respect – Shrinking Horizons

When life hands you lemons…..

….make lemonade or preferably add them to a G&T.

Well it just has, but no matter how much lemonade or gin I drink it won’t change the situation or make it better.

We had survived the five long and difficult years when the AP was living with us, then we were planning how we would spend our time and Covid-19 came along. No problem we said, lockdown is similar to the years living with the AP except we didn’t have to cope with her intransigence. We came out of it all a little wary but determined to get more out of our latter years and then, wham! A curved ball came out of the blue and left us shell shocked.

The LSO has cancer, not any old cancer but a rather rare one, he has a tumour in his tongue. He’s never smoked, never been a heavy drinker but has enjoyed his real ales and equally fine wines, isn’t overweight and thanks to the two Jack Russells is pretty fit for someone of 76 years of age.

So how did this happen? The consultant says its basically the luck of the draw!

Well, all I can say is thank goodness the LSO is not a gambler.

It has changed our lives completely. The operation was a demanding twelve hours, during which the tumour was removed and the tongue rebuilt using flesh from his thigh then it was ICU for 5 days before a move to a HDU specialising in Head and Neck for a further 2 weeks. During these challenging months the LSO inevitably lost weight but did a good job of recovering, even on a liquid diet, gaining three quarters of a stone from leaving hospital until the Radiotherapy began. Then 3 weeks in, having had 15 sessions, the side effects began to appear. By the end of the 30 sessions he was suffering from severe burning and pain in his mouth, tongue and throat making eating and swallowing incredibly difficult, leading to further weight loss. Morphine has had little effect on the pain so Fentanyl patches were added for further relief. These too had little effect so it was suggested by the radiologist that these be doubled every three days. That was last night and things do seem ever so slightly better.

Apparently the side effects keep ramping up after the treatment ends though for how long no one knows because everyone reacts differently to this brutal treatment.

Where do we go from here? Well we can only go forwards and handle the situation with grace, positivity and remember that humour is a great healer. Although at the moment the LSO is struggling and I feel weary, utterly exhausted and just a little battered and just hope we can both find the laughter we have enjoyed as a couple for 58 years returning to buoy us up.

….and the AP? still sailing on at 104 years of age.

No horizons.

We have woken up for several days lately surrounded by dense fog and on one particular day it never disappeared at all; it just kept becoming slightly more transparent then rolled back again. Apart from the occasional and refreshing sunny day, it has been cold, damp and grey. A bit like our lives in lockdown really only now we fight the brain fog that threatens to engulf us too. Conversations are punctuated with ‘thingymebobs and thingamajigs’ as we struggle to remember basic words.

When the AP came to live with us neither the LSO or myself expected the sudden change in her personality that caused us so much grief for so long. It was a relief when she finally went into a care home although that situation has its own set of problems and we did, for a short spell have our freedom back but the coronavirus and yet another lockdown have left us marooned in our home again.

I had, during our brief break for freedom, thought about changing the title of this blog. During those five and a half years not only did our horizons shrink but so did our energy levels. The whole situation seemed to suck the very life out of us both and in truth that is happening again now for differernt reasons and it must be the same for many people. So, I guess there is little point in changing the title. These are indeed worrying times and all we can do is take care, be kind to ourselves and others and have hope that the vaccine is eventually effective and we can all get back to some kind of normality.

I haven’t abandoned the weight loss programme; I am eating smaller meals, reducing the alcohol intake and I have stopped baking for a while although we are demolishing the Christmas cake. These little tweeks to our lifestyle seem to be having a positive affect for the time being.

I am now considering heading into the kitchen, in a most positive way of course, to bottle the Crab Apple gin I made two years ago.

Resolutions.

This time last year we were facing the joy of a New Year with thoughts drifting towards Spring and even holidays. Now, after a pretty dismal, at times boring and definitely worrying ten months we are facing further weeks, possibly even months of lockdown. It was certainly easier to cope with in the beginning but then we were coming into Spring and Summer with lots to do and a determination to not let it all get us down. It was so much easier to cope with during those months but after weeks of dull and mostly wet and cold weather, a Christmas that was a family free zone for us, we are feeling the pressure of having no freedom. I am sure there are many people who feel the same.

Yet, still we hear of those who don’t care about others, who are unaffected by the rising infection rates and continue as if the whole situation is a spoof. How many people have to die or become permanently affected by this virus before the hedonistic and self centred members of our society will listen to the pleas for sensibility and common sense.

The LSO and I have almost given up reading or watching the news because so much of it is either inaccurate or full of doom, gloom and what may happen not what will happen. So much speculation that seldom leans towards positivity just makes me feel more beaten down than ever. The general desire to hear bad news rather than anything good seems to be endemic to all and I always thought it was something the aged tended to enjoy.

Certainly with the AP, bad news was received in a very positive way and repeated to absolutely everyone becoming a little more disastrous and inaccurate each time it was mentioned. Talking about the AP did actually make me smile which is a rare occurrence. There she is, firmly locked down in the care home and seemingly doing really well. She has avoided even a cold so far and this is a real problem to her because the AP would love to have something wrong. Nothing of course that causes any real problems just enough to be a point of discussion and elicit sympathy. At a 102 years of age she is remarkably well and of course, in the home, well protected which makes me realise just how vunerable we all are.

Resolutions have got a bit lost in all this boredom but I really must turn my thoughts to weight loss in lockdown. Well maybe after the Christmas cake is finished.

Sometimes I sits and thinks.

Well, here we are again, back in lockdown. It was looking pretty inevitable a couple of weeks ago when the number of people testing positive was beginning to rise quite alarmingly but you just hope it won’t happen.

As usual the same old comments were bandied around and the blame game started all over again, echoing and creating a definite ‘groundhog day’ feeling. Whatever happened to kindness, consideration, caring, friendship and tolerance? Maybe they were never there in the first place and just to add to the general air of doom and gloom we have the merry-go-round that is the American Presidential Election.

The news only seems to centre on those two issues, obviously the rest of the world no longer exists. Stop the world I want to get off has become a muted cry from many as we all witness the chaos and madness that is happening beyond our walls. The muffled world indoors has once again become the centre of many people’s universe while we try to fill our time and thoughts with something worthwhile. It’s not a good plan to dwell too much on what should, could or might of been because therein lies madness.

I am firmly integrated back into my little wooden studio and planning my next project, having just completed a request from a friend for a picture of her dog. This was definitely a first for me. I used pastels which again I haven’t used for years and years but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Now I have to self- motivate and that is a slow process for me having wound right down to rock bottom during the five years the AP was living with us. But there is no rush so I am doing a little each day which sometimes just amounts to thinking. That brings to mind the old saying, ‘Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits.’ I’ve no idea where it came from but it certainly sums up my feelings at the moment.

I guess the next thing on the horizon is Christmas which is shaping up to be a strange affair this year. The family are all staying within their areas and we will be spending the first ever Christmas in fifty years of marriage, on our own.

I feel a bit like a rudderless ship!

A good man.

It’s Father’s Day soon and I found myself thinking of my own father who died quite suddenly at the age of eighty when I was only thirty six leaving me with a lot of unanswered questions. That is now thirty eight years ago and I still miss him. Our own children were very young, our daughter was six years old and her brother only two and life was pretty hectic. He would have loved seeing all his grandchildren grow up and would have been so very proud of them.

My father was born right at the beginning of the Edwardian era into a very Victorian family and he was the youngest of three children, his two older sisters were twins Betty and Maggie. There was almost eighteen years between my mother and father and I never knew my paternal Grandfather who died before I was born and only met his sisters and my grandmother for a very short time when I was young.

My father was a Merchant Seaman and worked as a Chief Engineer with the British India Steam Navigation Company from about 1917 to 1945 when he decided to leave the Navy for civilian life. I don’t think, looking back, that he was ever really comfortable with life away from the sea. He loved everthing about it and had a passion for Indian cuisine and became a good cook, introducing me to curries as a very small child. This was quite surprising given his background, as a child he’d been thoroughly spoilt and doted on by his mother and his sisters and in the Navy he even had a batman on board who did absolutely everything for him. But he loved India, it’s food and it’s culture and although he did sail to other countries that was his favourite destination.

How I wish he was here, I have much I want to ask him but sadly he is long gone and my questions must go unanswered but he left me a great legacy. He really was a good man not perfect by any means but he had a strong set of values. He taught me that it is important to treat all people with respect, that everyone has something to give no matter who they are.

I can’t say I have always followed his advice but I have tried and mostly succeeded in keeping my own council rather than being unpleasant and I really do believe that people come into your life for a reason, some stay and some pass through as not all encounters are positive or necessarily good but they all give you experience.