This is the most recent photo of us together -- Jan 2012 just delighted to be out and about, together, in our own back-yard with the last operation receding into the past ... this was at The Roaches -- a week after my lung surgery:
B and I have been together for nearly 20 years now .. we had our civil partnership in Easter 2006, which is now almost 6 years go ...
It is slightly weird to look at these pictures of great happiness on the wedding day and realise that the tumour was already there: 
Our honeymoon in USA was when I first noticed symptoms that were a result of cancer, though it was not diagnosed until September that year .. initially I put them down to the journey / wedding stress etc etc ... What this teaches us is that we were happy befoer we realised the tumour was there, and we need to keep hold of that even though we know there is cancer inside. Cancer inside, per se, doesn't stop us living our lives.
I think it is ALL very hard for her .. in many ways I really think that this is harder for her than it is for me ... advanced bowel cancer is not a condition people are expected to get better from. It is a death sentence ... I have already reached the 5 year point which is reached by only a tiny percentage of ppl with advanced bowel cancer ... although new statistics suggest that a few of us might get upto ten years with repeated treatments .. in a way there is always that sense of getting our life doled out to us in 6 month chunks between the all-revealling scans! We both know in the back of our minds that at some point she will be bereaved and that she will find that very hard ... I would rather be the one going than the one left .. yes, for sure ..
We deal with this by accepting that this is true for everyone, even if you live to be 90-odd there will always be death, and you cannot spend all your alive time worrying about that. Just because we now sense our ending is closer than for other people of our age, it is only the same as every other mortal being .. no-one ever lasts for ever ... you are only realy certain of the moment you are in .. no-one really knows their future, despite everyone assuming that they DO!
Brigid and I both said, 20 years ago, and on other occasions since, that we would only stay together if that was right for each of us .. that there was no point in staying in a relationship if it lost its magic and its purpose .. each day we stay together because we choose to stay together .. it is always a fresh commitment never a stale old habit. We both still think this way ...
Sometimes I wonder, and ask her, why she chooses to stay .. it seems to me like I am very hard to be with sometimes. Anyone who knows me in real life knows what a sharp / gruff /chip-off-the-old-TOFT-block / bugger I can be, especially when I am in pain my temper gets very short. During treatments my life can close down to a very narrow circumference too. So far it has been the treatments rather than the cancer that has altered out lives. I would happily set her free, or accept other ways of living if she wanted to change it, but so far she has not.
If anything she has become more devoted and more aware of relishing the times we have and the things we do together .. for instance, we set the goal of getting up Ventoux together which was amazing. We did not know it but a few weeks after this happy-snap in August 2009 I would be back in surgery for another major bowel operation, looking back we realise that I did this fabulous climb with a large tumour on my gut and two other small ones on my lungs:
This photo was around Christmas 2011, about two weeks before my lung operation:
In some ways illness can do that for some people. It can enhance your enjoyment of what you have. It has done that for us two .. partly because we are influenced by Indian / yogic philosophy about life which helps us to deal with things most of the time ... we aim to live in the present and do not harbour grudges for the past or fears for the future ... MOST of the time, it is not something we pull off 100% of the time!
Brigid is a good nurse, she likes to look after me, it seems. But an important counter-balance to that is that she also gets looked after herself. One of our friends has taken on specifically the role of taking her out (without me!) and being her sounding board and putting Brigid first for the whole duration. This is a very special gift for a friend to give, to realise the need and to meet it on-demand! Other friends and people at her work also help to care for her. My parents helped us to buy our caravan near Brigid's school so that she can spend less time commuting when we stay there in the week explicitly to try and make things better for her. My parents really appreciate the toll it takes on Brigid, to be looking after me, especially when I am in treatment.
So it is a partnership of us two, but also the wider community of people, lovely family and friends, who look after us both. If you are part of that, then be sure that it is appreciated.
Thank-you
No comments:
Post a Comment