Since the last post I've been doing 'stuff' - not exciting stuff as such but necessary stuff.
Cancer changes some things but life goes on in much the same way as before, you still have to deal with the day to day things in life and to be honest it's good to have normality.
Just when you think that financially things can't really get worse the damn boiler decides it's finally had enough. Totally and completely died on Monday, no warning just...gone, finished.
Two years ago we spent a small fortune getting it working again so this time that's just not an option. Therefore my week has been spent contacting tradesmen, plumbing/heating engineers and sorting out quotes for a replacement.
We finally decided on the one we were happy with and it's being fitted on Monday. So that's taken up a chunk of my week.
Now there's a positive and a negative way of looking at the boiler's death...firstly the negative is, of course, the cost!
But the positive is that at least it's summer now and no heating hasn't been a real pain.... Also it COULD have decided to give up on us when I got out of hospital and needed a constant supply of hot water or even worse during my recuperation period - which goes into the winter months and then we'd have had no heating or hot water.
So after weighing it up, I'm glad it's happened now and not then.
Went off to Morden Park on Thursday afternoon with Sarah and Dj. The idea was to try to find natural resources for his art project that he's doing for his new Secondary School. They wanted a piece of homework on 'You' - it could be a written piece, painting, drawing, model, power point document, but had to reflect themselves and provide some information.
Dj decided he wanted to create a piece of art by enlarging a photo of himself then covering it (mosaic style) in things like bark, leaves, plants and then have some bubbles around with information such as 'I like....' and 'I dislike......'.
His new school are heavily into art so that seemed a good idea.
So off we went, armed with a very healthy picnic to eat in the summer air and hunt for resources. Only things didn't exactly turn out like that!
3 bites into a sandwich I suddenly realised that I'd left my lentils simmering on a low heat in the kitchen at home - sheer panic! We'd left home at 2.30pm and it was now 4pm OMG! Visions of the flat burning to the ground, worse still our gorgeous little Dizzie suffocating to death in thick fumes.
Now I can look back laugh about it - it was like something out of a comedy film...
I throw my sandwich down, jump up and say
'Oh my God! I have to go NOW!' ......
Sarah jumps up and says 'Ok, lets go then' (no questions at all, just Ok let's go then - LOL)...
Dj (bless him) looks completely confused and say's 'WHAT on earth is going on?'...
I say (well, babble nonsense really) to Sarah...Stay here with Dj, I'm going on the train it's faster, my lentils are cooking in my kitchen, my cat is going to suffocate and my kitchen must be on fire by now...
She say's 'Ring Jacqui and go quickly'....So I ring Jacqui - I have no idea what I expected her to do, but I rang her anyway. Jacqui being her normal sensible self says 'I'm going to check your place, you get on the train, I'll sort it out'...
I'm sitting on the tube waiting for it to move thinking I'm going to throw up at any second now if this bloody train doesn't start moving when I suddenly realise that I can feel so much discomfort from the tumour site. This area has been OK lately, but at this moment I realise the pain, discomfort and therefore the tumour are definitely still there.
I'm not sure which I'm more upset about at this point but to be honest I think it was the idea of Dizzie choking to death (I knew I wouldn't be lucky enough to be free of this damn tumour really - I'd just been trying to kid myself).
Jacqui rang me just before the train left Morden and told me she's outside my place, no smoke coming from the windows, no smoke alarm going off and no Dizzie frantically pawing at the window - this reassures me that I've got at least enough time to get back before too much damage is done. I arrive home about 20 minutes later to find that (unbelievably and luckily) there is STILL water left in the pot so panic over.
One thing I'm now sure of is that stress DEFINITELY is linked to pain.
I've seen Sarah everyday which has been lovely and was what I needed to start sorting out my head a little. It's been good to be able to bounce ideas off her and listen to her suggestions too. For instance, I was really struggling with one of the supplements, the Superfood (it was making me feel so sick) and she suggested a different way to get it down and it's worked. Sometimes you need someone else to say 'try this instead'...Thanks Sis x
Sarah actually tried some and said it tastes like drinking the contents of a dirty fish tank so it must be good for you, because anything that tastes like this must be good... LOL....
