Have you tried sucking a lemon ?.....

I didn't really want to write a blog........ about me or my ordinary life......... because quite frankly there are enough blogs written by people and their lives already and anyway who wants to read about my life, when its hard enough living your own life as it is....but I will say this to anyone who is interested in reading..... no matter how dark your days get...... there are sunny days to come..... they are there but be patient...........

Its been a funny week, full of sad memories about my dad, and then the memories of cancer and what it does. During the early days of my wife being told she is/was ill, naturally I sought out what I could. I read about blogs by people who are fighting Cancer, I read blogs by people who are living with Cancer sufferers,  I read blogs by people who refuse to give in to Cancer..... [thats how I found Ryan] .....

There was one blog my wife pointed me to...... I was overseas on business and she sent me a link........she'd headed it up .....only a bloke could write this !!

Well I read it....written by a bloke in his forties, living in Suffolk, with two daughters and then it was that his standard template life was interrupted by a diagnosis of cancer for his wife... So he chose to write about his journey with his wife into the unknown..... at first it was interesting.... but then it suddenly hit me..... this could be me writing this...THIS IS MY LIFE.....I didn't read any more.

Living it for reality was/is enough for me I didn't need the vicarious pain of others, to know what my new life in the cancer husband club is like.

I have read other blogs of soldiers from all walks of life fighting the war on cancer, but oh so many times how painful it is to read their words written of confidence, only then to read on and find that they lost their battle....... it is surprising how many times people write with such stoicism in their battle, only then to loose their fight within weeks of writing such words..... So I've stopped reading about people writing about how they are beating it, because quite frankly its too painful. Even seeing Ryan Woods loose his battle [even though he knew he would] is hard to read about it, because everyday I know that my wife faces that same fight*.

But today is different, because she is winning that fight, she is a fighter.

So how do we go from sucking a lemon to sunny days ?

It was probably the darkest moment in my life and I never want to go there again, but I shall be haunted by that moment and the image of how tough an opponent cancer is. My wife was gravely ill in hospital and I sat there useless, an incompetent husband, but I was there and as yet another doctor came along and pronounced my wife was gravely ill, I pointed out to the latest doctor to see her, that I didn't have a medical degree and yet I could see she was gravely ill.......

have you tried sucking lemons ?....... he asked 

......5 years at medical school, at least another 5 years getting proper doctors certification and his treatment advice was to suck a lemon......now of course it is only after the event that I think maybe he was suggesting it for me and not my wife !!

But at that moment I would have done anything, so there I was at midnight, driving around Chelmsford looking for a Tesco to buy lemons/oranges/limes.......

My wife had not eaten a thing for a week, having spent most of that week on an operating table....but armed with my lemons and other well known fruits I returned, and so it was she sucked on a lemon.

That was the turning point and from thereon she started her recovery........ and so some 7 months later, and we had the family all round the dinning table, enjoying a traditional sunday roast, wine flowing, me sporting a black eye from whacking my self in the face with a plank loaded with nails, our daughters laughing and joking, my new handy man** laughing with us, and to think all of this joy down to one thing.......sucking a lemon........

Normality was restored.

So if things get tough, if your world gets dark, try sucking a lemon...... it may not be a cure for cancer, but it will make you laugh 7 months later, when you are sat around the dinning table...... if nothing else, me with a black eye and how I got it, probably helped the laughter flow as well.......but whacking ya sen in the face with a plank is not recommended !

So my SoD is this one

 simply because it's such a fun jingly jangly 
monday morning song on a sunny day

* [ Another thing about cancer is people often ask.... so have you/they been given the all clear ?.....you often hear people say they are in remission........but the reality is you can never say you have beaten cancer until you die of something else...........what a cruel irony.............you never truely get to tell people........ I beat cancer !...... thats how tough an opponent cancer really is....cancer gets the last laugh !

**[my new handyman is actually eldest daughters boyfriend.....he now dreads the words...hey Matt are you coming round to ours next weekend.......]