Difficult Post

I haven't posted on here for well over a week, which, if you are a regular reader of my ramblings in this blog, will not have surprised you. The reason is that my lovely wife, Carol, passed away on 11th December. The last 18 months or so have been a really traumatic journey, from the original diagnosis, through 12 completed cycles of chemotherapy, the infection she got after the final chemo cycle, the hospitals stays (I've lost count of how many she had.), but throughout I have gone with her for each consultants appointment, chemo cycle in the oncology department at Milton Keynes University Hospital, consultant's appointments at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, Endoscopy, M.R.I. and as  well as C.T. scans, then to Willen Hospice and finally, Castlemead Court in Newport Pagnell.

I have been supported throughout all this by members of Shenley Christian Fellowship, particularly our Pastor, Ross Dilnot, who was with me on the morning of Carol's death. He came with me when I went to the Registry Office to register the death, which we did last Friday morning and then to Mason's, the undertaker's in Newport Pagnell to arrange the funeral, which will be at 2 p.m. on 11th January at Crownhill Crematorium.

I was supposed to have had a second stent fitted the following day, 12th December, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. I was driven there by Tim O'Brien who is a member of S.C.F. There was no way I could drive, and I was supposed to get to the hospital department by 7.30a.m. Also, I was told that I would not be able to drive after the procedure. I was on the morning list, so I'd be finished and ready to come home around midday.

But, unfortunately, I had a bit of a meltdown. I should have cancelled the procedure, but it was barely 24 hours since Carol had passed away. So I discussed this with one of the nurses and explained that I was feeling depressed over Carol's passing. She understood and suggested they postpone the procedure. Then one of the doctors came to talk to me and said that there was no immediate emergency regarding the procedure and it could be postponed until sometime in January. Hopefully after the funeral. The doctor had to ring Tim on his mobile because he had gone off to park in a park-and-ride carpark with the intention of going into the centre of Oxford until I was finished after the procedure. Everyone understood that what I have been going through was traumatic and emotional enough and that it wouldn't have been appropriate for me to go ahead with the procedure.

This is a shorter-than-usual post, for me, at least. It was really difficult to write. It has actually taken a few days to put into words what's been happening, but now I've completed it. It's going to be a difficult couple of weeks as you can imagine.

'Flu Jab Today

I fall into a group which is called 'vulnerable' when it comes to such things as 'flu, so I get an annual jab about this time every year, because I've had a heart attack as well as being over he age of 60. Ashfield Medical Centre in Beanhill, which is where I'm registered as a patient, runs two Saturday clinics for these 'flu jabs, one being today, 23rd September and the second on 14th October, between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. No good if I'm going to be ill as I'll be no use to Carol if I'm incapacitated so I make the most of this. Thank goodness for the N.H.S. It may have it's faults, but if you had to pay for a 'flu jab it can cost from around £6 to £12. I went along to the surgery at 7.45 this morning and parked ready and waiting and then found a quite considerable queue of people waiting outside the surgery. As soon as the door was opened everyone flocked inside and we had to register with one of two receptionists and I was called through to Dr Cassidy and the jab was administered fast and efficiently and I was out and driving home by 8.15. How is it they can run these clinics so well yet you can be sitting around for a couple of hours as we did in the endoscopy department the other day? We think perhaps they were short staffed when we were there. The C.T. scan which Carol had on Thursday was done very quickly with the minimum amount of waiting. 

A Really Difficult Post

This is going to be a very difficult blog post to write. In fact I've avoided writing it as you willl discover why you will probably see why. As I've mentioned in the past few weeks on this blog, Carol has been unwell. We haven't had a particularly good summer. She was off work from the Academy for the final two weeks of the summer term and then, over August and well into September we've had quite a few visits to Accident and Emergency as well as appointments at Ashfield Medical Centre with doctors as well as the practice nurse. This is due to a great deal of pain she has been experiencing. The first doctors appointment she had she was thought to have a urinary infection and was put on antibiotics. But that did not appear to make any difference. She had real problems sleeping at night with the intense pain. On at least two occasions we went to the Urgent Care Centre at Milton Keynes Hospital and a further couple of times to Accident and Emergency. The last time we went there she was admitted to hospital and spent four days there, eventually moving to Ward 19. Still no cause found for the continuing pain, however she was given a wide variety of different pain relief medication, including tramadol. Eventually she had a further appointment with the practice nurse who did a further examination and then got her referred to the hospital to have an endoscopy appointment. This was on a Sunday (mentioned in an earlier post.) We were to get the results of this investigation the next Tuesday. It was more than a shock when the doctor who gave us the results that the cause of the pain was caused by a lesion. Which meant it was likely to be cancerous. You can imagine our shock. I have to say I almost fell on the floor when we were told. Not something you want to hear at any time, ever, as you can appreciate. There needed to be further investigations, including another endoscopy which uses a camera and is able to take possibly biopsy so that further tests could me done. This happened last Monday, and, unfortunately, they have now confirmed that it is cancerous. We now have to wait for the results from the biopsy and today, Thursday, Carol had a C.T. scan to check that there is no further cancer in any other organ of her body. A huge and very difficult thing to take in from both of us as well as our families. Unfortunately Carol is still continuing to experience great pain, particularly at night, making it very difficult to sleep. Meanwhile she has been signed off work from Milton Keynes Academy. I am going to leave off writing this and will make mention of things as they develop in future posts.

The C.T. scan went incredibly well. The appointment was at 9.30 and we got to the hospital far too early, as we have a habit of doing with most things. Not such a bad thing in itself, I suppose, particularly if you have to contend with traffic as well as parking. We walked to the unit, which we'd been to a couple of weeks previously. As we got there too early the receptionist rang through to find out if Carol could be seen early and apparently there was a gap in the schedule, so there was none of the waiting as we experienced at the endoscopy department a few days earlier. It was all over very quickly and we were soon walking back to the car and coming home, although we did go into the shop at the entrance as Carol said she had a really nasty taste in her mouth, no doubt caused by the dye she had injected into her blood stream to aid the scan and needed a drink of something to get rid of the taste. Taking a great deal of medications, that is one of the side effects that such meds can cause. We also bought a couple of pastries and went home.

More N.H.S. Waiting Rooms-2

Carol had another appointment at Milton Keynes Hospital on Thursday at the endoscopy department. The time we had to be there was 8.30 a.m. We left in the car, preferring not to walk, and got there in good time. Difficult at times to judge how long it would take, especially if the traffic is going to be heavy as well as finding the department within the hospital. We parked in the multi-storey car park and then walked across to the main entrance. Carol saw a couple of her pupils from the Academy and she had to explain why she wasn't at work. We entered the hospital through the main entrance but then discovered that the endoscopy department was actually reached without that long haul along that (seemingly)endless corridor. You could get to it from the outside without going through the main entrance. We reported to the reception desk and Carol had to fill in a form to give details of any medications she was on and other health-related details. A fairly long wait in the waiting area then followed.

People were being called through to be ready for their treatments/therapies or whatever you want to call them. Carol was eventually called in and got ready by being processed (for want of a better word) by one of the nurses, going through a list to make sure she had no allergic reactions to mediations as well as having a blood-sugar test as she's diabetic.

I waited with her until she went through for the endoscopy. I then went back to sit in the waiting room. Oh dear. So depressing. Well, I suppose it would be. Lots of people making sure they didn't make eye-contact with anyone else. People coming and going. The place decorated to a sort of bland N.H.S. standard. Too many posters all over the place. Far too much information and most of it likely to be forgotten as soon as you walked out of the place. 'Information over-load' I think you could say. A baby making odd gurgling noises. The young woman sitting next to me seemed more interested in her mobile phone than making any sort of conversation or even living in the 'real world.' A woman came into the reception area in a wheelchair and she began a very loud conversation with the woman behind the counter. She said she was deaf so she couldn't hear everything and then proceeded to regail the entire waiting room about how she'd had such-and-such procedure and how was it that she'd put up with some pain for 20-odd years and the doctors could find nothing wrong, so why did they do the procedure three times and then she repeated it several more times, at the top of her voice. It was a bit like one of Alan Bennett's characters, or one of his monologues, the one's done on television, called 'Talking Heads.' She could be played by either Thora Hird or Maggie Smith.

Then Carol reappeared. There were two ladies she knew, from another church in Milton Keynes, Loughton Baptist Church or somewhere. I didn't know who they were. They chatted for a while and then we left. The procedure Carol had had only took a few minutes and we walked out of the unit and back towards the entrance of the hospital and bought some pastries in Costa and then went back to the car and home.