Categories: uncategorized
Date: 15 August 2005 09:31:45
....things were as expected at Dad's trip to the hospital. Not good news, with secondaries appearing throughout the bone, but primarily in the right hip and thigh and in the humerus on both sides. Not very humerous, to tell the truth, but we seem to be coping well with it, all four of us.
We have no clear prognosis, but they're talking about operating in a month or so to put a pin down the length of his thigh and then use radiotherapy to blast the cancer cells and thus reduce the pain he's experiencing there. They may also do his arms, though obviously not at the same time. He's also been referred to the hospice for treatment - we're off there tomorrow. Needless to say, the radiotherapy will be done on the mainland, just after the council have decided to make cancer patients start paying their own transport costs!!! At £11 per crossing, before you add in the cost of a taxi on the other side, that could prove pretty stressful at a very stressful time already. I feel an angry letter-writing session coming on.
But first we've got to ensure he's well enough for the operation. Would you believe it? For years now I've been condemned to reading every label on every tin or packet I purchase in the supermarket because, with Dad's diabetes and Angina, he was told to avoid sugar and salt in his meals. He has even refused to eat many ready-meals and I've had to cook at the most inconvenient times because ready-meals generally contain too much salt. Then what happens? They do a blood test and discover that Dad's sodium levels are really too low for a general anaesthetic!!! I bought him a big bag of crisps and am now thinking of stealing a salt-lick from the nearest field of cows and installing it in a corner of the lounge for him to take a lick at every so often! Still, at least he's now eating ready-meals again, so every cloud has a silver lining.
I have survived the ordeal of telling the children, on a gentler level, what is happening with grandad and they've taken it well. I didn't tell Smudgelet quite as much as I told Tiddles, but he's guessed it anyway and we had a long and detailed talk about life, death and heaven. He concluded: "So, if you think about it mummy, everyone dies sometimes but it should be the last thing on your mind because it's the last thing you do... and you have to make sure you really get the most out of living, don't you? You have to make life here really good because life in heaven's going to be even better, so the better earth life is, the better heaven will be. Except, how will they manage in heaven without a TV to see what's happening on earth? But it is going to be sad and lonely when grandad's not around."
Mind you, it didn't stop him refusing to get up to kiss grandad goodnight because he was too engrossed in the Muppet Movie video last night. He waved goodbye from his seat on the floor and said "sorry grandad, that'll have to do!"