Wednesday 17th August 2011

The shock starts to wear off
  What a difference a day makes.

Yesterday morning, I was full of hope, only to have those hopes crushed by the scan results.

I went to sleep, thinking about the possible up sides and way forward. I woke up focussing on everything that is negative. I need to focus on some element of normality and start to think about up sides again -- weetabix maybe!

Not that sleep consumed a great of the night. I spent a long time in the half-light of the hospital word, trying to doze, trying to read but mostly thinking.

The most important thing that we need to plan our future, is some idea of timescales. I need time "to put my affairs in order". Apart from that I need to keep things as normal as possible for as long as possible. On the other hand it is not fair to ignore everything and leave others to pick up the pieces.

Building a personal "bucket list" and trying to knock the items off is simply not going to be fair to Sue and the rest of the family.

Early ward round was encouraging. The doctor seemed quite upbeat, talking about the various options and explaining what would be happening at the conference tomorrow. Lots of focus on normality rather than details of treatment outside of normality.

Sue came round in the morning .. not in the rules but wonderfully reassuring.

The cancer nurse came round and Sue was there. She did a good job of explaining what is going on and support services that would be available. I am not really sure how that left me feeling.

However the hospital chaplain then followed and that was very helpful.

EVERYTIME THAT I THINK ABOUT THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE EXPRESSING SUPPORT AND PRAYING FOR ME I GET REALLY EMOTIONAL. WE GOT A WONDERFUL E-MAIL FROM BEN AND CHERYL CALLONI, A COMMITTED CHRISTIAN COUPLE WHOSE LOVE FOR JESUS AND OTHERS SHINES BRIGHTLY.

Sue agreed about ideas of keeping as close as possible to normality. We started to develop a communication plan - what we are going to tell who and when. In particular what we are going to Jenny and my dad.

The nurse was helpful. She explained that Jenny as a doctor will already have a very good idea after seeing me at Center Parks. I sent an E-mail to Jenny based on this assumption, but leaving out the liver part.

Later, Sue and I phoned Cathy. She confirmed that she and Jenny spent time talking at Center Parcs and that Jenny had a pretty good idea. That meant that Cathy also was somewhat prepared. It didn't, make things any better for her; she was still very upset. (Look, I used a semi-COLON, I am not frightened of the word!).

Cathy is coming at the weekend .. so the first element of our plan to ensure that she didn't drop everything and come immediately worked well.

I managed to give AtE a hint without being too specific and processed a couple of workbooks to show some link to reality.

In the evening, I uploaded some Center Parcs photos to Smugmug (more reality) and watched a couple of episodes off Eggheads on iPlayer.

I had an intravenous steroid, which immediately sent my blood suger sky high. That meant careful monitoring and quite a lot of insulin.

I spent 30 minutes reading Job and saying a prayer. Then I slept for 8 hours, only getting up twice.