The past week has gone pretty true to recent form. Lots of waiting and pockets of activity, mood swings both highs and lows.
J had another CT scan to confirm the results from the French scan showing no spread to the lungs - fingers crossed that is in fact the case! We are now waiting for the first appointment with the oncologist. Our wonderful (gorgeous) surgeon who is originally from Afghanistan and speaks perfect English spoke to the uk team and arranged to get all the missing files sent across immediately thus allowed them to start to plan J's treatment.
Meanwhile the glorious weather continued and happened to coincide with the start of the County Championships so Saturday was spent watching Middlesex toil against Lancashire at a resplendent Lords. A wonderful tonic (plus the odd beer!).
To the main point of this post:
A while ago I spoke about the difficulty I was having around contacting an old close friend. Her old lover had recently died of oesophagus cancer. I did finally contact her and was looking forward to meeting up and having a good supportive conversation. We planned to meet for lunch. I was extremely stressed and badly in need of talking to someone other than J who had been through something similar and would hopefully understand the ups, downs, hopes, fears etc.
She was half an hour late with little apology. We shared some small talk and I asked how she was doing- not well but not wanting to say more- coping, being strong. Ok - change subject. Asked how I was, we were- I told the recent story and she said something sympathetic. But I didnt feel able to talk about us or myself in the face of her own deep grieving. This was a visceral shock and its taken a while to process. But I now realise that for me the value of this blog is in not needing to apologise or deny the thoughts and feelings we're going through. And hopefully someone will recogine themselves and not feel so alone. And I know that many of you will relate to the small but momentous event of your husband having his first erection following colorectal surgery for example!
