A word from her indoors..........

Hello this is Sarah this time.......quite a few people have suggested that I occasionally share my thoughts with you via the blog and let people know how I am. I apologise in advance for not being anywhere near as eloquent or funny as my other half!

So how am I? I think it is fair to say how I am can change on an hourly basis (!) but I am generally in very good shape. My fundamental belief has been for many years that you cannot always change the circumstances of your life but that you do have a choice about how you relate to those circumstances, or in other words you cannot always change the hand you have been dealt but you can choose the way you play the cards!

Given that this is probably the saddest circumstances I have ever had to deal with (and for those of you that know me really well will know that there have been a few), I feel amazingly alive. The normal highs and lows of life have a greater intensity than in normal circumstances and strangely I notice a lot of things in a new way, like the amazing colours of the trees in the Autumn. Our house is still filled with love and laughter - the difference is that the laughter can often be interspersed with tears at the thought of what is likely to happen in the future.

In terms of Dave, what can I say? It is impossible to express in words the way I feel about Dave. We are, and always have been best mates who are also soul mates and we are still very much in love even after 27 years together. I feel that that is extraordinary in itself, but it also makes the thought of losing him absolutely gutwrenching. He handles his illness with the most extraordinary courage and is still a joy to be around every day. As the normal every day things become more and more difficult (and believe me there's only Emma and myself who know how tough it really is at times), he still tackles everything with a smile.

And in terms of Emma well what a little star she is. A great support to her mum and dad, providing endless hugs and not bemoaning that we can't do all the things that we used to do together like swimming and cycling and going to the pictures as a family together. Instead she invents new games like "nick the (walking) stick" to leave her dad temporarily stranded in the kitchen or using his grabber stick as a tickle stick for the cat! She is still working very hard at school when it would be easy to use her dad's illness as an excuse. I am so proud of her I feel fit to burst sometimes and am so grateful for the relationship and closeness we have as a family. I cannot imagine what this whole thing would be like if you were in a relationship or family that was already struggling as the pressure at times is immense and sometimes overwhelming.

So in summary.................all there is to do at the moment is to live in the now and make the most of every day as far as we can which I know sounds very cheesy. When people ask me am I still at work I say "I am this week!" For me there is no future to plan for - to the amazement of many people I work with there is as yet no Christmas for me at a time when they are running around panicking about their shopping and all the "stuff" they have to do!

To conclude this particular post when Dave went to the Bristol Cancer Centre one of the doctors used a Buddhist analogy for life in these circumstances which was that it was like "licking honey of the razor's edge" and this really rings true for me. This may sound strange but at the moment I have everything in my life that I need - the dangerous thing is that on a daily basis I live with the realisation that everything I hold dear to me could be wiped out in an instant.