Are you not bored yet?

Jenna left after three weeks.

We were gutted. Chris, because it was painful to dare to imagine life getting more simple and 16 real working days between here and Christmas, only to then re-wind right back to square one. Me, because of all that emotional vunerability and excitment and stress invested in a new friendship - a potentially crucial friendship - for nothing.

A close friend back in Australia became critically sick and it was enough for Jenna to feel like she was on the wrong side of the globe. Sad for her as she had already tried to do the UK once before and had to go home early. Sad for us because Asha and Kirin loved her.

So guys, the hunt is on...
(the advert is on http://www.gumtree.com/london/48/6882048.html if you want to point people towards it)

two photos -a day in the life of two little ones! Do I look like it's taking its toll?!
































I'm nearly half way through and I'm nearly coping ok. I keep saying to friends that it's harder to do all this the second time round. It's a bit like the sequel to the soap that takes the nation by storm. Let's face it, it's never as good. The characters are the same but the plots are just never going to live up to that first series. Well, we are that second Dallas, after JR wasn't really shot dead. So I didn't die after all (and for that we're all very grateful!) but I didn't walk away either. The hard graft of the treatment regime and the long term prognosis doesn't make for a great new serial.

Are you really not bored yet? I think I am a bit.

Today was a good day though. It rained incessantly, there was noone on the creche rota at church this morning, the swimming pool was closed (contrary to its published opening times) and the all-day breakfast in our local Vegan Cafe was just too damn weird to work as a satisfying alternative to the Pub Sunday Roast... BUT... I felt well, the kids were fab all day, I sung my lungs out at church and Chris and I cuddled in the kitchen. It was a good day. (Asha told me tonight that she didn't really like seeing us hug and that if we did it often, we would get tummy aches that would make us sick).

So what is the twist in the plot this week? There isn't one I guess, but Chris and I are certainly seeing the fault lines appear. Can you imagine how hard it is to live with someone who is isn't really sick enough to go to bed, but who can bail on you at any given moment. Someone, who one night is keeling over with exhaustion and completely incoherent by 8.30pm and on the next, is unstoppable at midnight, asking you to express your innermost feelings and aspirations. Poor Chris, I think he's numb with the strain of managing a family where the mother's needs, her health and her mood swings are about as unpredictable and unreasonable, on a day to day basis, as their 3 year old daughter's! It is the lot of the partner to stand by. To care and never complain because - afterall - they're not the one dying of cancer.

There's no magic wand here. Marriages are hard to pull off under favourable circumstances. Ours has always been rock-like, but that's possibly because we've always demanded of each other pretty high levels of emotional honesty and intimacy. The challenge for us now is how to live fully 'in the moment' and then find ways of sharing that 'moment' with each other - the lessons, the significance, the pain and/or the resolve. If doing this separately isn't really an option, then doing it 'fully together' is the only way to go. The other morning I had a bit of a cry before getting up. Chris was downstairs with the kids and had been since 6.45am. It was nearly two days later when I finally got round to mentioning it. A latte in a cafe with a girl friend and a long gas with my sister almost certainly guaranteed that I had talked about it before then, but if you get my point - that's exactly the point! Chris is, by his own admission, "bumping along" on a level of survival. Looking across at me he sees me doing the heart to heart stuff with people ....and he feels almost frozen. Is this yet one more thing that is being asked of him? Being emotionally articulate as well as holding the family together practically.

Please continue to pray for us (if that is what you do) and to journey with us. And especially thank you to all of you who are still checking this blog or checking we've got babysitters or cooked meals or money in the bank for live-in helpers or extra hands on deck straight after chemos or beautiful flowers on our kitchen table. Even if the ratings were down in this second series, we're not noticing much slackening off yet. THANK YOU we probably need it now more than ever.

'I'm an Oncologist and I'm not naturally an optimist'

That was what Peter our Registrar said to us this week! He was looking at two liver function blood results both showing the enzyme markers down by 50% . He had felt my tumour through my tummy, well enough to measure it, just before this lot of chemo started (even I had been able to feel it back in August and September!). He tried on monday and could feel nothing at all! He is not known for his over exuberence but the corners of his mouth kept breaking into a smile. He admitted he was surprised and completely delighted. He later called through with my blood test from that day, to let us know that my specific blood marker protein was down by 75%!

Pretty amazing huh?!

It doesn't half make coping with the side-effects of chemo this week more manageable. I'm so grateful to modern medicine and how effective this chemo seems to be on my particular cancer but I do love it when I even surprise the Medics!

When even they seem slightly stunned I can't help thanking God who, after all is the only One who really has my days counted. Even when I have spent most of my life loving and living for God, who I sincerely believe, in an abstract sort of way, to be in control - it still comes hard to claim a miracle for yourself. Guess that's partly because of our collaborative role in all this healing... I'm cetainly not looking at that the 'get up off your mat and walk my friend' sort of miracle. Mine is the slower more piecemeal sort. The one with lots of lessons on the way.

Mum and dad just left yesterday, having seen us through my 4th chemo (only 8 more to go) and having taken in their stride all the comings and goings of this place. Notable moments were dad and Kirin hanging out in perfect harmony for virtually the whole day of my chemo, as mum accompanied me to Barts, Jenna returned from friends in Bristol and Chris went to Henley in search of £100, 000 (from amongst rich Christians wanting to invest in a community house in Hackney). Another one of those moments was yanking five mates over to crack a Wednesday Champagne with us just as mum was putting food on the table. Another was watching Kirin and Biddy (mum and dad's large soppy boxer) eyeball to eyeball 'tug of war' round the sitting room with a rubber ring. Another was seeing my mum bundle up little Asha in her arms and take her to school, as Asha screamed her defiance, that only her mum (in a dressing gown, the day after chemo) would do.

Mum and dad thank you.

At the moment life feels like it's settling (sort of) into a bit of a routine. Chemos come round very quickly. Chris and I frequently dream dreams of travel and loft extentions and end of work sabbaticals and 40th birthday celebrations but the reality is, that from here through to March, we're pretty tied to Barts. Getting used to Jenna in our lives is also a big thing and wanting to get that right isn't without it's inevitable stresses (on both sides of course). Asha is (quite rightly) wonderfully unreasonable about letting mum have a lie down and dad head out sometimes. And why shouldn't she be - she's 3 years old and life doesn't always go her way. It doesn't make it easy for the rest of us though.































Sometimes friends ask me whether I'm really honest on the Blog. Well, I'll let you into my journal entry for today. Slightly ironic at the end of this particular blog entry as I started so euphoric, but hey, that's what life is like for me.

'I hate planning a day where I know I need to lose my children for parts of it. I hate hiding in my bedroom when I'm not quite sick enough, but not quite well enough to cope with much more. I hate the sense of guilt that I could have done those moments better. I hate the fact that deep down, I fear this has more to do with my lack of stamina for parenting, than my managing this illness. I hate the fact that I have a cold right now.'

Thankfully, precisely because it was one of those 'bedroom moments' I didn't leave it there and eventually the sense of it all being allowed and of being forgiven came through.