007 11:20 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
hello elizabeth i to believe green is a healing i admire how strong you are enjoy iceage its a brilliant film x jep
Posted by jep
March 07, 2007 11:30 AM
I can’t look back and I can’t look forward, back to the life on the other side of the wardrobe door, forward to who knows what. So I live in the present. It is Tuesday, don’t think about results on Friday. What shall I do? I am normally a voracious, swallowing books at a sitting and ignoring the ironing reader, but I can’t seem to concentrate. The news on the television makes me cry.
I become obsessed with getting to the conservatory. I know I can reach the bottom of the stairs but I don’t think I can go any further. Ian says he will find me a wheelchair so we shuffle as far as I can go, getting all the way down the stairs. He wheels me the rest of the way.
In a couple of months when I come back for my check up I will come into the hospital this way and be amazed at how short a distance it is, like an adult revisiting a childhood home and finding that the hiding place at the end of the garden is not at a secret magic distance, but just across from the kitchen window, in full view of Mum all the time.
The conservatory sits in a garden at the centre of the hospital. It is winter but there is loads to see: a mound of skimmia, with glossy green leaves and red berries like Christmas; shoots piercing the earth which look like crocus; the bare branches of a rose arbour; an empty crisp packet caught in the bottom of a hedge. I sit for a long time, soaking in the green.
My mother in law died a few years ago in a hospice with a wonderful garden and at the time I read that green calms, soothes and, where healing is possible, speeds healing. I believe this passionately.
Back in my room the auxiliaries come round with the trolley. I am drinking very weak tea with lots of sugar as an alternative to eating the masses of unappealing food. I like to see how they look after Ian with cups of tea and offers of sandwiches. I am sure they do this with everyone but it seems to me that they are particularly kind to him because he is always there.
Mr So and So comes back to talk about the bladder problem. They don’t really know why it happened and he says they will send me home with the catheter in and bring me back into hospital to try taking it out in a week or two. This horrifies me. Will I spend my life with a bag and a catheter? I try to tell myself that people do, people have to deal with all sorts of things, look at them out there in the corridors with their bags and their pain and their sad bald heads. There is no reason why I am any different. If they can cope so can I. But every time I look at the bag on my leg I want to cut it off.
My son and daughter in law come. She is nearly ready to stop work to have the baby and is slow and soft. They bring a bag of DVDs, romantic comedies and light hearted stuff. For the first time Ian goes off to work for a couple of hours. When he comes Chris is amazed and amused to find me watching “Ice Age”.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You are so brave, Elizabeth. I am with you on the healing power of gardens. Eden.
Posted by EdenEising
March 07, 2007 11:15 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
You are very brave writing this , it must be so hard reliving each moment. But I'm travelling the road with you. You write with such passion. Warmest wishes, Muddie xx
Posted by inthemud
March 07, 2007 11:20 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth-I have just caught up with yesterdays second blog. This really is compulsive reading. And I can only imagine how tough it is for you writing it. To think of what you must have gone through...Just imagining the horror of being faced with a bag and a catheter option....etc But it sounds that you have immense bravery and spirit. It is that, with the unwavering support of your family which has brought you this far. And it will now be huge therapy sharing your very personal story. You are obviously driven to have to tell it. You will then maybe be able to compartmalise that stage in your life and truly move on... I hope it will give you huge comfort to know that your CL friends are with you every step of the way... warm wishes PS My youngest one's favourite film is Ice Age x
Posted by ChickenLicken
March 07, 2007 11:20 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
hello elizabeth i to believe green is a healing i admire how strong you are enjoy iceage its a brilliant film x jep
Posted by jep
March 07, 2007 11:30 AM
The other side of the wardrobe
January 2006
So what was happening in our beautiful old house while I was away in the world beyond the back of the wardrobe? The central heating still wasn’t working and as the days wore on, the house with its three foot thick rubblestone walls was as cold as the grave. Ian would come in late, check his emails, keep in touch with friends and family via the computer and phone while still wearing his outdoor clothes and fall into bed. The cats, four of them, perhaps objecting to a combination of our house move and being left alone for hours at a time in a darkened fridge, began soiling in the kitchen. My brother and sister arriving back after my own version of the longest day staggered back at the smell, cleared up and cleaned and lit a fire in the stove for when Ian got home. Living the dream it was not.
My sister texted me next day “You’re better off where you are.”
Human nature being what it is, the glorious euphoria of the previous night does not last. My friends from the ward make the long slow walk to see me and are shocked to find that I seem to have gone backwards. The catheter, so much my friend yesterday, now mocks me, getting in the way as I try to move, relentless in its reminder of yet another way in which my body isn’t working.
“I wouldn’t mind having one fitted when I am watching the six nations,” says my rugby loving son. “You always want to go at the wrong time.”
I glare at him.
Mr So and So comes to see me. He has missed the drama of the previous few days away performing his magic at another hospital. “I’m sorry it took us a while to understand what was happening to you” he says. “Urinary retention doesn’t usually happen in women. It’s a male problem generally.” This amuses me. After a life working in a man’s world I add urinary retention to what I believe to be my only other masculine characteristic: an intense dislike of recreational shopping.
“We should have the lab results on Friday. Then we can look at what happens next.” I want to know what the possibilities are although I can see he would rather not talk theoretically. “I’m not going to throw a fit at you” I say. “I just need to start to prepare myself.” I should add at this point that I have had my hair washed and as a result am feeling less like a patient and more like a person, and a stroppy one at that. He sits down. Usually he stands, poised to stride away. “There are three possiblities: 1 the tumour was not malignant and we have removed it all. You have had a huge operation but give it six months or so and you could be back to work. 2 the tumour is malignant and you need chemotherapy 3 the tumour is malignant and you need chemotherapy and further surgery. With either of the last two options we will need to give your body some time to recover from the operation before we can go ahead with any further treatment.”
We will later find that there was a fourth option but for now I like this one, two, three approach – it must be the accountant in me. What is left of my stomach does a quick cold lurch when he says “further surgery” but I also like his matter of factness and his directness. After he has gone I find that, perhaps deliberately, he has given me such a range of alternative possible futures that my mind cannot grasp what might happen. I had better stay in the present.
They want me to eat but the menus seem huge and daunting. Ian goes out to Sainsburys and comes back with a bag of all sorts of food including a crayfish and rocket sandwich. I have a bite. It is delicious. By the third bite I have run out of steam but it is nice to be reminded that food was once a pleasure.
I love flowers and the room is full of them. Through the window all I can see is brick and concrete and barbed wire along the window sill outside to stop the pigeons landing. I am sure I would feel better if I could see green. There is a conservatory at the centre of the hospital. Maybe if I practice my walking we could get there in a few days. We shuffle down the corridor together (well I shuffle, Ian looks quite normal) and I painstakingly go downstairs. The conservatory is still uncrossable miles away but that is far enough for today. We stop, I rest, we make our way slowly back, trailing tubes. I go to sleep.
Evening visitors come. Ian sits by the bed and Chris, who wants to do medicine, is reading my notes as best he can. As well as most of my insides they have removed what is called the omentum, a layer of abdominal fat running right down from beneath the breastbone to the pelvis. "Think of it as free liposuction Mum," Chris says. How would I manage without them?
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I don't know what comments to add?I just want the happy ending. blessings jo xx
Posted by ragrug
March 06, 2007 06:59 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
My God, Elizabeth, this is compulsive reading. I am so glad that you are obviously thriving now; you write with searing honesty.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 06, 2007 07:01 PM
So what was happening in our beautiful old house while I was away in the world beyond the back of the wardrobe? The central heating still wasn’t working and as the days wore on, the house with its three foot thick rubblestone walls was as cold as the grave. Ian would come in late, check his emails, keep in touch with friends and family via the computer and phone while still wearing his outdoor clothes and fall into bed. The cats, four of them, perhaps objecting to a combination of our house move and being left alone for hours at a time in a darkened fridge, began soiling in the kitchen. My brother and sister arriving back after my own version of the longest day staggered back at the smell, cleared up and cleaned and lit a fire in the stove for when Ian got home. Living the dream it was not.
My sister texted me next day “You’re better off where you are.”
Human nature being what it is, the glorious euphoria of the previous night does not last. My friends from the ward make the long slow walk to see me and are shocked to find that I seem to have gone backwards. The catheter, so much my friend yesterday, now mocks me, getting in the way as I try to move, relentless in its reminder of yet another way in which my body isn’t working.
“I wouldn’t mind having one fitted when I am watching the six nations,” says my rugby loving son. “You always want to go at the wrong time.”
I glare at him.
Mr So and So comes to see me. He has missed the drama of the previous few days away performing his magic at another hospital. “I’m sorry it took us a while to understand what was happening to you” he says. “Urinary retention doesn’t usually happen in women. It’s a male problem generally.” This amuses me. After a life working in a man’s world I add urinary retention to what I believe to be my only other masculine characteristic: an intense dislike of recreational shopping.
“We should have the lab results on Friday. Then we can look at what happens next.” I want to know what the possibilities are although I can see he would rather not talk theoretically. “I’m not going to throw a fit at you” I say. “I just need to start to prepare myself.” I should add at this point that I have had my hair washed and as a result am feeling less like a patient and more like a person, and a stroppy one at that. He sits down. Usually he stands, poised to stride away. “There are three possiblities: 1 the tumour was not malignant and we have removed it all. You have had a huge operation but give it six months or so and you could be back to work. 2 the tumour is malignant and you need chemotherapy 3 the tumour is malignant and you need chemotherapy and further surgery. With either of the last two options we will need to give your body some time to recover from the operation before we can go ahead with any further treatment.”
We will later find that there was a fourth option but for now I like this one, two, three approach – it must be the accountant in me. What is left of my stomach does a quick cold lurch when he says “further surgery” but I also like his matter of factness and his directness. After he has gone I find that, perhaps deliberately, he has given me such a range of alternative possible futures that my mind cannot grasp what might happen. I had better stay in the present.
They want me to eat but the menus seem huge and daunting. Ian goes out to Sainsburys and comes back with a bag of all sorts of food including a crayfish and rocket sandwich. I have a bite. It is delicious. By the third bite I have run out of steam but it is nice to be reminded that food was once a pleasure.
I love flowers and the room is full of them. Through the window all I can see is brick and concrete and barbed wire along the window sill outside to stop the pigeons landing. I am sure I would feel better if I could see green. There is a conservatory at the centre of the hospital. Maybe if I practice my walking we could get there in a few days. We shuffle down the corridor together (well I shuffle, Ian looks quite normal) and I painstakingly go downstairs. The conservatory is still uncrossable miles away but that is far enough for today. We stop, I rest, we make our way slowly back, trailing tubes. I go to sleep.
Evening visitors come. Ian sits by the bed and Chris, who wants to do medicine, is reading my notes as best he can. As well as most of my insides they have removed what is called the omentum, a layer of abdominal fat running right down from beneath the breastbone to the pelvis. "Think of it as free liposuction Mum," Chris says. How would I manage without them?
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
I don't know what comments to add?I just want the happy ending. blessings jo xx
Posted by ragrug
March 06, 2007 06:59 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
My God, Elizabeth, this is compulsive reading. I am so glad that you are obviously thriving now; you write with searing honesty.
Posted by suffolkmum
March 06, 2007 07:01 PM
The hardest day
Well, this is the big one. The hardest day. I am not sure I can write about it but if I can it is probably the day that most needs exorcising.
Friday 13th January 2006 Ian comes as soon as I call but it is still an hour and a half. When he arrives I am lying face down on the bed. He goes for a nurse and once again I am given the pain killers I am written up for. As they begin to kick in I struggle to sit up. My daughters are coming this morning and I want to be ok but as the morning wears on everything comes to pieces.
I drift in and out of awareness with a nightmare of falling into deep water always waiting to suck me in. The pain is a seething black whirlpool. It closes over my head and I struggle back to the surface again and again. I retch and retch but it is so long since I have eaten I can only raise spots of yellow green bile. The pain is so bad I bite my own hand. I sit on the edge of the bed beside Ian with his arm around my shoulders. I feel as if his warmth and solidity are the only things keeping me in any way in touch with the world.
Again and again he goes out to speak to a nurse. When he is not in the room there is no need to keep my eyes open. He returns and my daughters appear at the door. I can see their shocked faces and I long to talk to them but I cannot. “Perhaps just go and have a coffee for half an hour” he suggests.
My sister and brother appear, I don’t know how much later, and again he gently shepherds them away. Again he sits beside me. “Just hold on, just keep on holding on. Someone’s coming.”
I catch sight of myself in the mirror opposite the bed. My skin is grey, my eyes hollowed in their sockets, my lips have all but disappeared. An ancient face looks at me, unrecognisable. I feel I am seeing my face on the day of my death. The skull shouts from beneath the skin. I catch Ian’s eye and for the first time I can see fear in his face. I know he has felt fear but he has contained it in front of me. He has been my rock, my anchor, my place of safety. He bends his head to kiss my hair which is plastered to my skull. He holds the bowl as I am sick again.
I think that if this does not change I can see that there might come a time when it would be better not to carry on as there seems so little of me left. This day is to change forever my feeling about euthanasia and living wills.
“I’m still in here,” I whisper to Ian.
“I know, hold my hand.”
Mr Such and Such comes into the room. Again he is calm and kind, immaculate in dark suit and silk tie, but his movements are swift and purposeful as he examines me. “I’m going to put you back on a drip. When that has settled you down a bit, we had better do another CT scan to see what is going on. We’re going to have trouble getting into the vein here. I’ll send for a specialist nurse. Don’t worry. We’ll sort this out.”
With the drip up the worst of the nausea recedes, the pain levels out and I can speak again. The girls come in and take turns to hold my free hand. They are so young and vivid and beautiful I can hardly believe how lovely they are. In some sort of way I must have had some of that when I was young and yet I never really felt it. I was always far too aware of all my flaws. What a waste I think. “Do you know how very beautiful you are?” I ask them. “Yeah, yeah” they say. They smile at each other shakily over my head. “Are you delirious Mum?”
I close my eyes and they go away again. A porter appears with a wheel chair to take me down for the scan. Ian walks beside wheeling the drip stand. We have to stop for me to be sick again.
Back in my room, Mr Such and Such reappears. “For some reason you are in urinary retention. We will have the put the catheter back in.” All the tubes I had lost, all coming back again, and yet within an hour of the catheter being reinserted (this is not something to fear, believe it or not) the black water recedes and I feel like myself again.
My sister and brother come into the room. It is wonderful to see them but I am overwhelmed by their vitality and energy. I feel myself on the edge of sleep.
When Chris has been and Ian has at length said goodnight I am wired and awake, riding high on a wave of euphoria. For a second night I do not sleep at all. There is a full moon visible through the hospital window and all night long my bed and I fly in the moonlight, my head full of my family, the life force singing in my veins.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Just found your blog and have been very moved by it. I am in mid- Wales, not too far away from you. I will be thinking of you and send you warmest wishes for your recovery. Sounds like you have a lovely family.
Posted by Cait
March 05, 2007 10:22 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Having read the first 2 blogs, I have just read the story of courage and family strength. I do so hope that writing it all down has helped to 'sort your mind'. A year on must be good. I shall read your blogs as first call in furure. You will bwe in my prayers along with In the mud. Must go and see if there are any of hers lately.
Posted by Withy Brook
March 05, 2007 10:34 PM
Friday 13th January 2006 Ian comes as soon as I call but it is still an hour and a half. When he arrives I am lying face down on the bed. He goes for a nurse and once again I am given the pain killers I am written up for. As they begin to kick in I struggle to sit up. My daughters are coming this morning and I want to be ok but as the morning wears on everything comes to pieces.
I drift in and out of awareness with a nightmare of falling into deep water always waiting to suck me in. The pain is a seething black whirlpool. It closes over my head and I struggle back to the surface again and again. I retch and retch but it is so long since I have eaten I can only raise spots of yellow green bile. The pain is so bad I bite my own hand. I sit on the edge of the bed beside Ian with his arm around my shoulders. I feel as if his warmth and solidity are the only things keeping me in any way in touch with the world.
Again and again he goes out to speak to a nurse. When he is not in the room there is no need to keep my eyes open. He returns and my daughters appear at the door. I can see their shocked faces and I long to talk to them but I cannot. “Perhaps just go and have a coffee for half an hour” he suggests.
My sister and brother appear, I don’t know how much later, and again he gently shepherds them away. Again he sits beside me. “Just hold on, just keep on holding on. Someone’s coming.”
I catch sight of myself in the mirror opposite the bed. My skin is grey, my eyes hollowed in their sockets, my lips have all but disappeared. An ancient face looks at me, unrecognisable. I feel I am seeing my face on the day of my death. The skull shouts from beneath the skin. I catch Ian’s eye and for the first time I can see fear in his face. I know he has felt fear but he has contained it in front of me. He has been my rock, my anchor, my place of safety. He bends his head to kiss my hair which is plastered to my skull. He holds the bowl as I am sick again.
I think that if this does not change I can see that there might come a time when it would be better not to carry on as there seems so little of me left. This day is to change forever my feeling about euthanasia and living wills.
“I’m still in here,” I whisper to Ian.
“I know, hold my hand.”
Mr Such and Such comes into the room. Again he is calm and kind, immaculate in dark suit and silk tie, but his movements are swift and purposeful as he examines me. “I’m going to put you back on a drip. When that has settled you down a bit, we had better do another CT scan to see what is going on. We’re going to have trouble getting into the vein here. I’ll send for a specialist nurse. Don’t worry. We’ll sort this out.”
With the drip up the worst of the nausea recedes, the pain levels out and I can speak again. The girls come in and take turns to hold my free hand. They are so young and vivid and beautiful I can hardly believe how lovely they are. In some sort of way I must have had some of that when I was young and yet I never really felt it. I was always far too aware of all my flaws. What a waste I think. “Do you know how very beautiful you are?” I ask them. “Yeah, yeah” they say. They smile at each other shakily over my head. “Are you delirious Mum?”
I close my eyes and they go away again. A porter appears with a wheel chair to take me down for the scan. Ian walks beside wheeling the drip stand. We have to stop for me to be sick again.
Back in my room, Mr Such and Such reappears. “For some reason you are in urinary retention. We will have the put the catheter back in.” All the tubes I had lost, all coming back again, and yet within an hour of the catheter being reinserted (this is not something to fear, believe it or not) the black water recedes and I feel like myself again.
My sister and brother come into the room. It is wonderful to see them but I am overwhelmed by their vitality and energy. I feel myself on the edge of sleep.
When Chris has been and Ian has at length said goodnight I am wired and awake, riding high on a wave of euphoria. For a second night I do not sleep at all. There is a full moon visible through the hospital window and all night long my bed and I fly in the moonlight, my head full of my family, the life force singing in my veins.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Just found your blog and have been very moved by it. I am in mid- Wales, not too far away from you. I will be thinking of you and send you warmest wishes for your recovery. Sounds like you have a lovely family.
Posted by Cait
March 05, 2007 10:22 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Having read the first 2 blogs, I have just read the story of courage and family strength. I do so hope that writing it all down has helped to 'sort your mind'. A year on must be good. I shall read your blogs as first call in furure. You will bwe in my prayers along with In the mud. Must go and see if there are any of hers lately.
Posted by Withy Brook
March 05, 2007 10:34 PM
January 2006 The consultant comes every day, striding into intensive care drying his hands as he comes. There is pain now. Sadly you can't be on an epidural for ever.
"We have removed a tumour the size of a rugby ball" he says.
I am obscurely pleased about this. Husband and sons are both keen on rugby and I have spent a lot of my life stamping cold feet on touchlines. It would not have been appropriate to have a basketball shaped tumour.
"We won't have the lab results until next week." He says it is time to move to the ward. I am oddly reluctant to leave the tiny safe world of ICU. I look at the wires and tubes and dressings and know that no-one should have survived what has been done to my body but here they have kept me going.
Going into hospital is like going through the back of the wardrobe into another world. The outside world falls away as if it had never been. In here people quite normally have no hair. They walk carefully, pushing along drip stands which "boing" intermittently when the sustaining liquid gets low or carrying catheter stands, the tube looped over their arm. There is a lot of black humour and tremendous kindness, both from the staff and between patients.
In my new ward I am the youngest (doesn't happen to me that often these days) and the least experienced in the world of sickness and treatment. These women are quite simply amazing. They tell me chemotherapy is not such a big deal and that the funniest thing is that if you do lose your hair your pubic hair falls out too. One is in for her third lot of surgery in five years. She carefully does her hair and applies her makeup before her husband comes in. "My daughter is all right" she explains "but my husband finds it hard to cope if I don't look well. I can't do that much for him these days but this is no trouble."
My obsessive terror of losing my hair now begins to seem ridiculous. In one of our black desperate moments over Christmas I promised my younger son that I would take any treatment and do whatever it took to survive and I will.
My parents come to see me. My tubes and wires have been reduced by a half but Ian has warned them what to expect. Still they haven't been here through the last five days - they live in Devon - and I can see they are shocked.
After another day distinguished by getting out of bed and shuffling along like a 90 year old (round of applause and cries of "Go, Liz!" from the other beds) the nurse comes and says I am to be moved to the private wing - medical insurance again. I don't want to go and ask if I can stay here. This is clearly not allowed. Ian is allowed to push the wheelchair and we decamp.
It is lonely in the private room and I miss the chat and silly jokes. Once again Ian stays all day. An auxilliary helps to set up all the cards we have brought with us from the ward. There are ranks and ranks of them and when she goes out to get us a cup of tea the draught from the door knocks them all down again. I love these cards. They make me feel warm. Every time I get another one, some from people I do not know well and who surprise me by sending them, I feel like there is another person in the invisible army behind me fighting my fight.
Chris comes and Simon again. I can see that as well as looking after me, my son Chris is looking after Ian, releasing him from his self appointed task of not leaving me alone and sending him away for some much needed sleep. I read other people's blogs and am reminded so vividly of the trials, boredom and drama of raising children. It seems only a couple of years since the baby pooed in the bath he was sharing with the toddler, the toddler screaming and protesting. The baby was swooped out, toddler calmed and baby then crawls away and poohs on the landing.
Now these children are kind, calm, intelligent people holding my hand and providing me with love and reassurance. Hang on in there all you parents out there is all I can say. It may take a while but you get back what you give in spades.
Friday will be a week after my operation and my daughters are coming up to see me. My brother and sister are also driving up from Devon. I had planned their visits to be at a time when I should be beginning to be more human and I am longing to see them all.
In the night I wake from a fitful sleep in a lot of pain. The nurse gives me what is prescribed. Within an hour I am chewing my pillow. "No, no more. We can't give you any more unless the doctor sees you again." By four in the morning I am sobbing with it. This isn't fair. I thought I had done the worst bit. A junior doctor looking nearly as ill as I do comes and a nurse adminsters more pain killers. At half past six I ring Ian at home. "This isn't good. Can you come?" A week in, when I am supposed to be getting better, everything is going downhill.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Good luck to you girl. thinking of you and all your family. And keep us all informed. A diary is a great form of alternative therapy.
Posted by @themill
March 04, 2007 10:44 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth your blog is amazing. Like a good drama it is hard to read but complusive. I know it's not a drama it's real and I send you my very best wishes and thoughts.
Posted by toady
March 04, 2007 11:01 AM
"We have removed a tumour the size of a rugby ball" he says.
I am obscurely pleased about this. Husband and sons are both keen on rugby and I have spent a lot of my life stamping cold feet on touchlines. It would not have been appropriate to have a basketball shaped tumour.
"We won't have the lab results until next week." He says it is time to move to the ward. I am oddly reluctant to leave the tiny safe world of ICU. I look at the wires and tubes and dressings and know that no-one should have survived what has been done to my body but here they have kept me going.
Going into hospital is like going through the back of the wardrobe into another world. The outside world falls away as if it had never been. In here people quite normally have no hair. They walk carefully, pushing along drip stands which "boing" intermittently when the sustaining liquid gets low or carrying catheter stands, the tube looped over their arm. There is a lot of black humour and tremendous kindness, both from the staff and between patients.
In my new ward I am the youngest (doesn't happen to me that often these days) and the least experienced in the world of sickness and treatment. These women are quite simply amazing. They tell me chemotherapy is not such a big deal and that the funniest thing is that if you do lose your hair your pubic hair falls out too. One is in for her third lot of surgery in five years. She carefully does her hair and applies her makeup before her husband comes in. "My daughter is all right" she explains "but my husband finds it hard to cope if I don't look well. I can't do that much for him these days but this is no trouble."
My obsessive terror of losing my hair now begins to seem ridiculous. In one of our black desperate moments over Christmas I promised my younger son that I would take any treatment and do whatever it took to survive and I will.
My parents come to see me. My tubes and wires have been reduced by a half but Ian has warned them what to expect. Still they haven't been here through the last five days - they live in Devon - and I can see they are shocked.
After another day distinguished by getting out of bed and shuffling along like a 90 year old (round of applause and cries of "Go, Liz!" from the other beds) the nurse comes and says I am to be moved to the private wing - medical insurance again. I don't want to go and ask if I can stay here. This is clearly not allowed. Ian is allowed to push the wheelchair and we decamp.
It is lonely in the private room and I miss the chat and silly jokes. Once again Ian stays all day. An auxilliary helps to set up all the cards we have brought with us from the ward. There are ranks and ranks of them and when she goes out to get us a cup of tea the draught from the door knocks them all down again. I love these cards. They make me feel warm. Every time I get another one, some from people I do not know well and who surprise me by sending them, I feel like there is another person in the invisible army behind me fighting my fight.
Chris comes and Simon again. I can see that as well as looking after me, my son Chris is looking after Ian, releasing him from his self appointed task of not leaving me alone and sending him away for some much needed sleep. I read other people's blogs and am reminded so vividly of the trials, boredom and drama of raising children. It seems only a couple of years since the baby pooed in the bath he was sharing with the toddler, the toddler screaming and protesting. The baby was swooped out, toddler calmed and baby then crawls away and poohs on the landing.
Now these children are kind, calm, intelligent people holding my hand and providing me with love and reassurance. Hang on in there all you parents out there is all I can say. It may take a while but you get back what you give in spades.
Friday will be a week after my operation and my daughters are coming up to see me. My brother and sister are also driving up from Devon. I had planned their visits to be at a time when I should be beginning to be more human and I am longing to see them all.
In the night I wake from a fitful sleep in a lot of pain. The nurse gives me what is prescribed. Within an hour I am chewing my pillow. "No, no more. We can't give you any more unless the doctor sees you again." By four in the morning I am sobbing with it. This isn't fair. I thought I had done the worst bit. A junior doctor looking nearly as ill as I do comes and a nurse adminsters more pain killers. At half past six I ring Ian at home. "This isn't good. Can you come?" A week in, when I am supposed to be getting better, everything is going downhill.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Good luck to you girl. thinking of you and all your family. And keep us all informed. A diary is a great form of alternative therapy.
Posted by @themill
March 04, 2007 10:44 AM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth your blog is amazing. Like a good drama it is hard to read but complusive. I know it's not a drama it's real and I send you my very best wishes and thoughts.
Posted by toady
March 04, 2007 11:01 AM
January 2006
January 2006 Two days before I am supposed to go into hospital, the central heating packs up. Why does life do this? You would have thought it would leave us alone just now. Fortunately country houses are more complicated beasts than their town cousins and with stoves and fires and electric blankets we get by.
We go to M&S with my daughter and buy new nighties. Ian clearly does not understand how or why this might help.
We drive into Manchester the day before my operation. As we leave home it is a cold, cold day. Away from the stove the flagstone floor strikes so cold I can feel it through the soles of my shoes and in the kitchen I can see my breath.
At the Christie a series of people pass by my bed. There is Mr So and So, focussed, brisk, radiating good health and competence. That's ok. You don't want a tentative, wan surgeon. You want one like this one who looks as though he can move mountains. Then Mr Such and Such, gentler, more thoughtful, looking like a fair Hugh Grant. A specialist nurse, doubtless fantastic but somehow how out of step with me in that particular moment. Lastly another nurse, older, intelligent, sympathetic, she draws two black circles on my stomach where I might wake to find either a colostomy or an ileostomy bag. No, I didn't really know beforehand either. My face is suddenly wet with tears.
Ian stays as late as he can. After he has gone I drift in and out of a nightmare sleep. My strongest sense is of being a soldier before battle, getting ready to go over the top. I have never been tested like this. I don't want to disgrace myself.
On the day Ian is in early. He sits quietly in a chair while I rush in and out to the loo following some dreadful liquid to drink. It is going to be like this a lot for the next few weeks. I look up, there he is sitting somewhere in the same room. He is allowed to walk down next to me to the door of the operating theatre. In my head I see all my family walking along beside him.
I wake in intensive care. I have so many wires in me I am tethered to the bed but there is no pain. A nurse appears through the haze. "Tell me when you feel cold." He begins to spray me. I can see the fine spray but I feel nothing. Sudenly icy water trickles on my chest. "Now, I feel it now." He disappears to adjust the epidural.
I wake again. Ian is on one side of me and Chris on the other. "Have I got a colostomy bag?" I say. "No, no, you haven't." Later he tells me I asked him this a dozen times but I don't remember.
I wake again. Ian is still there and my first husband, Simon, is on the other side. He is a doctor and he has been massively supportive, coping with my "just explain to me" phone calls and supporting Ian too. I try to turn my head. I would really like to be able to express my sense that, in a world very ready to dismiss men and to bewail the state of manhood, my men, including my sons, are extraordinary - strong and whole and wonderful - but I can't find the energy or the words.
I am four days in intensive care. The nursing is quite phenomenal and as I become more aware I watch in awe as they move from bed to bed, checking machinery, adjusting dosages, yet still somehow making me feel they see the person as well as the technology. A young doctor walks across the ward. Her heeled boots click on the hard floor and I think from a great distance that I used to be able to do that. It seems like another life.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth, hi - I have only just found your blog (not usually on this late!) and hve been very moved by your account adn your bravery.... I think that blogging can be hugely therapeutic - not sure how or why but it just is - and I don't think you could have found a more caring, generous bunch of people than those here with whom to share your story..... love and prayers. janex
Posted by exmoorjane
March 03, 2007 11:41 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Thank you Jane. Yes it is therapeutic. the funniest thing is that I feel it makes me seem like a very serious person and I'm not at all really - much more interested in a gossip and a glass of wine but as someone says somewhere else on these blogs like is not all beautiful sunrises and daffodils.
Posted by elizabethm
March 04, 2007 09:38 AM
We go to M&S with my daughter and buy new nighties. Ian clearly does not understand how or why this might help.
We drive into Manchester the day before my operation. As we leave home it is a cold, cold day. Away from the stove the flagstone floor strikes so cold I can feel it through the soles of my shoes and in the kitchen I can see my breath.
At the Christie a series of people pass by my bed. There is Mr So and So, focussed, brisk, radiating good health and competence. That's ok. You don't want a tentative, wan surgeon. You want one like this one who looks as though he can move mountains. Then Mr Such and Such, gentler, more thoughtful, looking like a fair Hugh Grant. A specialist nurse, doubtless fantastic but somehow how out of step with me in that particular moment. Lastly another nurse, older, intelligent, sympathetic, she draws two black circles on my stomach where I might wake to find either a colostomy or an ileostomy bag. No, I didn't really know beforehand either. My face is suddenly wet with tears.
Ian stays as late as he can. After he has gone I drift in and out of a nightmare sleep. My strongest sense is of being a soldier before battle, getting ready to go over the top. I have never been tested like this. I don't want to disgrace myself.
On the day Ian is in early. He sits quietly in a chair while I rush in and out to the loo following some dreadful liquid to drink. It is going to be like this a lot for the next few weeks. I look up, there he is sitting somewhere in the same room. He is allowed to walk down next to me to the door of the operating theatre. In my head I see all my family walking along beside him.
I wake in intensive care. I have so many wires in me I am tethered to the bed but there is no pain. A nurse appears through the haze. "Tell me when you feel cold." He begins to spray me. I can see the fine spray but I feel nothing. Sudenly icy water trickles on my chest. "Now, I feel it now." He disappears to adjust the epidural.
I wake again. Ian is on one side of me and Chris on the other. "Have I got a colostomy bag?" I say. "No, no, you haven't." Later he tells me I asked him this a dozen times but I don't remember.
I wake again. Ian is still there and my first husband, Simon, is on the other side. He is a doctor and he has been massively supportive, coping with my "just explain to me" phone calls and supporting Ian too. I try to turn my head. I would really like to be able to express my sense that, in a world very ready to dismiss men and to bewail the state of manhood, my men, including my sons, are extraordinary - strong and whole and wonderful - but I can't find the energy or the words.
I am four days in intensive care. The nursing is quite phenomenal and as I become more aware I watch in awe as they move from bed to bed, checking machinery, adjusting dosages, yet still somehow making me feel they see the person as well as the technology. A young doctor walks across the ward. Her heeled boots click on the hard floor and I think from a great distance that I used to be able to do that. It seems like another life.
Recent Comments
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Elizabeth, hi - I have only just found your blog (not usually on this late!) and hve been very moved by your account adn your bravery.... I think that blogging can be hugely therapeutic - not sure how or why but it just is - and I don't think you could have found a more caring, generous bunch of people than those here with whom to share your story..... love and prayers. janex
Posted by exmoorjane
March 03, 2007 11:41 PM
Life in the Welsh hills (and on the train)
Thank you Jane. Yes it is therapeutic. the funniest thing is that I feel it makes me seem like a very serious person and I'm not at all really - much more interested in a gossip and a glass of wine but as someone says somewhere else on these blogs like is not all beautiful sunrises and daffodils.
Posted by elizabethm
March 04, 2007 09:38 AM
Christmas 2005
Christmas 2005
It was a strange Christmas. My older daughter and her now husband were in Morocco but everyone else was home. My younger daughter took over the cooking and produced a full works Christmas meal. There were some tears but you can't cry all the time and there was some laughter as well. My daughter in law was six months pregnant and when we sat together it was as if the thing inside me was growing by the day and our profiles were identical. I tried not to think about the sense that my body was out of control. Her shape was ripe and natural and beautiful. Mine was all wrong.
Sometimes out of the blue I was brought to my knees by fear. On Boxing Day I rang and talked to my mother. I was so frightened. She is 72 and I was 51 but I wept like a three year old. Down the phone I felt how desperate she was to make it right and I struggled to control myself. Perhaps you never grow out of the feeling that your mother can make everything all right.
On the day after Boxing Day I went for my MRI scan. This was much more intimidating than the CT scan. I closed my eyes in the noisy white coffin shaped box and thought of nothing.
On the Friday we went to see the surgeon. He was friendly, brisk, confident. "You have a very large tumour. We need to operate as soon as we can. Until we operate we won't know exactly what we are dealing with. In the majority of cases further treatment is necessary."
"Do you mean chemotherapy?"
"Probably. Let's take it a step at a time. I can operate in a week's time."
I had always had a horror of chemotherapy because of the thought of losing my hair. Since primary school I have been able to read upside down and I began reading the report from the MRI scan on the desk in front of him. He smiled and turned it round so I could see it the right way up. "Probably stage 3" leapt out at me. The downside of the wonders of the internet is that it lets you access knowledge that would otherwise be hard to find. I had read about ovarian cancer in the preceeding week and I knew that Stage 3 cancer has a 35% five year survival rate. I sat very still. Distantly I heard my husband's voice asking sensible, courteous questions. Dear God, I thought, I haven't finished yet.
We drove back in silence. From time to time Ian put his hand on mine. For New Year we really had a full house with my older daughter and boyfriend back from Marrakesh. As soon as the children had seen the field they had said we should have a bonfire at New Year and my older son had brought fireworks. I watched the firelight on my family's faces and felt the scale of the darkness stretching beyond the circle of light away into the black hills and then, too ill and tired to stand outside for long, sat in the cottage window and tried to think of nothing.
It was a strange Christmas. My older daughter and her now husband were in Morocco but everyone else was home. My younger daughter took over the cooking and produced a full works Christmas meal. There were some tears but you can't cry all the time and there was some laughter as well. My daughter in law was six months pregnant and when we sat together it was as if the thing inside me was growing by the day and our profiles were identical. I tried not to think about the sense that my body was out of control. Her shape was ripe and natural and beautiful. Mine was all wrong.
Sometimes out of the blue I was brought to my knees by fear. On Boxing Day I rang and talked to my mother. I was so frightened. She is 72 and I was 51 but I wept like a three year old. Down the phone I felt how desperate she was to make it right and I struggled to control myself. Perhaps you never grow out of the feeling that your mother can make everything all right.
On the day after Boxing Day I went for my MRI scan. This was much more intimidating than the CT scan. I closed my eyes in the noisy white coffin shaped box and thought of nothing.
On the Friday we went to see the surgeon. He was friendly, brisk, confident. "You have a very large tumour. We need to operate as soon as we can. Until we operate we won't know exactly what we are dealing with. In the majority of cases further treatment is necessary."
"Do you mean chemotherapy?"
"Probably. Let's take it a step at a time. I can operate in a week's time."
I had always had a horror of chemotherapy because of the thought of losing my hair. Since primary school I have been able to read upside down and I began reading the report from the MRI scan on the desk in front of him. He smiled and turned it round so I could see it the right way up. "Probably stage 3" leapt out at me. The downside of the wonders of the internet is that it lets you access knowledge that would otherwise be hard to find. I had read about ovarian cancer in the preceeding week and I knew that Stage 3 cancer has a 35% five year survival rate. I sat very still. Distantly I heard my husband's voice asking sensible, courteous questions. Dear God, I thought, I haven't finished yet.
We drove back in silence. From time to time Ian put his hand on mine. For New Year we really had a full house with my older daughter and boyfriend back from Marrakesh. As soon as the children had seen the field they had said we should have a bonfire at New Year and my older son had brought fireworks. I watched the firelight on my family's faces and felt the scale of the darkness stretching beyond the circle of light away into the black hills and then, too ill and tired to stand outside for long, sat in the cottage window and tried to think of nothing.
Diagnosis
Fifteen months ago on a beautiful bright winter morning I stood under the yew tree looking out across the valley and refused to believe I could be ill. I was already seeing a consultant having spent months before the big move to the country feeling bloated and uncomfortable. I had a gastroscopy just before we moved and was supposed to be having a colonoscopy a couple of weeks after. "Mmm," said my son, "coming at it from both ends."
So when I woke that morning in early December and knew I couldn't make it to work I thought that whatever was going on would soon become clear. I traipsed back into Manchester for the colonoscopy and had an appointment booked for the results on the 21st December, just before Christmas.
I loved my new house but was too tired to do anything in it but sit by the fire. I couldn't really eat (utterly unheard of, I am the sort who responds to any of life's challenges by thinking I'll feel better for something to eat) so I had lost a lot of weight while at the same time my stomach swelled alarmingly.
Ian drove me to the hospital. It was a cold wet December day and I was wearing a big winter coat. I sat in the consultant's office. "Well, I am pleased to tell you that the tests show nothing wrong," he said.
"Can I show you something before we go any further?" I stood up, slipping my coat off and turning sideways to him to reveal the bulge.
His voice stayed steady but he paled. "Just lie down on the couch please."
When he had finished examining me he said "Is there anybody with you?"
"Yes, my husband. He's waiting in the car."
"You might like to ask him to come in."
We sat together. Ian reached for my hand.
"As I said, the gastroscopy and the colonoscopy were normal, which is good. You do however appear to have some sort of growth. I am going to arrange for you to have a scan to establish what is going on."
The following morning we were back for the CT scan. The radiologist was circumspect. "I will speak to your consultant and he will ring you."
We had barely got back through the door (well, the journey takes an hour and a half) when the phone rang. It was the consultant. "There is a sizeable growth. I am referring you to Mr So and So at the Christie. I appreciate that it is the day before Christmas Eve but I recommend you try to speak to someone today." The Christie is Manchester's cancer hospital. "Mr So and So is a surgeon who deals with ovarian cancer. He is the best in the region. If my wife had your condition I would want him to see her. Let me know if you have difficulty getting to speak to him."
I put the phone down and repeated the conversation to Ian and Chris, my son. I was calm and disbelieving and picked up the phone again. I rang the number for the surgeon and got a cheery answerphone message "We are now off for Christmas and the New Year. Merry Christmas to you all." I put down the phone and my voice shook. "It really sounds as though I should speak to someone. I don't know what to do."
Chris made me a cup of tea and Ian went into unstoppable mode. Via the internet, he tracked down the surgeon's NHS secretary. As I had health insurance through work we had been given a number for this private work. He tracked him through various hospitals. Finally he reached the Christie. Mr So and So had left. He would not be in until after Christmas. Ian is not a man to take no for an answer and somehow I looked up and he was talking to the surgeon on his car phone, driving to pick up his parents for Christmas. He was reassuring in a panic inducing kind of way. "I will see your wife next week. She will need to have an MRI scan before I see her. We will do that next Wednesday. In the meantime if she has difficulty breathing go direct to the Christie. Don't worry. We will look after her."
We sat round the table. It was the day before Christmas Eve. The rest of the family were arriving tomorrow.
So when I woke that morning in early December and knew I couldn't make it to work I thought that whatever was going on would soon become clear. I traipsed back into Manchester for the colonoscopy and had an appointment booked for the results on the 21st December, just before Christmas.
I loved my new house but was too tired to do anything in it but sit by the fire. I couldn't really eat (utterly unheard of, I am the sort who responds to any of life's challenges by thinking I'll feel better for something to eat) so I had lost a lot of weight while at the same time my stomach swelled alarmingly.
Ian drove me to the hospital. It was a cold wet December day and I was wearing a big winter coat. I sat in the consultant's office. "Well, I am pleased to tell you that the tests show nothing wrong," he said.
"Can I show you something before we go any further?" I stood up, slipping my coat off and turning sideways to him to reveal the bulge.
His voice stayed steady but he paled. "Just lie down on the couch please."
When he had finished examining me he said "Is there anybody with you?"
"Yes, my husband. He's waiting in the car."
"You might like to ask him to come in."
We sat together. Ian reached for my hand.
"As I said, the gastroscopy and the colonoscopy were normal, which is good. You do however appear to have some sort of growth. I am going to arrange for you to have a scan to establish what is going on."
The following morning we were back for the CT scan. The radiologist was circumspect. "I will speak to your consultant and he will ring you."
We had barely got back through the door (well, the journey takes an hour and a half) when the phone rang. It was the consultant. "There is a sizeable growth. I am referring you to Mr So and So at the Christie. I appreciate that it is the day before Christmas Eve but I recommend you try to speak to someone today." The Christie is Manchester's cancer hospital. "Mr So and So is a surgeon who deals with ovarian cancer. He is the best in the region. If my wife had your condition I would want him to see her. Let me know if you have difficulty getting to speak to him."
I put the phone down and repeated the conversation to Ian and Chris, my son. I was calm and disbelieving and picked up the phone again. I rang the number for the surgeon and got a cheery answerphone message "We are now off for Christmas and the New Year. Merry Christmas to you all." I put down the phone and my voice shook. "It really sounds as though I should speak to someone. I don't know what to do."
Chris made me a cup of tea and Ian went into unstoppable mode. Via the internet, he tracked down the surgeon's NHS secretary. As I had health insurance through work we had been given a number for this private work. He tracked him through various hospitals. Finally he reached the Christie. Mr So and So had left. He would not be in until after Christmas. Ian is not a man to take no for an answer and somehow I looked up and he was talking to the surgeon on his car phone, driving to pick up his parents for Christmas. He was reassuring in a panic inducing kind of way. "I will see your wife next week. She will need to have an MRI scan before I see her. We will do that next Wednesday. In the meantime if she has difficulty breathing go direct to the Christie. Don't worry. We will look after her."
We sat round the table. It was the day before Christmas Eve. The rest of the family were arriving tomorrow.
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