The significant other

Friday 16th July 11am

I've got the best wife in the world. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought that your little lady was the one, but this is my blog, and I decide. No extra time, no penalty shoot-out: my wife's the best.

The whole cancer trip is a shared family ordeal, and basically you adopt your respective roles. I play the part of the sufferer, the not-so-stoical patient, living in a state of numb fear while having various unthinkable things done to me by the medical profession. A basically passive role, in which I have little say in what happens and how things progress.

Catherine's role is that of loving carer, keeping spirits high, mopping my fevered brow, smiling and reassuring, keeping me upbeat, so that even in my darkest moments I know that everything's going to be alright. A few people have commented on how lucky I am to have her, believe me, I already know.

Actually, Catherine and I have a great relationship anyway. We didn't need this little spot of adversity to remind us how much we love each other. But now it's come along, she's been magnificent.

I told my Dad yesterday that I thought this whole affair had brought Catherine and myself closer together, but I'm not sure if that's true. We were already remarkably close, and what I really meant was just what a complete joy she's been to me throughout this hell. I knew she would be, and she keeps me going when I feel like giving up. When my Mum died a couple of years ago, we talked about our feelings, and I said the normal stuff about how important it is to keep telling your loved ones how much they mean to you, and to not fall out over relatively trivial matters. And yet, I think that people who love each other continue to engage in meaningless warfare about the most absurd, unimportant things.

So what is this all leading up to? Possibly a statement of the bleeding obvious: a plea to all the people I know and love to make sure that you never let the ones you love doubt it for a minute. Life's too short.

As for progress (?) on the medical front, there's goodish and baddish news. The good news - established through a quick stab with a needle - is that the flap remains alive and well. The bad news is that the stitches are coming apart again. This may not be too serious, although could result in a further delay in my release, or may mean - yikes! - yet more surgery.

As today's theme is all about lurve, I thought it would be cool to do 10 songs about love, but specifically not of the "Three times a wonderful lady in red tonight" variety, which would inevitably result in a return of my puking fits:-

1 Couldn't love you more - John Martyn
2 Your love gets sweeter every day - Finlay Quaye
3 Do I love you (indeed I do) - Frank Wilson
4 Always - Leonard Cohen
5 Pledging my love - Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross
6 Perfect world - Kate Campbell
7 If - The Divine Comedy
8 Into my arms - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
9 You send me - Sam Cooke
10 Can I sleep in your arms tonight - Carl Bozulich

RP

PS Latest update on flap front - Rick will need a further operation, probably on Monday. The latest cunning plan to fix the hole in the flap is to re-open his jaw (apparently the bone won't have healed fully yet so it will be a simple matter of taking out a couple of screws and levering the bone apart!), filling in the hole with muscle from the back of the flap (which as it has come from Rick's chest will have an abundant supply of muscle), stitching that in place and Bob's your uncle. After about 10 days the muscle will resemble the rest of the lining in his mouth so no-one will know the difference - that is assuming the muscle will stay in place for 10 days...
Here's hoping
Catherine
PPS I did like typing todays blog!