My Latest Posts
Intertwined.
Ten years ago, today – 29th December, my 43-year-old husband took his last laboured breath, turning his body cold, grey and devoid of a once great life. What followed was a chaotic stillness, a messy symphony of pain, emptiness, silence, hysteria, wandering misguided without our familiar anchor. In the days, months, and years until we…
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Long live the fighters
I woke like a bird at 4 am, eyes wide open, on high alert – my brain assessing threats even before my mind was awake. I was not going back. To sleep. After 18 months of all-consuming stress, illness, hospitals, sleepless nights, constant worry, and stomach-turning turmoil, today was Fred’s ‘end of treatment’ clinic appointment…
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From Now On
My son has just finished 36 weeks of chemotherapy. This is on top of the 6 weeks of radiotherapy, 2 weeks of interim chemotherapy, a 5 week stay in hospital, one 12-hour brain surgery, and two emergency brain surgeries, that came before. It has been 14 months of the hardest most relentless minutes, hours, days…
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Stay with me, Fred
Five days after the brain tumour surgery Fred was recovering well. We were told they were going to remove the EVT drain – which meant Fred coming home was only days away. Having tubes in his neck and a bag of fluid hanging from his head was quite restricting and he wasn’t allowed to leave…
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I can’t do this again
A few days after surgery to resect the tumour, Fred had a post-op MRI scan. He was anxious about it and wanted me in the room with him. He was coping so well with all of this but was understandably distressed about the MRI. I found it so hard to see him this way -…
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Look after my boy
Monday came, as Mondays do – I was both relieved and terrified by the dawn of this, the most significant one. I arrived at the hospital early to ensure I saw Fred before they took him to theatre. It was outside visiting times, but I needed to see him. There was no way I could…
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I want my Dad.
It was late Thursday evening when we arrived at Hull Royal Infirmary. Fred gave me a list of items to return with the next day: Charger Laptop Headphones Book (from next to bed) Clippers Pillow Toothbrush Ward 40 was to be his home for an in-determent period while we awaited the plan. ‘Welcome to Neurosurgery…
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They were wrong
On Thursday, 23 March 2023, I took my six foot six, 21-year-old son to A&E after months of frustration and distress since he began having severe headaches at Christmastime. Fred and I tried repeatedly to get help and guidance from our local surgery. Trying to get an appointment with a GP had seemed unnecessarily difficult.…
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Long live the fighters 
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