The Importance Of Family

Its now been exactly one week since my last chemo and what a week it was.   It was a reduced chemo dose because of all the terrible side effects I have been having. I was accompanied by sister Jackie and niece Hayley.

The chemo was all done by 15.00 and I felt really good so we decided to head off to Oxford Street as I wanted to buy a jacket from a designer shop, which makes a nice change from the charity shops.

We walked to the tube and I felt really good and only getting slightly out of breath.

It was lovely to go to designer shop and be treated like a king, the service was fantastic.

Rather than catch a tube or bus back to the hospital (where the car was parked)  we jumped in a London cab, it was the cleanest cab I had ever been in, it was white rather than black as he also used it as a wedding car.  The fare back to the hospital was £19.50, I gave him £25.00  but he said that's far too much and gave me a fiver back, I said that's the tip, he said no thanks you keep it !

By now it was getting a bit late and was rush hour time so rather sitting in traffic we decided to eat in London and head home a bit later.

We went for a walk through Hammersmith with moi wearing his new jacket !

I love it.

We spotted a nice little Thai restaurant but it wasn't due to open for another hour so we popped into a pub for a swift half or two.

We nearly stuffed up as by the time we went back to the restaurant there was only one table left, it was rammed.

The waiter/waitress was a full on Thai Lady boy and the food was fantastic.

Because it was a Friday evening the restaurant was full of workers from local businesses and the hospital.

I witnessed an amazing site whilst in the restaurant......not one person was on their bloody phone, they were talking to each other, it was a lovely thing to watch.

It was a really strange surreal day, we had a fantastic day out in London but in the middle of it all I had some chemo.

Saturday morning I went car hunting with brother Russell, I need a car as the others all work so in the daytime I'm home alone. I thought about getting a little Fiat 500 or something to buzz around then thought to myself, Im not going to be around for too much longer so why not treat myself , and treat myself I did, I bought a beautiful Jaguar XF . It is stunning although I am a bit worried about the cream leather interior especially with the dogs and the amount of mud around at the moment...It can be cleaned!

At the moment Im home alone, brother Russ and wife Tracy have taken off on a 3 week holiday to the states and a cruise to Hawaii, Im not quite alone as my niece Kimberley has moved back in to keep an eye on me.

This of course brings me back to the to the title of the blog ...The importance of family.

I was talking to Kimberley , she said to me what would you have done if you didn't move in with us?

It really made me think, what would I have done, Im not to bad now and can cook, and clean etc, but I also know that Im going to get a lot worse and will probably end my lovely life in this house.  Also I have been here since the beginning of November, what would have been the alternative, Spain would have been impossible, the dogs have been looked after, which was always my biggest concern I have been chauffeured around to various hospitals by family.

I am so so lucky and I still cant imagine what I would have done without them, I owe them big time.

I had some more sad news this week, Elaine's dad died in Macclesfield hospital, he was admitted about three weeks ago after collapsing at home but unfortunately never came out again.

Love your family people xx