DOWNS AND UPS

Afternoon sunlight over a frozen lake in the park

As ever, the stay at the clinic has been a bit of a mixed bag. The prospect of repeated visits ad infinitum got me quite down at times – it’s funny, of course I’ve known since I was diagnosed 15 months ago that the cancer’s very unlikely to disappear, but with hindsight I think I coped by convincing myself that, however horrible, this was just a phase I had to get through, and that somewhere down the line my life would go back to normal. (Or, ideally, having glimpsed death and undergone the requisite amount of suffering, my life would be transformed and wonderful and I'd appreciate every minute as a gift from the universe. Hmm, no pressure there then!) Some kind of protective mechanism must kick in to allow you only to take in what you can bear to face at that point in time. I think what’s happening now is that it’s sinking in, in a new way, that this will probably shape the rest of my life, however long that might be.

So there was some readjusting going on, and it was hard work at times to drag myself out of self-pity, or weariness at the prospect of keeping having to do all this indefinitely. (As the Red Queen in "Through the Looking-Glass" said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!") However I also had some really lovely times with other patients and their support people (who somewhere down the line have become nicknamed “jockstraps”!). Whether it was deep conversations about facing our inner demons and making sense of why we’ve got cancer, or mealtime banter and joking, I felt enormously warmed by the connections I’ve made. Some of the people I’ve got to know well overlapped with me again - Hilary and her husband Arthur, Cathy and Dick from the US, Fiona from Scotland, John and Mary from Australia - and it was wonderful to cement those friendships and to share their company. Sadly it's unlikely that my schedule will coincide with theirs in the near future, which is a great shame, but I also met a number of other lovely people – the spirit of support seems to carry on despite the turnover. 

In addition Jenny and her husband Andy from Liverpool, who I met in January, are still at the clinic and have become a central part of clinic life. Jenny’s had a pretty rough time of things recently so when she couldn’t come down for meals we went to visit her instead. Her determination and courage are inspirational – it certainly helped me to get things in perspective. Her story's documented in Andy's blog at http://www.keepthefaith.org.uk/.

So there were some uplifting and precious times. A social highlight was going out for dinner at the nearby Kurhaus hotel – a much-needed change of scene and food – and we sampled a couple of the amazing cakes for dessert. 

Dinner with (left to right) Hilary, Andy, Lisa, Cathy, Dick and Arthur

The last couple of days warmed up (to a mere couple of degrees below freezing!) and there was a dusting of snow which brought a little magic to the village.

Main street of Bad Salzhausen

Cathy and Dick seeing me off as I left

Weathervane at the station