Hi River,  I think I am just going to do what I have been doing since diagnosis and live each day as fully as possible.   My Grandad died of lung cancer when I was expecting my first daughter and the image of his five and a half stone body in stripey pyjamas has stayed with me forever,  this was my first image when hubby was diagnosed, I couldn't bear that for him.  A holiday sounds marvellous our daughter is talking about sending us away after radiotherapy,  that would be lovely if I can persuade him to go!  Many thanks for your upbeat message.   Caz

Hubby is upbeat and says he is feeling good.  The chemo seems to have worn off and he is moving around a little better, he has dressed nicely, but not shaved as it is white like his hair since chemo, I have to rub my hands over his chin so he can prove his point!  It's a beautiful day so he goes to Richmond to check his golf buggy,  people have been using it with his permission friends have told him and using his petrol.  Very annoyed he states, just because it hasn't moved for many months doesn't give them the right to use it.  I get a letter from Solicitors saying I am being sued for negligence after my minor bump before chemo the other week.  Great another problem to sort out, especially when I wasn't at fault! Talk about spoiling a good day.   Stay strong all of you out there.  X

It's a gift.

We sleep in late, I am exhausted after moving the lawn, cutting back shrubs and sweeping the whole lot up.  We have decided our neighbours cat Dexter is deaf!   We have two cat scarers in the garden which has got rid of them all but him!!  He's  just a young gun and I'm wondering if his hearing hasn't developed fully yet, mind he seems to hear me shouting at him well enough.  Hubby is basted in vaseline with the usual my hands are cold.  Sunday Papers,  coffee and toast and he is strong enough to go for a beef baguette , roast tatties and gravy to one of our favourite village pubs.  We arrive to find an old lady asleep and tucked up with a blanket on the window seat, a little weird we both say quietly to each other! !  Turns out she's the land ladies ancient Grandma and has been brought out for a treat.  I nudge hubby and say that will be me in twenty years, when our grandkids want to go drinking but have to take me, we giggle and I tell him I'll be fine as long as they keep me supplied with vodka!  It's lovely to go out together again,  we eat and make our way home, cup of tea, fruit cake and in time for the Grand Prix, a normal day in our world of cancer.xx

Our grandaughter starts school today, they face time us to show her in her school uniform, blue and white gingham dress, matching headband and new shoes from us with red flashy sparkles in the heels for dark mornings to come.  Where has the time gone?   I can remember her Mummy starting school like it was yesterday.   Who knew all those years ago What life would throw at us.  Hubby is collected for his radiotherapy, nine sessions to go! We pray this is working so we can live a more normal life. I just sit down to have a quiet coffee and my neighbour knocks, he's come to cut the hedge, so my quiet time turns into raking the hedge cuttings up, getting a sweat on, thanking him for all his help.  What would we be without friends in this tough time, they are a blessing.   I am hoping for half hours peace before hubby returns and the moisturising starts again!

Well my half hour peace lasted until 5 pm by which time hubby still hadn't arrived home.  I call James Cook hospital and it is so late there is no one there.    I wouldn't normally panic but this cancer scares me to think the worst.  He finally turns up saying they had forgotten to put him on the first pick up so he had to wait,  I tell him to take his phone next time to save me worrying! !  He is coping well and there is no sign of any burning,  that's probably because I baste him like an oven ready chicken each day.  Our younger daughter calls,  she is safely back from Greece and has handed her notice in at work, final interview today for a job they interviewed her for on holiday, I ask if she wore her bikini for the first one!   She is beautifully endowed I say, no wonder she is in the final few.   Anyway they' re coming for their 12th wedding anniversary in 10 days time and we are really looking for to seeing them.  Sunday lunch out is on the cards and a few drinks!!  Hope you are all staying strong. Xx

Hubby is now suffering acid reflux ad the tumour is blocking his windpipe so they are targeting that area, he is coping so well that I keep having to remind myself the severity of the tumour.  I fear I am becoming a little too used to this feeling of everything will be OK and that the rug will be pulled from under our feet again.  Everything else slides off my back like water off a duck.  Car crashes,  people trying to sue me, people reversing into me and not leaving notes at the hospital, all these trials and tribulations are nothing compared to this fight with cancer.   I have to go now as my car is in for repairs again!  Another £75.00  we'll never see again.  Take care all of you out there, we are all fight for the same thing.  Caz

Our neighbour comes in to borrow our long secateurs, go and say hi I say as I am just off to the chemists for hubby, it will do him good to have a man natter!  Back home he tells me that our neighbour is glad to see him looking so well, he is right, apart from the hair loss he is now looking more like his old self (less of the old he says).  His skin is in the best condition than it has been for a long while, we decide to carry on basting even when he doesn't need it.  His moustache is getting some colour back and he now has  badgers streak on his head!!  It would be lovely to think that we are entering the last phase of this black disease, we know it's not curable only treatable but we have always hoped for the best outcome, I Pray this will be the prognosis at the end, 7 courses to go!!

Hubby calls me from the hospital he needs a review and as he has the begining of a sore throat he wants to see the person involved.  He calls me again he had waited one and a half hours, missed his lift and still hadn't been  seen.  He calls again at 6pm he is on his way home.  So for a ten minute treatment and a two minute review he had been gone over five hours.  We are both starving when he gets home so I go for fish and chips.  We wolf them down, have a cup of tea and he tells me about the review.  How are you?  Fine he says slight sore throat but nothing to complain about, well there will be he is told and a prescription is ordered.  Talk about being upbeat on the professional side!! Why do some of these professionals have no bedside manner?   This takes us back to the diagnosis when the Dr.  Asks us what we think is wrong.  Smiling whilst he asks that question our hopes were raised,,  how stupid were we? I really think some more training is required and having read other posts, I don't think we are alone in the way we were treated with the worst thing you can be told, CANCER. Stay strong. X