And the wheels really do just keep turning…

…for everyone. I started writing this blog to help me make a record of Mr R’s cancer (I was going to say illness then!) and also just have a place where I could verbalise some feelings, but was perturbed by some weird internet stuff, which stopped me continuing with it. This did actually make me feel like I had let people down, those people who even though I don’t know, had offered me support across the internet-waves, so to you, please accept my apologies.

So why am I back?

Well two reasons (hang on, let me just get my drink), or maybe three actually. Firstly, gosh how times flies – Teengirl is in university and is SO amazing and the boy is such a lovely young man – he is Teenboy now, just wanted to put that out there! Secondly, Mr R told a friend of his about this blog and so I thought it was only polite of me to bring it up to date and say hello to them – Hello!!! 🙂

And thirdly, well things cancer-wise have moved on. Mr R has had a bit of a rough ride this year – 2018 – and is currently recovering from surgery to remove a third of his right lung. We were at the oncologist’s today as it happens, nothing much to report, another scan and see her again on the 4th January 2019. Gosh that means we are nearly four years in. Gosh. I wish I could tell you all about the amazing things I have learnt in the mean time which have made me oh-so wise and zenlike. Hmm. Nope, we are still just one little family. I think we are calmer, more accepting, less panicable (is that a word?, wordpress says no) just trying to make the most of stuff xx

So the wheels really do keep turning, maybe soon I will be able to fill you in a bit more soon, and thank you for all your kind comments before xxx

 

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And how the wheels keep turning…

So long since I was here….

After a wonderful, if occasionally tearful, few sunny days away in Cliburn, I returned to a family totally unharmed by my absence. 

Since then, we have had the BEST news possible, a scan showing the lymph nodes unchanged, and consultations confirming no treatment needed before the end of the summer!!!!

Of course, August will bring a repeat of the scan, once every three months for the foreseeable, but no treatment needed this summer!!! It makes my heart skip every time I say it 🙂

I said my thank yous at the ancient temple of Gaia upon which the Tholos of Athena was built in Delphi x 

 

Can’t sleep won’t sleep

So here is the thing, we have been enjoying a period of calm, healthy food, early  nights and now the Easter hols for the squibs. Unfortunately small boy can’t sleep, a combination of irritating unnecessary stress put on him by school about his SATS ( grr, don’t get me started on that nonsense!) and worry about his Dad, understandable, all ideas v gratefully received xx

But here is really my thing tonight, tomorrow I am off with two of my most beloved friends for our annual two night jaunt. This ritual began many moons ago before any of us had children, was rested when they were tiny, and was then resumed in 2007 to celebrate my 40th birthday, and we have saved for and enjoyed a couple of days away together every since. We have been to France, little haven, Ghent, Ludlow, Amsterdam, Oxford, Bath..morecambe…. many places but always the same amazing time. 

This year we are heading to Cumbria, less than two hours from home for me, but I’m so scared. Jase is well at the moment, but I’m feeling nervous. My head is chocka with ‘what ifs’ of a million kind, I really don’t want to be away from my babes, so tonight I’m with small boy. Can’t sleep won’t sleep. Mine is also fuelled by my ‘mother hen’ instinct, you see if I am up then nothing bad can happen to any one in this house, untrue and exhausting I know, but too primal to change, so wish me luck, cos I’m not off to bed xx

One dragon slayed

Yesterday we had the call back appointment with Jase’s surgeon. They are confident that the tumour (a type 3 tumour – anyone know what that means? – just googled it, wished I hadn’t!) was contained within his left kidney and so it is all gone!!! They are happy with his recovery, and have said he can drive when ever he is ready. So, Dragons 0 Robinsons 1!

Our next battle approaches. Jase has been transferred to an oncology consultant, and we await *sigh* the appointment, followed by another scan in May to look at the two enlarged lymph nodes around his aorta, and then chemo starting after that.

So it looks like we need to put the next dragon in a box for a bit, get on with our lives, and make sure he is fit for the fight.

Teengirl is also going through it this week, with four one hour English controlled assessments, two teeth extractions, her grade 4 piano exam, a netball tournament, her brace fitting and a piano recital.

We are looking forward to the holidays already!

Calm, grumpiness and Jerusalem

So the boy is home, tired, smelly, but home and full of stories of fencing, climbing, canoeing, sailing, cycling, midnight walking, and helping friends struggling with homesickness. He was made up that Jase was able to be there to meet the bus, we all went for tea in the pub after, it was lovely. We have had a quiet week at home, a bit weepy for me, me working and him upstairs in bed, Teengirl nailed her grade 5 theory exam (we hope!), anyway it is done. Piano practical next week. Jase has been getting better every other day, one day of feeling better and doing a bit more, then the next day zonked out again. But getting better all the same. A little shuffle to the shop for the paper and chat with folks along the way. A trip for a pint to watch the match. So we are calm, he is grumpy when he is tired though, I think we can live with that. But we are happy in each other’s company, all of us. We have become kinder to each other, slower to criticise, we have more time to listen and take account of each other. Juggling everyday events to get everything done is proving tricky, but I’m judging success by everyone being safely home in bed by the end of the day, having (hopefully) done their stuff.

This evening we had our WI committee meeting here, it was really lovely to see everyone, hear their news, accept their help (and homemade icecream – wow!), I think I will go to the meeting on Wednesday. It is a joy to be part of such a fab group of women.

Next Monday is still in a box, keeps trying to escape, raising its lid every now and then, but not able to give away any clues. Gonna stick a brick on it.

Oh, the fire has gone out, night all xx

Crazy day

So here is the thing, I think today has been one of my worse. Selfishly, just for me. That sounds so bad. Jase has had a tricky couple of days, nasty open ‘oooo Dad I can see your insides’ days, but today has been the worst for me. Small boy and I spent the weekend packing for his week away with school, he has been SO excited. Cut to hail laiden sky, the bus arriving and him falling in the mud before getting on the bus, these little things we have learned, are the ones which send you over the edge. So there is we, me and my boy, weeping and trying to find trousers from his so neatly packed bag in the council toilets, him ” I wanna go but I can’t bear to leave Dad so poorly and you so you” and my trying to joke about not making me cry (ha ha), and having to post him in the bus all teary and red eyed and embarressed. Cut to ten minutes later when I am talking to a friend whose elderly and demented Mother is facing major surgery she is unlikely to survive, and then to me rushing to get a coffee machine to a service (?) via the pet shop and the chemist because Teengirl needs shampoo and fish food (she has no fish as far as I knew, but who knew, she acquired some at break!) F**king hell!!! Back home to find Jase making coffee for someone who had come to see how he was but  actually spent two HOURS telling  how awful his own life was, unbelievable. I sat in the front room gently weeping.  Crazy day. We knew we would have them, just weren’t expecting so many in the course of four hours!!! 

So, predictably, Teengirl breezed back home and lifted my spirits like a glass of Sancerre on a sunny day by the sea, laughed at my pain, grounded my fury, and all was well in Robinson Towers again. 

I am so lucky, crazy day, night all xx

Oh PS we have a date for next meeting, 16 March, gonna have to put that in a box till then xx

Ben’s visit, another gift x

Ben bobbed in for tea last night on his way from home to Edinburgh for work, and today he came to stay on his way to Manchester tomorrow. Jase was really happy to see him, they interact in such a natural way, its good to see. No need for much talking or many explanations, we are just glad he is here. I ranted at/to him by text the other night, I love his gentle inferred understanding without need to expand on anything now he is here.

The man is tired today, realising that he has to take things much more slowly than he thought possible.

So Ben is our gift today, but not the only one, we have feasted on a yummy lasagne cooked by the husband of one of my WI buddies. I do love my WI buddies, and the WI generally, an amazing bunch of women who spend more time campaigning for women’s rights and drinking prosecco than they do making jam. I am glad to be one of them. Good sleeping sounds upstairs so I’m off to bed, in a slightly panicy mode as I have finished my book (‘If God was a Rabbit’, highly recommended), will root out another, night all xx

He is home!

Stitched together with staples and meds, but home. What a relief. Today, on the order of teengirl, we have done sleeping, movie watching and roast chicken eating. Jase has done some shuffling about, and insisted on making the gravy, fine. Smallboy has done nursing, the drugs round (including injections, blimey) and general gwas for his dad. Elvis is feeling less confused.

They are all in bed now, and I have just spent a fantastic couple of hours on the phone to my lovely Snail. I hope that I listened as well as she did and could also offer her positivity, cheesy quote time, one I saw today, ‘your real friends might not always be by your side, but they have always got your back’, I love her for that x

So nothing else really, just relief, not thinking about anything more, just loving hearing their sleeping sounds. When we had the van, this was always my favourite part of the day, everyone in a tiny space, all that you need in a tiny space, sleeping, and together x

Chin up Mrs

Blimey. This is a boring medical update just for the record. So, with another big bleed underway, but with surgery planned for the same day, Mr R and I were up from the early hours (3f***ing30) of Wednesday  and headed into the hospital. It was a teary us who parted when they took him off to theatre at half eight, and I spent the day pacing, like an expectant 1930’s husband. I  managed to crochet a prosthetic knocker, but that, as they say, is another story. Half an hour before he was due back on the ward, they told me ‘no beds’, ‘two hours till beds’ , so I took myself off for what I then found was some very much needed fresh air. *Note to self, come the revolution, my votes will be for free easy hospital parking and some where pleasant to sit outside* – surely I cant be alone in this wish??? WHY do I have to sit on a curb in a car park??? Jase says its because somewhere to sit attracts melingerers, harrumph.

So luckily I was there when he was brought back up to the ward. So lucky, otherwise he wouldn’t have had any one to give him a drink, wash his poorly face, make him comfortable, find his morphine button for him, check his dressings, talk to the surgeon, put balm on his lips, be a nurse to him. Everyone on the ward is amazing, but they are just so stretched, it’s a bit scary. Mr R was in a lot of pain, so they brought more pain relief. I was there all afternoon, so that was good. Stef and Pops brought Smallboy and Teengirl, Mr R was most interested in his morphine pump, but he knew they were there, checking in.

So unluckily for Mr R, an unfortunate cough at about 7.45 pm caused a nasty bleed from his wound. Unfettered by platelets (constrained by anticoagulants) this proved to be rather tricky over the following 18 hours. Its all now under control, but like an unruly inmate, put pay to his hopes for an early release (Friday 20  Feb, some hope).

Further pain and bleeding  has led him to high morphine use (magic green button) and drip fed paracetamol, it’s not going well. Lots of dizziness and puking.

So here is the thing, we are where we are, us here at home, Jase there. Stef and Pops have gone, Shaun is here. Tomorrow seems a long way off, so the only thing to do is dig deep past the part of me that wants to cry and not stop, and so chin up Mrs, there is so more to do before that is on the cards, night all x

Today is a gift

Without getting too ‘ya know’ about it, today is a gift. Every day is a gift. All of us only have a finite number of breaths that we will share with each of the people we love.

Today Jase’s Dad arrived to see us, and it has been lovely to have him here. After tea and birthday cake this morning (he was 70 last week), Jase and smallboy took him off fishing with best friend of smallboy. They arrived home much later, cold, happy and with 20 small fishes caught and released (plus one mega carp). Teengirl was at work today, earning money towards her current goal – a small furry pet I think, or maybe a motorbike, it changes. Me? well no one asked how my day was actually, haha I sound SO needy! But just in case you were wondering, I cursed and swore my way around housework which no one would do but me, and no one will notice until I don’t do it. Ha ha, such is life!

So, my gift today? So many actually, small boys (young and old) fresh faced and smelling of the outdoors tumbling over their stories of gigantean fish touched but not landed, teengirl keen for a hug and wanting to share ridiculous laughs, my life’s love enveloping me with his arms and a tender kiss, a house ready to be muddied and muddled, a fridge full of good things ready to make a meal for the people I love, and a small battle won in the doctors surgery to get Mr R the medication he needed today and not tomorrow. I was invincible and triumphant.

There is so little we really need, this house would do us, night all xxx