Post 127: Lost and Found.
When sorrow flies into your mouth and fills you with quietness, talking is slowed until tears have flowed.
———
Tears of joy and grief beset us yesterday, but the day was honestly a good day.
Thank you 
for the replies and reactions to yesterday’s blog. There were plenty of tears of joy there — as there are right now, as my heart swells with the comfort they still give me.
I tried to get back on the (blog-writing) saddle, and I’m glad I did, but I didn’t expect such accurate assessments of my situation in reply.
You are sometimes like a mirror I need to remind myself where I’m at, and what I’m saying, after all the circles I spin in are over.
Thank you
———
Friday is always my Darling’s day out to the café and friends for lunch and chat.
The hug before she left was another very long, warm, never-let-go hug with its inevitable tears on my shoulder. Even though the ravages of time are eating away at our bones, I’ll always be nearly a foot taller than her, so the tears really fall on my chest, bless her. I don’t bend down and scoop her up as much as I used to — fragility and the lack of youthful strength put a stop to that — but I’d really like to every now and then. Especially now.
We make do with little tricks. For instance, she’ll stand on the bottom stair by the front door so we can have a good smooch when required. Ney, needed.
With carefully wiped eyes she headed off, carrying my love and hope that her friends would know what to do on this first Friday after Kev’s death.
It was going to be a warm day again, though any talk of a heatwave had blown away in the breeze. I sat out in the fresh air in “comfy rocker 2,” battling a sudoku or two until they gave way, while pondering yesterday’s new arrangements for this extra oncology meeting. While on the subject of self-advocacy, I also remembered to ask for yet another GP surgery blood test to be postponed until Friday, etc.
Then I thought about the email I’d sent to cardiology (twice — during and after my cardiologist’s annual leave), which after six weeks still hasn’t been processed. That was about getting a second opinion on my leaky mitral valve, and why I can’t have an operation to help my heart and body. The usual hastily made answerphone message was left, and I’ll await a reply next week… if I’m lucky.
And then there’s the meeting with Dr S, the head of my cancer team.
I asked for this meeting. It’s mine to use, to get answers to the questions bugging me right now. But what questions?
I worry about my lack of backbone and quick thinking in meetings, so this one has to be planned carefully. How?
I’d like to ask the million-dollar question up front: How long have I got? A year, two, three?
But I already know the answer. The fair but familiar response: “I haven’t got a crystal ball, and if I had, I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”
So the questions need to be sharper. They need to help me understand my body right now and work out for myself how long I have as a chemo patient — then, later, as a resting-from-chemo patient (where I can drift out of the clinicians’ hold for a while), before returning to chemo again with its restrictions.
I’m just over halfway through, but I was hoping to be back at some form of work in September after chemo. With the delays, it’ll be October now.
So, question 2: When will I be fit for work, and how long before my PSA or other routine tests are outside your safe parameters? What tests do you envisage?
I want to leave that meeting with a clearer picture of how long I’ve got to do the things I want to try to do.
It’s not a morbid desire to know more than I should. It’s simply about getting more good times rolling along.
I’ll think on that more later. But it’s not easy to phrase things so I can cut to the chase and not waste Dr S’s time at this face-to-face.
———
I received a text from my recently bereaved sister-in-law after sending her a supportive brotherly message earlier. Her reply made me giggle. It was meant to — and it did.
Geety is a straight talker with a sharp humour. Kev had Irish charm and no sense of when to stop kidding-about (apparently part of his charm).
Her message went something like this:
“Can you ask Kev where his car key is? He’s hidden it and I can’t find it.”
After reading it a few times, I realised what was necessary. An ouija board would take too long to order, so I decided to channel my late brother Kev’s mind and imagine where he’d hide them.
It didn’t take long to fire off suggestions: jackets, coats, boots, the fridge, the washing powder box, upturned light fittings. But the list grew sillier and sillier as the afternoon went on: the elephant’s trunk, the corner of the cellar where the biggest spider lurks.
All were checked. All failed.
Just before bed I heard that a couple of friends were popping over tomorrow to help Geety turn the house upside down. But my mind, still restless, kept inventing. As I drifted off, laughing, I came up with the perfect antidote to the frustration of this silly key hunt — courtesy of my late silly brother.
A rhyme you need to sing along with (in your head). You’ll be humming it all day. I’ll tack it on at the end of this blog…
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My Darling had a good cry with mates over lunch, and the day went okay for her. But she still can’t really believe Kev’s gone. She can’t stop seeing his face (which I feel sorry for — only joking), but she hasn’t wrapped her head around the fact he hasn’t called up to ask how we are, with his quips and chatter that always ended with:
“There’s nothing shocking or startling, so I’ll bid you well and we’ll speak soon, please God.”
Hurry up and call, Kev. Just one more time.
———
My body is quiet and not in pain.
I finally found my bowels which have at last switched (into diarrhoea mode sadly) after five days of nothing at all. My head is still swimming with questions about life planning — but we all face that.
And tomorrow, my Darling and I are going out. Come what may.
If we can, we will. (Perhaps that should be my motto.)
I like that.
‘If we can, we will.’
The bus is never comfy, but I’m on, and we are heading to the fifth cycle. That’s got to be good.
———
Here’s the late reply to Geety as an antidote to all the frustration of trying to find that key.
She replied…
“WOW, you are a comedian”
And with that I went to bed happy. I hope she did too.
-
(Mr U strikes again)
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
Kev, has hid, the keys of the Cherokee
Geety can’t find them, it’s becoming an odyssey
Come on Kev, give us a clue!
(If you know the tune sing along, as it chimes better.)
https://youtu.be/pJG_qmYL_4M?feature=shared
(sorry the link doesn’t work for some reason, but it’s the childhoods rhyme, “oh dear what can the matter be…”)
