Almost one year on

This will be a short post, I have to 'get it out there' but I am trying not to wallow.

I have for the last few months been dreading this week because it holds the first anniversary of two very sad losses, which occurred exactly one week apart.

Firstly the very untimely death from cancer, while only in his forties, of a very good friend, someone who had been a massive support to me, despite his own difficulties and who was an all round fabby guy, held in very high esteem and with much affection by all those who had the privilege of having him touch their lives.

Be happy my friend, wherever you are, thinking of you and your family.

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Next, exactly one week later was the day that my father died, also of cancer and unfortunately I have one of those minds that manages to recall just about every minute detail of his last week with us, all kinds of memories, surprisingly perhaps not all sad despite that last week being in a hospice with the inevitable outcome hanging over our heads....but I could do without what seems to be a constant reel of film of those days running through my head.

Like I said, I haven't been looking forward to this week and it's not turning out to be any nicer than I had anticipated.....

There is so much more I could say/would like to say but for today at least the thought of typing it all down is too much.

Dead!

My apologies for the starkness of title of this post but it's significant.

Among all the hoo-ha of the last eighteen months my mind has been so full of just dealing with the situations I found myself in and trying to cope with them that in a strange way I didn't really have time to think. I'm not sure if that's entirely a bad thing, I suspect in fact it's the reverse and that had I been able to mull over the minutiae to a greater degree it would only have hindered my ability to get on with the matters in hand.

Not much of it was good, most of you who read here regularly already know the timeline, my being unceremoniously ditched by the guy I thought at the time was the love of my life wrong!, the diagnosis of my fathers terminal cancer just when we thought he had beaten it, the death then of a close friend from cancer and lastly the death exactly a week later of my father.

The whole period was madness, I remember it really as a blur of trying to organise, administer and control umpteen medications, constant hospital visits and procedures, trying to keep everyone 'afloat' and positive, trying to make what time my Dad had left as tolerable as possible for him and of a constant underlying feeling of panic that I wouldn't cope and the obvious sadness that ultimately, whatever we did, the outcome was not going to be good.

I just never had time to think and no sooner had the inevitable happened and my Dad had turned up his toes than I was catapulted into another difficult situation, taking care of my mother and dealing with the fallout.... but today was different.

Today, and I have no idea why it was today, I was driving my white van merrily along the road when seemingly like a bolt from the blue, with tremendous and almost physical force it hit me; my dad is dead, like really dead, like never coming back, absolutely dead and gone. I can remember his face as clear as day, I can hear his voice in my head easily but I won't ever see him again, never, not ever, he really is completely and utterly dead.

Forever. Fin. The End.

I use the stark language that I do because that's how it feels, in my face, real, stark, tangible at last. I don't quite know what I feel about it right now, at the moment it hit me I felt a sadness like I don't ever remember before but it was strangely brief and I'm glad I felt it, it felt real and accepting and has somehow allowed me to suddenly remember in detail things I think I had tried not to think about and buried away.

There is so much stuff, lots of it right now appears to be centered around his last few months of life, but not necessarily sad stuff, just stuff, stuff about the time I spent nursing him and some of the amusing (if sometimes gross) things that happened despite the circumstances, about how that time bought us closer and how we could laugh however desperate the situation became.

I suspect in the near future I may regale you with some of those tales, it's cathartic for me and some are worth sharing for various reasons... but mostly I feel that maybe the real me, who I battened down for so long with such alacrity to enable me to cope with the here and now, is finally emerging again with the acceptance, however difficult, that it's really all over.

My dad is dead. It's real. I have to cope now without him because he's gone and I'm not......

....and he would be as miffed as bloody hell with me if I didn't!

Tomorrow is the day

So tomorrow is the day, my fathers funeral, everything that can be organised has been, the hordes are massing, I can hear my niece upstairs practicing her solo ready for her performance and there is a very odd air of anticipation going on here.

Yesterday myself, my mum and my sister visited the chapel of rest to say our private good bye's, it was a very surreal experience. Somehow he just looked so 'normal' I expected him to suddenly say something....and yet at the same time he looked like he just wasn't there anymore, the man that my dad was, had long since gone. I couldn't then, and still don't really know what I felt, a deep sadness that this really was the last time I would see him and yet a happiness and maybe comfort that I was there with him at that moment. I wasn't sure before I went if I should go at all, if as people say, I would regret it, but among all the confused emotions going on inside my head at the moment the only thing I do know is that I am very glad I went to see him that one last time.

Tomorrow, I have no idea, part of me wants to have the opportunity to publicly say good bye and to acknowledge my love for the man who took care of me one way and another all of my life, part of me just wants to try and ''pull down the shutters and get through it as quickly and as painlessly as possible.

In the end I suspect I won't have to make a choice, what will be will be. Hopefully it will all run like oiled silk and before long it will be over and we can move on to whatever the new phase in our lives without him is...and who knows what that will be....

Organised!

Well finally, after what has been a manic two weeks both emotionally and logistically, I think we have everything arranged. Hurrah!

I really began to think we wouldn't get it all done, despite having such a long wait until the funeral, but unless my usually obsessive organisational skills have failed me badly (and believe me that's distinctly possible at the moment) we are all done and dusted and ready for my fathers funeral next Tuesday.

Really I think we just want it over with now, the wait has been too long and just as we begin to feel a tiny vestige of normality for a few minute, now and then, we will be flung headlong back into the harsh reality of our loss.

It will be very good of course to pay him our respects, to say our final good-bye's, to publicly celebrate his life and the very special man he was and to begin to get some real closure but at the moment I think mostly we are just dreading it.

Hey ho, tis all set now, we just have a few more days wait....

Two and a half weeks.....

....is beginning to feel like a hell of a long time to wait for a funeral! Actually it is a hell of a long time to wait for a funeral and it's courtesy of 'technical issues' at the local crematorium.

Wouldn't you know it!

If something can present a difficulty recently it will do it seems and this is just another in what is beginning to feel like a long line!

On the up-side - yes apparently there always is one - it means that we have had plenty of time to get through the seemingly unending list of things there are to organise beforehand. Dying is a complicated issue in these days of red tape and prior to this experience I wouldn't have believed quite how many things there are to attend too.

Both emotionally and practically this is turning into a very steep learning curve, it's all part of life's rich pattern so they tell me (who the hell are 'they'?)but it's a part I think I could have well got through life without experiencing.... and certainly we could have done without quite so much red tape or quite such a long wait!

So the wait continues until next Tuesday when we can at last all say our final goodbye's, remember my dad, celebrate his life and the man he was and try to move on to the next stage, whatever that stage involves.

From the bottom of my heart, thankyou!

Ok, so right now I'm not too sure exactly where the bottom of my heart actually is, in fact I'm not entirely sure where my heart is at all these days but whatever and wherever it is, I want to say the biggest thankyou from the very bottom of it to all of you who have send messages of support and condolence via here, Facebook, twitter, email and snail mail over the last few very tough days.

Your thoughts and wishes have made an immense difference to me, just knowing so many people care has helped enormously and made this whole nasty time a little easier.
Special thanks must go to Lisa, who despite a very hectic spell in her own life, as always was there for me, Daffy for her stoic ability to listen to me and come up with a positive response, 'JW' and 'JG' for always being there and 'G', who knows why.

Lastly but by absolutely no means least, a very, very big and heartfelt thanks to 'RB' who has been an absolute star, who has provided 24/7 support and help way beyond the call of duty, who has listened to me unendingly, managed to make me laugh however bad it all got and 'been there' in so many ways regardless of any inconvenience to himself.

Thank you all guys, I mean really, really thank you, you don't know quite how much I appreciate you all.

"There it is"

The words in the title of this post were those left by a friend on my Facebook page in response to the news that my father had died.

Just three little words but somehow they completely summed up how I felt and still feel about what has happened over the last few months.

"There it is"....simple, there was nothing more anyone could do.

The situation was almost intolerable for all concerned, not least of all for my dad and when it was over, as he died with my mum and I holding his hands and my siblings talking gently to him there was nothing really left to say. The culmination of almost two years of fighting was over. It was done. We had done all we could, he had done all he could, the cancer boffins had scratched their heads and done all they could and as I sat there not quite knowing what to do next, had I had the words I think "There it is" would probably have described best how I felt at that moment.

There was no fear, no desperation, no hysterics, it was peaceful, it was a gentle letting go and there were no words, just a strange sense of acceptance and of numbness, a feeling of "there it is", after all the pain and fear and fighting it was over......

It's over....

....my dad (TP) died peacefully in the early hours of yesterday morning with my mum, my brother, my sister and myself all by his side. He retained his stoicism and sense of humour until the end.

"Wherever you are dad, let the jazz be cool and the red wine be a damn good one."

Right now....

....it feels as if life couldn't get much tougher.

Most of my time is spent at the hospice now just watching and waiting for the inevitable to happen.... and with my heart in my mouth every time TP's breathing pattern changes or one of a multitude of other indicators change.

I haven't had time to grieve properly yet for my friend who died on Saturday and I have had some personal issues going on in the background along the way, though thankfully, those at least seem to be resolving.

My head is so full of thoughts and my heart with a feelings but I can't think straight most of the time and just seem to function in a surreal state of auto-pilot fuelled by so much coffee I'm awash with the stuff.

I keep telling myself there is always someone worse off but that seems pretty sad in itself, I wouldn't wish my situation on anyone, let alone something worse!

This is a real tough call.

My apologies for keep posting doom and gloom but being able to post it here is probably, along with the support of my friends, the only thing that's keeping me sane (ish) right now.

Life in three acts

Things are pretty surreal right now.

I feel I am living three almost entirely different and separate lives, each of which promotes wildly differing emotional responses which at times become confusing, raises questions within me about my own psyche and requires an emotional dexterity I have not before been required to find in myself.

Firstly there is the life, and necessarily the major aspect of my life right now, that revolves around TP and his worsening condition. He was admitted to the local hospice as a matter of urgency at the weekend and his situation is currently very tenuous. From a practical point of view most of my time is now spent there with him, on an emotional level the implications and responses are obvious.

Secondly there is the part of my life which requires me to support both emotionally and practically my mother, in many ways that is harder and more emotionally draining than dealing with the reality of my fathers situation, she is facing something which anyone who has just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary would naturally dread.

But thirdly there is my personal life, or what vestige of one I can manage right now. Again it is a juggling act requiring some dexterity but as harsh as it might sound I have persisted in making a little 'me' time, without it I would, I suspect have gone nuts by now. Recently this part of my life has been looking up and I have re-discovered something I learned to do many years ago, that I have what feels like an odd ability to almost completely close my mind off from each part of my life and either deal with, or enjoy each, as an entirely separate entity for as long as I am in that situation.

This is a good thing.

To an outsider I imagine at times it appears I am uncaring, in fact I am quite the reverse but the fact that I can manage my life for now, in three such separate 'compartments' I think is what keeps me sane. The good moments rest my mind and 're-charge' me for dealing better with the tough bits, they keep me aware that not everything is doom and gloom and keep my spirits up... but they are also confusing.

To go, in say a half hour, from feeling desperately sad to cheerful and lighthearted is an odd experience, to be able to almost entirely block out the crap for a few hours makes me feel a little guilty, though rationally I know I shouldn't. To feel happy occasionally among all that is currently going on, seems wrong perhaps and though I understand the psychology and I am mostly comfortable with it, it's still pretty confusing at times.

To be living my life for now, in three such entirely different 'acts', is strange, emotionally complicated more than a little surreal.

Friday the 13th....

....feels like a pretty appropriate date today, for without wishing to sound too gloom laden things in gemmak's-ville are getting pretty tough. Tougher than tough in fact.

TP is now very poorly, the situation is progressing and it's not pretty, it's not dignified and it's not nice.

We all hear people say from time to time how hard it is to nurse someone who is so ill and we sympathise and try to say something helpful and understanding but I for one, really didn't appreciate just how hard and how soul destroying it becomes, until I had to bite the bullet and do it myself.

It's constant 24/7 stuff and very little of it is anything close to uplifting, quite the reverse. The professional services are all in place and all doing their thing but ultimately they can only do so much... and it's not they at the sharp end when it all goes wrong in the wee small hours and suddenly, in a sleepy state, another major decision has to be made or another new problem presents itself which requires prompt action, usually without the necessary knowledge. It is impossible to second guess everything that might occur and to be prepared for all events. Try as I might and with as much information as I have gathered, the one thing I always need to know seems to be the one thing I don't know....and just don't try getting professional help or advice after office hours with any degree of urgency. The reality is that there are two choices in the middle of the night, make one's own decision or call a 999. End of. The other options that appear to be available just aren't into rapid response, as good as they are in the daylight hours.

So, it's onwards, though somehow I suspect not very upwards. It is one of those situations that just has to be dealt with the best way we can, there is no option for any of us, tis life as they say....

There is humour in all things!

So....we live in a three story house and this now presents problems for TP as his illness progresses and he becomes weaker. He needs to be able to navigate at least one set of stairs successfully to have a decent quality of life and this has become something of a logistical nightmare recently.

I am not strong enough to haul him up and down and even if I was it is neither dignified nor comfortable for him. It is also dangerous, should he fall he is highly likely to injure himself, and me for that matter, and I'm not sure I could 'catch' him if need be!

The solution? It was decided by the committee (thats' me, my mother and TP) yesterday that now is the time to call on the assistance of a stairlift.... and time being of the essence we set about finding a company that could provide the service poste haste.

One was found without much ado and the appointment for said hardware to be installed was promptly made for tomorrow.

What is not lost on us is that tomorrow is just one day before my mother's 80th birthday and a stair lift seems a rather amusing (and ahem 'appropriate') acquisition just a day before one becomes an octogenarian does it not?!

Luckily my mother also has a sense of humour!

Manic!

Life has become somewhat manic of late and I can't really even define exactly why but between hospital appointments, the day to day minutiae of life and trying to fit in just a tiny bit of a life, I seem to need something like 28 hours in each day at the moment!

It is thus that I have been somewhat absent in these parts...shamefully absent I will admit but it just can't be helped, when the going gets manic something has to 'give' and it's been this recently.

I am however 'onto it' and things may improve slightly, if not please just bear with me while my efforts are concentrated elsewhere.

On the positive side this doesn't mean things at chez gemmak have deteriorated, the reverse in fact. TP has been considerably stabilised having spent a few days 'holiday', as it has affectionately become known as here, at the local and very amazing hospice and quality of life has been upped significantly.

So that's it, life is a little manic but I haven't disappeared, rather just become slightly distracted on and off! ;o)

It's a mad, mad world!

Or at least that of me and mine is at the moment.

Nothing, absolutely nothing seems 'normal', each day we wake, if in fact we slept at all in the first place, not knowing quite what will come next or what the day might bring.

Nothing remains static, plans are made, broken, re-made, re-broken time and time again as the situation changes, we swing from moments of relative calm to moments of urgency without warning, we have to make life altering decisions for which we are often ill prepared almost daily and often without preamble and we have to have conversations that no one should ever have to have.

Life is a bizarre state of manic limbo, a dream or a nightmare, some kind of psychedelic trip that changes constantly, punctuated with unfamiliar sights and sounds, but which it is impossible to get a firm grasp of. There is never time to become accustomed to one set of circumstances before somehow, without warning, it has morphed into a different unrecognisable thing that requires to be reacted too and accepted in an instant.

Time is an irrelevance, life follows no usual chronological pattern, sleeping, eating, planning, talking, the logistics of managing the situation, all happen as and when the circumstances demand. People come and go, the professionals dispensing hard won wisdom and knowledge that our minds and intellect scramble to understand quickly enough and visitors, well meaning, provide cheerful distraction but disrupt the tenuous and fragile status quo and leave more questions in their wake.

It's a mad, mad world.

News - The not so good kind

Ok guys, you will if you visit here regularly be aware of the TP situation. For those of you not familiar TP stands for 'The Patient' and is my father, the history can be found here.

Well, a few weeks ago TP had his one year follow up oncology appointment and all appeared to be going remarkably well.

Unfortunately, as per the law of sod, yesterday, quite suddenly, we learned after a long day at hospital that is far from the case.

I won't bore you with details and TP is anyway a very private individual and wouldn't want his medical history 'out there' but suffice to say, things are not good and treatment is very unlikely to be possible.

That's it then, you know what's going on in the background but I won't be saying much about it here, for a while at least it's 'chin up and shoulders back' but you will understand if I am a little more peculiar on occasion than usual!

F*ck!

Busy getting better!

Life seems to have become somewhat hectic of late, due in the main to the fact that TP's small surgery a couple of weeks ago is taking slightly longer to recover from than first anticipated.

All is well, it's just slower going than we had expected and as he isn't allowed to drive for now and my mother can't, all driving duties are for a short time, mine. The upside is that I get to have a decent car for a few weeks as opposed to trying to drag the crap car from place to place and I can't say that I much relish having to return to it anytime soon, hell, no electric windows or power assisted steering to name but a few! Ppfftt.

We are up against something of a time issue with this recovery process too because next weekend it will be 50 years since my parents married (jeez, 50 years....given my relationship history that seems pretty damn impressive, if something of an impossibility) and there is a big celebration with overnight stay etc. planned at a local hotel. TP has to be fit by then and so this coming week will be concentrated on that goal...which will be achieved without doubt!

Believe me, you don't do 50 years of marriage and then miss your own party! ;o)

Done and dusted!

It's been a mad few days consisting in the main of driving to and from hospital to visit TP and fighting the hospital's shambolic car parking system. I have yet to have the pleasure of any hospital car park (and believe me there's been a few of late) that does actually operate in a fashion that might assist it's patients, this one certainly didn't and it took me anything up to an hour of aimless driving around in circles on each visit until I could ditch the car anywhere at all.

And then we pay for this privilege!?

How cardiac care units aren't full to the gunnels, purely from the effects on patients and visitors of trying to park amazes me, I'm sure my blood pressure was considerably elevated by each foray and I certainly didn't arrive cool, calm and collected, rater more, hot, harassed and very un-collected!

But, it was all worth it, TP's procedure went to plan, the recovery was text book and so far so good, it appears to have done what it was intended to do and been a complete success. As a consequence, this morning, still half asleep and with bed head in my case bright and early he was turfed out back into the real world and into the care of my mother and myself, god help him! ;o)

So that's another stage in the whole long process about done and dusted and another positive step forward.

Fingers crossed that the next phase goes as well.

The home run

This next week will be one of returning to the 'occupation' of taxi and visiting services.

Today TP goes back into hospital for what will hopefully be the last leg of his treatment. Assuming this goes well it should be the last in-patient stint in the whole protracted affair.

This time it's relatively minor 'tidying up' surgery to complete the process that was begun a year ago and hopefully it won't be too traumatic, though I have to say, any surgery seems pretty traumatic to me but then I am not one of the world's brave souls where such things are concerned!

The 'action' isn't until tomorrow but various things require stabilising before commencement and hence the early admission.

It is thus that things may be a little quiet in these parts for a few days.

Now, where my chauffeurs cap............

Kicking cancer where it hurts!

Firstly, apologies for the length of this post but it can't be helped and I do have an excuse.... for me it's probably the most important 'missive' I have posted to date.

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You might remember way back early last summer I posted a few slightly vague offerings here (you can find them by clicking the 'cancer' tag if you have a mind too) regarding someone who I only referred to as 'The Patient' (TP for short). T.P. is a private kind of guy and as a consequence I felt it inappropriate to rattle on about it all too much here, but I think today can make an exception.

After almost a years illness T.P was finally diagnosed with Pancreatic cancer back in May last year, the survival rates of which were given as something in the region of 2%, unless he underwent some pretty massive surgery. For those interested in the specifics, the procedure involved is pretty rare, the 'Whipple procedure' but if you are squeamish I might suggest you don't click the link.

Luckily and quite unusually T.P was fit enough in all other aspects to be subjected to the surgery which was scheduled to last 6-10 hours, and a week or two after the initial diagnosis he was wheeled into theatre. Amazingly the 'very clever surgeon men' did the job in just over 6 hours and T.P. was then dispatched to ITU where he was expected to remain for maybe 4-5 days...but he beat the odds and was back on a ward in hours and then again beat the odds by being discharged within a week instead of the expected 2-3 weeks!

What followed has been months and months of recovery and chemotherapy, of up's and down's, of hospital visits, of doctors visits, of two steps forward and one step backwards and a plethora of medical and emotional issues to deal with along the way.... all I might add with barely any complaint! T.P is an absolute star, my hero, and I am extremely proud of him. If I ever face anything such as this I hope I can be half the (wo)man he has been through it all!

So, what has prompted this post? Well, yesterday T.P. was summoned to the 'very clever Mr consultant man's' office for the results of the final scans, performed three weeks ago, to ascertain just how much of a success all this amazing medical malarkey had been. I don't know quite how he felt but he went off in the morning sounding astoundingly relaxed... but back here at home I did some floor pacing I can tell you!

And the result?

He's clear!!! No detectable cancer cells remaining!!! It was a resounding success, it was all worth it!!! Huraahhhhhhh!!!

One is never of course referred to as 'cured' and there are one or two minor issues still to be mended and lots of strength rebuilding and getting back to some semblance of normality to be done but the outcome is as good as can possibly be hoped for and probably better than I dared to hope for!

It's been a tough year for all involved but we got there in the end and by no little effort of the N.H.S. who have been marvellous and about whom I will hear nothing bad said (unless it's about parking!) It's been a year none of us would want to live through again and it's been a year of emotions and difficulties no one would relish but it's come to the very best conclusion and with a little luck and a prevailing wind it's all it's all gonna be good from here!

For me it's had an added 'odd-ness' that I couldn't blog it, I blog most things that trouble me but my thoughts and feeling were not paramount, respect for T.P's wishes and privacy were. He will probably still clip my ear for this post if he gets the chance and if he ever sees it but given the happy outcome he might just forgive me!

Did I ever mention T.P. is my dad? No, I thought I didn't! I could bang on now with lots of soppy emotional stuff but he hates that and I hope he knows how I feel anyway, so I will resist and just say today is a happy, happy, happy day and 'well done dad' I'm very proud of you and....no I said I wouldn't do the soppy bit.......

;o)