Cottage Cheese

Yesterday was an awful day and I wondered how I was ever going to get through this and watch you go through the worse time of your life, at what would be the end of your life.

Today is different, your children came the other day, it was lovely to see the relationship you have with them. While I've been searching the net for new treatments and pioneering therapy your daughter has been looking up alternative treatments.

Flax seed oil and cottage cheese she said. I thought how can cottage cheese cure cancer and I must admit I dismissed her thoughts. Today I thought I would look for myself and found an interesting website.

I'm going to share it with you, in the thought that people in my position may be reading this page and taking as much comfort from my words as I am getting from typing them. Click here if you would like to read about the alternative therapy we are going to try, it's called the Budwig diet.

Will it work? I don't know, but it's not going to do any harm. They've already told us they are going to try chemotherapy to shrink the cancer and although we still believe this is still the best option, cottage cheese and flax seed oil is not going to hurt it is?

You? Today was a good day, the steroids they prescribed are kicking in and you're feeling well, the colour is back in your face and I walked in the room earlier and much to my dismay you were cleaning the windows.

I'm smiling, we've laughed. Is this a normal way to feel?

Watching you sleep

I woke early this morning and lay there watching you sleep. You're so beautiful to me and I really could burst with love for you.

Positive thoughts we said, to concentrate on life and the things we can cram in. I want to stay positive, I really do but lying there watching you sleep, listening to you breathing and the trouble that simple act is causing you is breaking my heart.

The thought of you being in pain, the thought of you suffering and struggling for breath. I'm finding myself thinking about how the end will be and I'm scared it's going to come sooner than we hope.

I thought I'd come to terms with losing you, I thought I'd come to terms with you having cancer and now I have I have to come to terms with how hard it's going to be in the end.

Tears are falling, you wake and look at me. "Look at you, silly sausage" you say. I wipe the tears, paint on my smile but the thoughts are still there and I seem to be incapable of shaking them off today.

I wonder what you're thinking behind your smile and I wonder if this is a normal way to feel.

Palliative care

Palliative care, the words that blew my world apart. I was watching you and how brave you were, not a tear despite words such as inoperable and secondaries. I was determined to be as brave as you were and I was succeeding and then those words came. Palliative care.

I guess we were always hoping for the best while preparing for the worse but nothing prepared you or I for what they said.

You always had to be different, you couldn't have a normal tumour they could cut away, not you. You had to have a rare type of lung cancer in the lining of your lung. The most aggressive kind you can get and it's already spread to your kidneys and your adrenal glands.

You didn't want chemo so you asked the question we didn't want to know the answer to. How long without it? Four months she said, then your mask dropped, I saw you visibly recoil as if you had been slapped and it broke my heart.

In the quiet room the tears came, you're angry, I'm angry. Facing the darkest thoughts and trying not to give them words, as if putting them out there into the air will make them real.

Now it's time for living, not thinking about dying.

Is this a normal way to feel?

D Day

After all the waiting we should be getting some results. Tomorrow is D Day, assuming they don't move the goalposts again.

Part of me, and you I'm sure would rather not know, the outcome is scary and no matter how much I try and prepare my mind for what may be the worst possible news I just cannot envisage losing you.

You have to be ok, I'm not sure I can face my life without you. I know you're getting worse, your breathing is affected, you can't eat and everything is a huge effort. I keep telling myself all that might be worry, anxiety maybe and not the cancer, it's not working.

You've found a lump on your wrist and your stability and dexterity has been affected, since a cough two weeks ago you are suddenly very ill. I'm scared and for the first time you've admitted you're scared too. You cried, I cried, it's ok to cry, even if you're my big strong man.

They say this is a normal way to feel.

Moving the Goalposts

The 3rd September, just a couple of weeks ago now but it seems like a lifetime. A million thoughts, a barrage of tests, the whole scale of emotions, a biopsy,tubes, blood tests, more worry and a CT scan, at every appointment they tell us they’ll have answers at the next.

But then they keep moving the goalposts, we’re still waiting and you’re so brave. Cancer is such a scary word but you don’t complain or grumble even though it’s clear you’re feeling dreadful, you don’t take it out on your loved ones, even though you feel cheated and frightened. All you do is worry you are being an inconvenience.

That really is the last thing you are. You’re kind and funny and even when you’re not much company there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than by your side, even if that is just to sit and watch you sleep.

It’s a rollercoaster, up and down feelings, one day we wake up feeling positive, throwing positive chit chat back and fore, talking two years down the line, getting married, extending our family, holidays, seeing the children growing up. The next day the black cloud is back and seeing just to the end of the week seems impossible.

We’re told this is a normal way to feel.

He taught me how to laugh

This is me, Katie Crunch. Actually as you may have guessed this isn't really my name, it's a name I was given in college for my inexplicable ability to find trouble and mishaps wherever I go. The years have passed but not much had changed, my ability to veer from one disaster to another had been so well practised it became part of my character.

Many years, various disasters, two children and a few hundred miles later then one day all this changed. I'd met a man, a real gentleman, just what I needed and the most stabling influence I had ever met in my life. He taught me how to laugh again, something that had been long forgotten and he taught me how to slow down enough to take in the wonders of every day, enjoy my children and to just generally enjoy 'being'.

Last week after five years together the crushing news came that this man, who brought so much into my life has cancer. Suddenly, after taking laughing for granted for so long I remember what life was like before I met him and I'm scared I'll forget how to laugh again.

He's being tough, worrying about everyone else because that's what he does. He worries about being a burden on me and I wish I could put him inside my head with the myriad of thoughts I have and show him how I feel. That every second spent in his company is an honour.

We're told this is a normal way to feel.