For as long as I can remember my Mom has always been our rock. My marriage broke down and I was living in Africa while my Mom and Dad had returned to England where we had immigrated from. There was no question about it, as loving and as caring as my in-laws were I needed my Mom. I flew over in November 1997 with my son then 3 years old, we stayed with my sister until we could find a place of our own which we did pretty quickly amd with hard work and my Moms encouragment I bought the house over the road to my Mom ( I actually didnt realise we were so close she could watch my comings and goings). My Mom had always been a good listener and a calming influence on most that knew her so it was not too surprising when she opted for a career change to become a counsillor which soon turned into further ventures like reiki and hypnotherapy, She became a volunteer at STAR a rape councilling service after studying and her day job became councilling drug and alcohol abusers during the day. She did this for a few years but due to the politics and funding being diverted to where the government felt was the best fit she went back to her old job in accounts but continued with the STAR programme. It was while she was at her accounts job that she encountered some bullying tactics which was sorted once they realised the cause was ageism, this was soon resolved but had caused a very strong woman who had always stood up fro others to become a little insecure for the first time in her life. She developed a quite severe case of shingles.... My father at the time who is disabled had retired and had been scheduled for a neck operation to remove 2 vertebrae in his neck and replace them with a titanium cage (2 years after he was submitted for the operation), whilst the operation was a success the time taken to do the operation was too long and much of the dterioration was irrepairable rendering my mother a carer when she went home at nights. It was not an easy life for either of them. In February 2012 I went to my Moms to do her hair as she was going to her companies annual night out. My sister in law and I were called into the bedroom and she told us with my niece that she had triple negative breast cancer, it was very aggressive but had been caught early and she was going to fight it and was not going to die so we could all stop looking around her room to see what we would like because she was going nowhere.... this was the start of a very hard journey for my Mom..........
