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

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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

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

Funny where things can go

OK so well we all know this, in families sometimes things can go somewhere you don’t expect. Tonight I didn’t expect that smallboy (tired, just home from gymnastics) trying to load a ‘pay as you go’ credit would result in everyone (I mean all four of us) in tears. Major drama, shouting, crying, stomping. OMG I called my suffering, sore, scared, cancer patient husband a lot of horrible names, the most printable of which was a ‘grumpy f**k’, whoops! Heyho, I guess its all part of keeping things normal (I hope). Just so you know, we have a 10 minute fester rule in our house, so it was all soon sorted, including the phone code. Teengirl (having recovered from being kicked in the face) even allowed him to use her best loved product in a much needed bath. So they are all sleeping now, and maybe the evening’s drama might even have a bright side or two. Teengirl had her first shared damn good cry about how shite everything is (and managed to tuck in a D grade chemistry test result, she’s good), I didn’t join in with the weeping at that point, and even  managed to be slightly adult in my support, consolation and chemistry based feedback. Oh, the other bright side has been a flash of creativity. Funny where things take you, like me writing this but not being able to work on any of my crochet. So, anyway I mentioned to teengirl that I wanted a tattoo with our names on, she said it was too pikey, but that something to represent each of us would be fine. So, my design is almost done, just need to find the right artist. I will post a photo when its done. So where will things go? Me and Jase had a good chat about the next few days, his fears about surgery, I think he would cope better if they were giving him a local, all that loss of control is really hard to come to terms with. His fears are this week, mine are next. Its funny where things end up, I’m hopeful that for no matter what, we are better and stronger and even sometimes kinder to each other because of it xxx

Someone has stolen my brain

Someone stole my brain in the night last night. I feel like it is totally absent. So I have taken to writing myself detailed daily schedules, with timings for everything, as I’m sure otherwise everyday will be like today, including periods of standing and not having a clue what I’m supposed to be doing next.

Last Friday night Jase had another bleed and had to be readmitted. I ended up calling an ambulance as I had had some wine (ARGH!!! – I hate that guilt fairy). It was so horrible seeing him in so much pain and discomfort. Luckily the children were sleeping and we had some of his family staying, so Stef could go with him.

He was home by Monday night and had a good nights sleep. Tuesday was pre-op. It was all fine, but totally floored him, in an ‘oh my goodness, there is nothing to do to change what is happening’ kind of a way. I can remember feeling like that when I went into labour with Teengirl – the ‘this is going to happen whether I like it or not’ feeling.

So now things are a bit calmer, I took the squibs to the local cancer care day centre, so they could discover what support there is there for them. Went OK I think, apart from me weeping continuously, choking on my brew and having to leave the room to puke. Teengirl is dining out on this, told everyone in the pub where Jase was having his tea with a friend who had popped up from Oxfordshire to see him today. She was in fits of hysteria. I love her so much 🙂

Jase and the small boy have gone to bed now, I just need to grow a new brain by the morning, big day at work tomorrow, night all xx

Bugger all that positivity

I feel shite. OK I have been educated to know absolutely that bad language is often a mask for a poor vocabulary, but needs must. The last few days have been just awful, but for no particular reason. We still a date for Jason’s op, we have date for his pre-op, but we are really struggling. I am really struggling. Small boy is really struggling. Even Jase and teengirl are struggling (although she has been a star, more of which later).

So nothing has changed, maybe this is the problem. We are only a couple of weeks in and I’m struggling. How did my brother do this for FIVE years? (Three Hodgekin’s lymphomas, five years, final call of terminal cancer beaten and now all fine, been clear for 18 years now).

OK enough with the mud gazing (a favourite saying of a good friend of mine, ‘at times life puts us all in the mud, but its up to you if you choose to look down in the mud or up at the stars’). I think it might be all down to chemistry. We have  been running the adrenelin high, and now it has run out on us. We are  weary.

So maybe a bit more mud-gazing. Smallboy is really struggling at school. In their heart felt efforts to keep everything as normal as possible, no one had asked him how he was. Lots of tears and some visits later, we are back on the right page, but not before I enlisted teengirl to come  talk to him.  She was amazing. Laughed and cried together and made a plan. She totally nailed it for him.

Had  a good long chat with a good friend I should talk to more often, babe, its not easy xxx

Creativity gap

In the normal run of things, I end most of my days with an hour or so of crochet. At the moment I have a blanket and a cardi underway. However, over the last two weeks I have not been able to do a thing. I think its because I’m finding it really hard to sit down. I can do purposeful activity, frantic rushing around, and sleep. Sitting down is much harder, so I was really pleased earlier in the week when I managed to finish a little bower bird for my sister in law’s birthday. It’s from a pattern by lovely Lucy at Attic 24. Hmm not very impressive, but maybe its a step in the right direction.

Last night I went out to see my group of friends in the village, there was lots of presecco. Well, there was at the beginning of the evening, none left by the end I think 🙂 I was really nervous about going, but it was really nice, and I’m glad I did, maybe another step in the right direction. I guess this really is just our ‘new normal’.

Lifts and gifts…

There have been some uplifting moments in our rollercoaster of a week this week. These flowers were a gift from a friend of Jason’s, she was an everyday regular in his café before he sold it. I also received a fabulous parcel from my very good friend ‘The Snail of Happiness’, six balls of yarn and a magazine I had won in a raffle in April 2014 when I was visiting her. I’m glad that she had not sent it before :), although it did take me a while to recall it at all! I was hoping to post a picture of the parcel here, but being an amateur blogger, haven’t quite managed it!

Gifts and good vibes do us all good. When he was in the hospital last week (on Monday I think) Jase gave his shirt to a guy so he could be discharged, small things can be big. And after my epic sleep last night, I’m going to give myself the lift and gift of a glass of wine this evening, or maybe even two 🙂

This time last week

Life is so weird. Its really odd to think that this time last week we had no idea what was coming towards us. I was scrolling through my text messages earlier, and realised that there a bunch of texts from Jase ‘from before’, him talking about having had his scan, what time we were visiting, when the doctor was due to do a bladder wash, just ordinary stuff. It gave me such a jolt, realising that these messages were all from before we knew. I can’t quite delete them yet.

Tomorrow we are going to meet the consultant surgeon, 3pm. We have organised the squibs to be with friends after school, they are keen just to be bimbling with the friends they would usually see in any case. Jase has just gone for a snooze having had his 8pm meds. Remind me to ask him to talk to the docs about changing his dose at bed time so it lasts till the morning.

My lovely friend Melissa has given me a really helpful food list, I hope to put a bit more of it into action everyday. Hilariously, is recommends breast milk as being better than cows milk, I think that might come under Jase’s “no f***ing super-foods” list!!!