Not easy writing this blog post. You will have noticed, if you're an avid follower of my posts on here, that I haven't posted anything for more than a week. We now know that Carol's cancer has spread, to her lungs and bones. I'm sorry, but there's no cure, no chemotherapy will destroy the tumour. It's really difficult to put these words on here. All I can do as a good husband is to be by her side, to help her with the pain whenever possible. She is getting good care at Willan Hospice. We don't know how much time we've got left. It's appalling for me and the family. I have support from my church, Shenley Christian Fellowship. As you will no doubt be aware I have been attending this church since last year and I can't thank everyone there for visiting Carol, either at home, in Milton Keynes Hospital and now at Willen.
Carol's mum and dad as well as her sister Jackie visited last week (I think it was last week. Time has gone into a sort of over-drive since all this began.) They came up from Bournemouth on the Monday and then stayed with family in Leicester, coming down alternate days and then returned home on the Friday of that week.
On the Tuesday I took Alfie, our Yorkshire Terrier, in to Willan Hospice to see Carol. I had to take him in the cage in the back of the car. No sooner had he got out of the car, than be began to bark noisily. In fact he barked almost all the time he was at Willen. I took him into Carol's room and he licked Carol's hands and face. I think she was really pleased to see him, but was somewhat concerned with him barking. Understandable, really, because we didn't want to upset any of the other patients. The staff loved him and made a great fuss of him, which Alfie, as expected, loved every minute of being stroked and being the centre of attention.
I had a telephone call yesterday. I rushed to pick up the thing, which is in the hallway. I'm talking here about our landline telephone. It's one of those cordless models. which means the unit sits in a docking cradle to keep the thing charged, so you can pick it up to answer and speak and talk anywhere within the house. On putting the thing to my ear there was no immediate response, no voice at the other end. I said 'hello!,' several times, then a further few seconds of silence. A sort of hollow sound, then a really awful, obviously mechanical or at least, recorded female voice said 'Good bye!!' and that was the end to the call. So, can someone tell me, what was it all about? Who on earth would bother to make a telephone call and then . . . . just silence, followed by the awful female voice saying 'Good bye!' Someone's idea of a joke. If so, a rather pathetic one. What a waste of time and effort.
I've since been on Google to look for 'silent telephone calls,' and according to Ofcom these calls are not illegal, but if you can find out who sends them you can complain to them to get the company involved fined if they make too many of them.
I took Alfie out for his routine morning walk at about 7.15 this morning. Alfie doesn't understand that we can't go out when it's dark. It gets lighter later and later. I'm a bit annoyed that I make a real effort to pick up Alfie's poo and put it in a bin. I always carry at least one black doggy bag in my pocket for this eventuality, but it's unfair that some people don't pick up after their dogs as I see quite a lot of excrement on my walk around Eaglestone Park with Alfie. On the way back along the patch back to the house I am shocked to see a postman delivering mail. I don't think I've seen a postman much before midday around here ever. Certainly not in the time I've lived in Milton Keynes. There was a time once, long ago, when you could virtually set your watch by the postman delivering. In Bedford you used to get a delivery at 7 a.m, more or less on the dot, and then a second one around 11 a.m. Certainly not now. They seem to deliver when they feel like it. The other day we got our post delivered at around 4.30 p.m. which was a real shock.
When I got back home there was a pile of mail on the doormat. One was a package from Amazon, with a book in it which I ordered about a week ago. I am supposed to get stuff from Amazon delivered within 24 hours as I have Amazon Prime. Not really sure what they've been doing with that package. Usually Amazon uses their own delivery drivers for their parcels, but this was the Royal Mail. Never mind. At least I got my order . . . eventually. But it seems the Royal Mail is slipping.
In that pile of mail I had a letter from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford telling me that I would need a second stent fitted. No doubt they know what they're doing because it came from Professor Keith Channon, Honorary Consultant Cardiologist and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine. I would imagine he has seen the scans done when I had the perfusion test done at Oxford all those weeks ago. I did wonder when I was going to hear. I'm not sure whether I will have to stay in hospital after having the procedure done and how I'm going to get there as well as back as I don't think I could drive in either direction. Far too stressful.
I had a telephone call yesterday. I rushed to pick up the thing, which is in the hallway. I'm talking here about our landline telephone. It's one of those cordless models. which means the unit sits in a docking cradle to keep the thing charged, so you can pick it up to answer and speak and talk anywhere within the house. On putting the thing to my ear there was no immediate response, no voice at the other end. I said 'hello!,' several times, then a further few seconds of silence. A sort of hollow sound, then a really awful, obviously mechanical or at least, recorded female voice said 'Good bye!!' and that was the end to the call. So, can someone tell me, what was it all about? Who on earth would bother to make a telephone call and then . . . . just silence, followed by the awful female voice saying 'Good bye!' Someone's idea of a joke. If so, a rather pathetic one. What a waste of time and effort.
I've since been on Google to look for 'silent telephone calls,' and according to Ofcom these calls are not illegal, but if you can find out who sends them you can complain to them to get the company involved fined if they make too many of them.
I took Alfie out for his routine morning walk at about 7.15 this morning. Alfie doesn't understand that we can't go out when it's dark. It gets lighter later and later. I'm a bit annoyed that I make a real effort to pick up Alfie's poo and put it in a bin. I always carry at least one black doggy bag in my pocket for this eventuality, but it's unfair that some people don't pick up after their dogs as I see quite a lot of excrement on my walk around Eaglestone Park with Alfie. On the way back along the patch back to the house I am shocked to see a postman delivering mail. I don't think I've seen a postman much before midday around here ever. Certainly not in the time I've lived in Milton Keynes. There was a time once, long ago, when you could virtually set your watch by the postman delivering. In Bedford you used to get a delivery at 7 a.m, more or less on the dot, and then a second one around 11 a.m. Certainly not now. They seem to deliver when they feel like it. The other day we got our post delivered at around 4.30 p.m. which was a real shock.
When I got back home there was a pile of mail on the doormat. One was a package from Amazon, with a book in it which I ordered about a week ago. I am supposed to get stuff from Amazon delivered within 24 hours as I have Amazon Prime. Not really sure what they've been doing with that package. Usually Amazon uses their own delivery drivers for their parcels, but this was the Royal Mail. Never mind. At least I got my order . . . eventually. But it seems the Royal Mail is slipping.
In that pile of mail I had a letter from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford telling me that I would need a second stent fitted. No doubt they know what they're doing because it came from Professor Keith Channon, Honorary Consultant Cardiologist and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine. I would imagine he has seen the scans done when I had the perfusion test done at Oxford all those weeks ago. I did wonder when I was going to hear. I'm not sure whether I will have to stay in hospital after having the procedure done and how I'm going to get there as well as back as I don't think I could drive in either direction. Far too stressful.
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