Part 2 a)

I can't think of a suitable blog title at the moment...so it's Part 2, with an added a)...the "a)" being in case we get to a b) later on early tomorrow morning....who knows what time I'll post this, or get to sleep.

I'm starting with an apology, actually two apologies. I've made a couple of enormous mistakes in blogs recently.

The first was in reference to cricket yesterday. I said we would have walked up the Melling Road from Vauxhall Station to the Oval. I don't know why, but of course I meant the Harleyford Road. As I typed it I was having fond memories of Brian Johnston and his famous commentaries on Test Match Special..."two red London buses winding their way down the Harleyford Road" was something he pointed out on a regular basis to the listening public all around the world from his commentary position high in the Surrey Members Stand. The Melling Road is, of course, the piece of tarmac (suitably covered with sawdust for the day) that the horses gallop over during the running of the Grand National every year at Aintree. Sorry about that.

The second faux pas was when I was typing earlier today and I said that Environmental Health had provided us with all those "helpful gadgets" to assist Jill around the home. Of course, I meant to type Occupational Therapy.....as easy mistake to make I'm sure you'll agree....I mean, those two are almost the same thing (not)....but I can only assume I was harking back to the days when EH were one of my departments inside the Environment Department. Sorry again. Brainfreeze.

Right, apologies over. Let's get down to more important detail. Jilly is beside me as I type. She's not sitting in a chair beside me, and I'm not lying in her bed beside her, but my chair is close enough that I can easily hold her hand and type very slwly and bdly if i ned to. She's comfortable and relaxed. Everyone has just gone home except for Bex, who has asked to stay here with me tonight. To be fair, she'd have to go home to an empty house....well nearly empty. Tom, Dan and Sally (while inside the same building) would be a very long way away, and Jack and Stephe are still (while inside the same building) next door. Bex wants to stay here, so she stays. That will make this room even more snug tonight, but that's fine.

Jill now has two subcutaneous lines in her right thigh. I had promised her there wouldn't be any more needles in veins, but hadn't bargained on two lines under the skin....but they're for the best. Line 1 is pumping in a very slow dose of morphine on a regular basis. Line 2 is there in case we need any additional drugs. So far so good...Jill seems settled with the arrangements. We've also recently changed her cotton sheets for silk versions (something to do with making it easier to move her on the bed). She's also sporting some rather fetching new wooly socks tonight...supplied by one our most bestest and helpful  friends. No cold feet for Jill this evening...this friend says that she always had to wear socks during labour...what? really? why did I need to know that?...I would have thought that said friend would have had other things to worry about during labour than wearing socks. I don't even remember to put socks on when I get up in the morning! Anyway, the socks are lovely....and "sock photos" have taken and sent on. If there's a competition somewhere in the world tonight for the best looking socks in a cancer bed then we will win for sure.

Leg dressings have just been changed. All good. Bex and I offered to do them....after all we've done them ourselves for some weeks now....but the nurses were keen to do things their way.

Jilly has had numerous messages and texts during the day. While very few have been answered (by us...sorry), I can assure our reader that every one has been read out to Jill. I can only thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. We ourselves here are also thinking of others tonight.....two girl friends especially who are both fighting their own really tough battles against cancer. In both cases we had promised to "meet up soon" and I'm really sad that Jilly won't now be able to do that. They all bounced off each other....there's no doubt that fellow sufferers have an empathy that is just that little closer...that little more "yes, we understand what you mean"....that little more "we've felt that pain, we've known the anguish and the fear".

"The Haircut" story finally made it into the paper today....two girls (Sue and Jill) topless on page 3....well, hairless anyway. I never had my Jill down as page 3 girl....but I'm proud to see her there today. No doubt on the back of Lucy Stevenson's article, their fund raising efforts are now over £9600. I'm sure that not even in their wildest dreams would they ever imagined they could raise so much. I am astonished, but have no doubt that sometime tomorrow they will get to their (3rd. or is it their 4th.) target of £10k. We also know that another friend of ours, who has selected Ovacome (the ovarian cancer charity that Jill is so close to) as her "nominated charity", will also have raised over several thousand pounds by the time she's finished.

We are so lucky here in Jersey to have such generous people all around us. These various charities all deserve, and need, our continued support....they do such essential work. It's not only physically tough having cancer, it can be financially tough. Here in Jersey we send many patients away for their treatment. The Royal Marsden, where Jill has spent more weeks (months?) than I care to remember, is one of Europes top cancer hospitals....if not THE top. However, it's bang in the middle of one of the most expensive areas of London...which is lovely, but creates it's own problems. The cost of staying close by for both outpatients and relatives is huge....and very often not covered by assistance from Health. I'm not going to start getting political, but without charities like Jersey Cancer Relief many wouldn't know how to cope with the financial cost of cancer....never mind the emotional cost. I said I wouldn't get political but I'll finish this paragraph by saying that when we eventually start to build this bloomin' new hospital we better make sure the oncology and haematology units are big enough. We will have, actually no, we already have more cancer cases than we thought we would. We will need a bigger and more comprehensive facility than is currently planned...cancer and diabetes will play a major part in everyone's lives moving forward. Our reader can expect me to be saying so very publicly, very soon.

Jill is asleep. Bex is asleep. I'm.....not feeling sleepy at all. This isn't good. If I don't start to nap soon I won't be much good tomorrow. I'll sign off now and see how it goes. Who knows, I may be back discussing the leading UK and US male singer/songwriters in a couple of hours. What about male instrumentalists? Have you picked your favourite yet?