I seriously don't mean this in a mean sort of way, but i absolutely love reading your thread. If something can go wrong, it goes wrong when you're involved. :laugh: A beacon of laughter amongst all the gloom on here.

Telling us when you're about to travel means the rest of us can avoid those periods because like night follows day there will be cancellations or strikes. Then there's the pet sitting escapades.

Never change :laugh:

I'm so pleased I'm a travel weather ***!!  Honestly you are so right, I'm a Jonah.  I will never change, a sense of humour has got me through life, Norman had his leg amputated 13 years ago then got lung cancer, without a laugh we would have both gone down the pan!!  I'm happy to make you laugh as I know it's a hard time for you as well. Take care, Carol x 

I'm writing this purely from a carer's perspective.

This thread, your story, your humour to see humour in dark times, your forthrightness and no holds barred style is what helped me massively when i first came on here.

When we as carers are first exposed to a loved one with this awful disease, we are preconditioned to think we don't matter, it's all about the person who is ill and having to deal with the actual physical side of things. I came on here feeling awful that there were times I was annoyed with my wife. I was getting frustrated. I felt i was an awful, selfish human being and my wife deserved better. I thought i had to feel a certain way, that no one other than myself was thinking these emotions, never mind showing them.

Then i read your thread and knew what i was going through was normal. You said out loud what a lot of us wanted to say, but dare not say for fear of being judged by friends, family and strangers. Here's a very ill man facing the worst thing possible, and you were telling us you mattered too, which meant I mattered. It lifted me up of the ground and gave me a new lease of determination. I no longer felt like the worst person walking this earth. I actually cried first reading your thread because a massive weight was lifted from my shoulders.

I could literally go on for days singing your praises, so i won't bore you. But anyone who comes on here feeling like i did, feeling awful they are wishing it would all just stop, i don't hesitate to link them to this gold mine of a thread.

Always know, your story, from your perspective has helped at least one person, and that person is me. I will always be eternity grateful for every word you've written in this thread during your darkest times. You gambled, not sure if people would be accepting of your forthrightness, but you had the courage to type what a lot of us wanted to type. I'm not sure i would have had the courage to open up like you did. But i do now. The love for your husband shone through at all times, even on the days when you were mentally on the edge and at the end of your tether. That was never in doubt.

Oh my goodness you have sent goosebumps down my arms with your post, thank you so much.  I was going to stop when Norman died but I couldn't.  So many friends made and so many died along the way, husband's, wives, sisters, brothers, it doesn't matter who we are we all have a breaking point and many times I reached mine but venting on here helped and still does, its gone from your head, out there in cyber space, no one knows who we are just that we are all suffering in one way, patient or carer, I'm not sure if you've read it all but yes, others say as you have that we feel pushed to one side, made to feel like some hanger on to cancer, one we never wanted to be, or asked for.  Norman knew his end was near and asked me to live my life as I always had, with love and humour, I'm abiding by this request. I will not fall in a heap of tears and sadness, that will serve neither me nor my beloved family, grief is hard but its real and we must all find our own way of dealing with it.  So thank you for your honesty, it's greatly appreciated.  Carol x 

i've read it all.

I'm seconding this.

Carers need someone to speak up for them. I often wish I could be braver and more outspoken.

When I need to find more courage I think of this blog.

Thank you Carol. And thank you ProfBaw for voicing your thoughts too.

xx

Thank you all, I am blushing with embarrassment (not really as chuffed to bits I've helpd) .   So back to real life.  I didn't tell you that Faye, Ella and I went to see a production of Cinderella at Durham Cathedral in the cloisters at night time it was so well done and totally different.  Ella had never realised that it was named after her as being only 9 she didn't know what cinders were but after a history lesson from Grandma she knew about hot coals and cinders.  Anyway we had tea in Pizza express first, took picnic blankets, her favourite cow blanket, which took us so long to find as I'd done so much in the house it was put in a safe place, that safe I couldn't remember!  We were all sat in the grass and trust me by 9.30pm I wished I'd done what many older people had done and taken a chair, my old bones were not happy sitting unaided on damp grass.  So this play had six people in it and was set in the late 1940s, think The famous Five, Mallory Towers and you get the idea.  So it was a play within a play, the children come home from boarding school for summer and put Cinderella on as a play.  It was hilarious, all of these children were played by adults in childhood clothes of the forties, stripey short jumpers, thick wool trousers, the girls in flowery dresses, they a had a cow called miky white who doubled as a horse for the carriage, a pet rat as the driver a large hand held puppet owl which flew through the audience and landed on a bald man's head, (he laughed but wasn't amused).  So all six players played everyone, even the cow.  We laughed so much and during the interval we had hot coffee and doughnuts.  What an evening to remember.  But as usual we had a problem at the car park.  Last time I did Durham the car park was near the old skating rink, but when we got there it was now the new passport office, so we parked in the new one, got in the lift thinking we would end up on the top of Durham but when we exited we were on the roof of the car park.  So down we went again, read all the signage, how much it was per hour etc.  But when we returned and scanned our ticket it said nothing to pay.  This threw us and we both thought we would get fined, Ella got upset saying the police would come for us!  It was 9.45pm by now and I rang the number on the board, they answered to our relief, apparently if you park after 2.30pm.its free, would be nice if it had said that on the board I pointed out, sorry he says its new, we haven't got round to it yet!!  So off we set thinking the barrier would be locked but sighs of relief all round we were released.  Take care, Carol x 

the play sounds an absolute hoot

very rational fear that about getting locked in – kind of stupid thing that happens and I worry about

speaking of which hope you're not travelling to Oxenholme as there was piece on bbc today about number of travellers finding themselves locked in recently after exiting their train, had to wait for rail staff to bring key, sounded like total farce which knowing your luck ...

Take care, Rose x

Dear Rose, as I have no idea where that is I hopefully won't be locked IN!! XX

that's just as well!

(it's in the lake district)