THE BEGINNING

THE BEGINNING

Last December we, our family, moved to two seconds to midnight with an unexpected diagnosis and poor prognosis. Like most others in this situation we were devastated, gutted and numbed and are now living in that no man's land alternating between hope at times but also great despair, with no real time line except that there is not much time. The medical reality softened with jargon - symptom treatment with more time with the family all giving a fairy like quality to a stark reality.

We all deal differently with these things and I have spent  months emerging from the numbness to an incapacity of even beginning to imagine the after life and an almost insane desire to cling onto every minute of the now. Introverts like quietness and thinking, being with people, listening but not commanding the conversation and sometimes not even being an active part of the conversation so verbalizing a situation like ours is to say the least, difficult. I have decided to write about our journey into the long blackness as it is easier for me than verbalisation and I might be able in this way to come to terms with a horrible reality.  So whenever time allows I will chart our journey so that in the hereafter I will be able to come back and have the essence of the very precious time we have left.

Today we spent several hours at the hospital to have the chemotherapy pump removed.  Clever little machines, with a soothing chirp every minute or so just to remind one the pump is still working.That sound will be with me for ever. Because of the little pump we spent hours rather than days at the hospital, less infection risk and our time our own for the most part, not part of a ward routine as an inpatient. Certainly a bonus.  Third cycle in this bout of chemotherapy over and so far so good.  Flurouracil and oxaliplatin  are not the kindest of companions. Chemotherapy has come a long way since the start of my career in the world of drugs.  Perhaps the biggest change has been the emphasis on lessening side effects and controlling symptoms. We have truly come a very long way. Little or no nausea  for highly emetic drugs is a big indicator of progress. So here I sit trying to make sense of this all in the wee hours, whilst our man sleeps to start the recovery from the drugs and sadly just as he is able to do a little more it will be time for the next bout.  Every second Wednesday comes round quickly.

There are blessings.  We live now in a country with good affordable healthcare.  With many, many people in the various arms of healthcare  trying hard to help and heal.  The resources are here.  The hospitals are clean and efficient.  There are clean syringes, safe blood, sufficient medications and good professionals.  People care.  Sadly where we grew up that is not the case. There is very little of anything.  How much worse would our bad situation be if we had not made the decision to put behind us all we had known and take a blind leap forward to start a new life in a new country.  For this I am thankful each and every day.  And especially thankful to the country, which chose to allow us to make our home here.  I hope in some measure we have repaid the trust.

And so until next time  . . . . . . . .  just flowers from the garden - beautiful, peaceful and always healing for the soul. We always grow salvias through the summer, tough hardy plants that easily withstand our hot summers. This week the salvias will make way for poppies, which give so much colour to dark winter days. I anticipate and then enjoy their brightness each and every year. This year the dahlias have had an outstanding season and worked so well in their new home.  They have brought so many bees into the garden. A good thing. They are such busy creatures hovering from flower to flower on an endless mission to feed and service their queen. I can spend hours watching and photographing them.