Life – Page 13 – carolannwright

Christmas Past, Christmas Present…….

As a child my Christmas’s were not good. As a young Mum Christmas was time I loved. Giving is something precious to me and very important. Whether it be gifts, cards or hospitality, giving is my idea of Christmas. But the most important gift we can give to anyone is our time. As a little girl I enjoyed watching my siblings open their presents, my brother; the year he had a new bike, something I had asked for, and my youngest sister, who wasn’t old enough to ride a bike, had a bright gleaming red one. I didn’t. But seeing the joy on their faces, made me feel happy.This was the theme as my brother and sisters know. I soon learned to enjoy by proxy, not good for a child but I had other things on my mind and watching them unwrapping their presents, in anticipation ,took my mind of what was happening to me. So it became a time for giving and I gave as much as I possibly could to my daughters, too much perhaps. We always had a happy fun-filled time and I loved seeing my family happy.

This year more than ever I see the importance of time. None of us know how much we have. It isn’t endless, the bank of life can run out much sooner than we think. We can’t pay in to it, we can’t earn interest, we can only appreciate what is there and we never know when the account may become empty. This year I am making an effort to invest only in sureties. No speculation as I have had these past 3 years. No hoping the return may be better than I had anticipated. No looking for credits in my life that I had prayed for but never received. This year, I will treasure what I have in my ‘account’ and not waste anymore on fruitless efforts or investments. Wasting our Life Account is futile and heartbreaking. Life and time are precious and we will never get the investment back.

Bit confusing? Not really.

Back in 2013 I lost contact with my eldest daughter Lisa Jayne and her family through trying to keep my integrity. I have spoken of this in earlier blogs. Things became very fraught and nasty and earlier this year especially Mothers day, she and her aunt stole from me the most valuable of fragile things, my time. They ran a vendetta that made me ill, took me away from my husband in person and in emotionally. All my energy, thought process, all my emotional investment went into trying to get them to stop. They ruined something precious for me but most of all stole me from my wonderful husband in spirit. That is unforgivable. Yes I suppose I allowed it to happen in a way, trying hard to make things right, to let other family members know the truth but none of that was worth it. They destroyed part of me, leaving me vulnerable, weak and poorly. I will never get that time back. I will never get the past 3 years of pain back and for that I am so sad.

This Christmas is going to be hard as the past 3 have. Without my family, my daughter and grandsons, it has never been the same but I can’t change that. This year with David’s operation looming it will be very hard to be upbeat and happy. Christmas is the silly season but this year is anything but silly. Christmas is a time for rejoicing and sharing. I don’t feel like rejoicing and I wouldn’t want to share my own feelings with anyone. Except I can, on here.

I could mope, I could say let’s forget about it, let’s not celebrate, as I felt last year but that would mean they, my evil ‘sister’ and co. had won. This year it would mean that cancer had won. That ‘aint gonna happen!

The views from my study window are breathtaking, I used to bore people telling them this but it was the truth. I see no beauty now. I try. I stare out at the hills, see the sunrises and the sunsets but nothing warms my heart. Times like this, Christmas, you need those you love around you. You want the children that were yours, all grown up now with their own children, near to you, close. What you don’t need is hostility, unkindness and hurt. If I could change this I would in a flash but I can’t. If I could take my beloved David’s cancer for myself, again I would in a heartbeat. But I can’t. So I haven’t been able to see any beauty in anything and I know I need to find how to see it again.

I need to have the expectations that I gave my daughter when they were children, I need to find excitement I gave them in the build up to the silly season. I want to feel the joy in giving and help us all through this difficult time. So far I have failed to do this. But I will.

As I sit here typing with my dogs at my feet and my solitary cat asleep on the bed, I remind myself of how much love we have here ‘on the farm’. David loves me, I know that. He is always here for me, making me smile, making me laugh and holding me when I cry. He never misses the chance to grab a kiss or a hug and always kisses me good night at the end of every painful day. I am here for him comforting, encouraging, loving him and always will be. I can’t make it all go away but I can make this Christmas the best ever, I need to do this for him, for us. When I asked him what he wanted for Christmas he told me that I couldn’t wrap it up. When pressed for a sensible reply he said ‘All I want is to have you here with me’. How can you answer that.

So, this year we don’t have all we want. I don’t have the family I want here with me. David, although very well in himself, no symptoms or signs of illness, doesn’t have a healthy cancer free body yet. So we don’t have peace of mind and are still in a bit of shock from the past few months revelations.But we have lots of love, for and from all our charges here, the rescued ponies, the ‘bought’ ponies, the 25 Mallard ducks who come every winter, the 3 new More hens, Shamaz, the stray cat that lives in the barn, our beautiful Luther black cat and our two amazing little dogs. We also have a wonderful daughter and so we have so much more than a lot of people. Yes Christmas is proving hard but we have to pull through, if we don’t it will be a victory for everything and everyone who is against us.

As a child I dreaded this time of the year, I knew it would be hard and that is why I became a giver, being a receiver always left me disappointment so giving became my pleasure. I have to find little Carol Ann, learn from her, get her to remind me what is important in life. Sometimes, times like today, I forget. Time, that is what it’s all about, giving that to the people I love. Being there for them, letting them cry with me or to me, letting those I love pour their worry out to me and be able to hold it and comfort them. Not allowing others whose lies and nastiness stole so much of my past years, steal any more. Being a giver again is what will be my salvation this year and my resolution for 2017. Then I will see the beauty again and next year had better watch out. When I am strong, I am very very strong, my past has taught me that. So cancer, so ‘family’ watch this space!

If I believed in Christmas wishes I would wish for this.

Prostate cancer and all cancer, to be a thing of the past.

My family reunited in love and kindness.

Peace for everyone.

But wishes don’t come true so it’s down to me!

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone and don’t worry about what tomorrow may bring, that is wasting this precious gift of life and time.Be happy in today and enjoy memories of years gone and make memories for those to come. Give your time to those in need but don’t allow others to steal it from you. you need it all.

Thank you for reading. x

Christmas And Beyond, Here On ‘The Farm’.

Well the dreaded yet anticipated day arrived and was just how we felt. Grey and miserable. We tried to think of it as a day of decision, a day of finding out where we go from here. It was a long drive from our home here in New Quay, West Wales to Swansea and in bad weather it always seems much longer. David didn’t say a word for a very long time and I was not sure what to say. Something that doesn’t happen often for me. I didn’t want to upset him, make him more anxious or say something that belittled the importance of this meeting we were travelling to.

Neither of us knew what to expect, we were told we would meet with the Team, whatever that meant. To discuss the options and make a choice, if there was one, as to what we do next. Me using the ‘royal we’ here. We stopped once to have a comfort break but just wanted to get there and get it done.

On arrival we were met with new system in a really beautiful hospital. By that I mean it was airy, welcoming and more like an airport than the reception area of a medical place. If only! If only my beloved husband and I were getting off to our favourite place, a Greek Island for some Winter sun. But we weren’t. We were here to discuss the dreaded ‘c’ with a little c word.

We didn’t wait too long and saw the first member of the team, a lovely nurse who didn’t believe David was 72 and then said she thought he had married someone much younger. It didn’t seem false, said to put us at ease, she genuinely looked surprised when David said how old he was. For whatever reason, real or not, it was welcomed by me as I felt very old as I have of late. After that we saw 2 more nurses, a lady who talked about the consequences of surgery and the practicalities of catheter bags etc. Not something my poor husband seemed comfortable with as she was younger than our daughter! All of this was hypothetical until we had seen the surgeon and discussed the options.

Then the surgeon. An Indian man, dressed in a suit and smiling shook our hands as we entered his room and began his questions. ‘Youhave been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer’ he stated as though we didn’t know, as though it was a question. David said yes he had.All the practical stuff done before by the team, left us time to ask the many questions we had and it was decided that Robotic surgery, in Cardiff will take place in the New Year. Done! He sounded confidant at first and we began to relax but then told us , as he has to, of the risks, the bowel problems, if he cut too close to the bowel, David might require a longer stay in hospital and maybe more surgery! He told us of other risks and gave us statistics of these occurring. Scary scary stuff and if I could have changed places with David and had this surgery myself I would in a heart beat. He looked devastated. The surgeon looked at me and asked what I thought. ‘I Just want my husband well and happy’. I said in what I realise now was a slightly pathetic voice. This medical man in his brown expensive suit smiled and said he had every confidence that that is what will happen. Sigh.

We left the hospital still silent. Got into the car and I leant over to the man beside me and kissed him. ‘We can do this” I said quietly but hopefully sounding strong. ‘We got this love’. We began our journey home.

When I look back at the things that have happened in my own life,I know I can do this,be there for the man I love. I will nurse him, encourage him, push him if I need but most of all love him. He has always been my rock, now I will be his. I have no choice. When I look back over the past 3 years with the horrors ‘family’ have caused me, I know I can get over this as I did get over all the nasties they threw at me. David was there throughout, holding me when I cried, listening to me when I needed to try and make sense of what was happening. Never faltered. Now it’s my turn. I am still not too well, we still have a sick pony and all the usual worries that family have but we will survive it all, I know we will.

But.

I made a decision yesterday, the reason for my picture at the top of this blog. Our little pond in the paddock, when frozen a few weeks ago, looked so still, so calm and beautiful. Snow and frost cleanse things. I want a white Christmas for that reason, snow makes the world look beautiful, calm and clean.I must try to do this in my family life, cleanse from the past. No-one else will do it, so I must once again try. I have reason to hate those who hurt me and caused us all here so much pain. But I don’t. Hate is a waste of energy, a waste of time a waste of precious life. None of us know what is around the corner and after the past few months I have realised that. Life does not go on forever. People die. One day it will be too late so I have to try again, now.

Tomorrow we will put up our Christmas tree and decorations. I aim to make this a peaceful happy Christmas for my husband and daughter and for the menagerie that is my animal family. I will try to send good will to those I don’t see. Christmas is going to be good, who knows what life has in store by this time next year. So love those around you, tell those you care about and appreciate this fragile thing called life.

Thank you for reading.x

On The Rising Of The Sun….

As I awoke this beautiful Sunday morning, for a fleeting second all was good in my world. The dogs were still asleep in their baskets at the foot of our bed, everything was silent and still. My beloved husband was still sleeping beside me and for one short moment, I felt as I used to. Waking up with beautiful views over the Welsh countryside had always been a bonus to living here and always made me grateful. I stretched and sighed and then Bang. Reality checked in! All was not well, not the same, not okay and not any other adjective that meant good. As I tried hard to push the thoughts out of my head and climb back into the world where all was right and beautiful, I was dragged back into the reality of how life was today,3 weeks before Christmas 2016 and my head began to ache.

As you may know, I have kept a kind of log on here of my Journey. Back from the 24th August when the consultant said those words I have tried every way to erase from my memory. ‘I am sorry Mr Wright, but you have cancer’. Said like you would tell someone they had Flu, or an infection. Not told with any enormity of the reality. Not told with care or compassion. Just the words. The diagnosis and then given the literature to take home and read. David was okay with this, he said he would rather that than sympathy because that wouldn’t help. He wanted to have the facts and then leave. We left and life has not been the same since.

I have good days and bad days and today is a bad one. My husband is as I have said before, very pragmatic and just wants to see the consultant and surgeon, discuss the options and get it sorted. That will be this Friday then. Another hospital, another consultant and hopefully something positive to focus on.9th December, 11 am in Swansea. Etched on our minds. The day and time things we hope will be finalized.

Christmas as a child was always hard. Treated differently to my siblings, I learned how to appreciate the art of giving. How to enjoy watching my brother and sisters open the gifts they had asked for and more and to be grateful for the small present I received. When I had children of my own, without spoiling them too much, I always made sure the gifts they really wanted, I gave them. Christmas was always a happy time and I made it last for the whole week, up until New Years Day when we had another celebration.

For the past 31 years, I have shared my Christmas’s with David, given him a stocking, along with my children’s stockings. As the years went on and my eldest had her own family, we had Christmas dinner together, sometimes on the day, sometimes on another day to accommodate their own families. Always a happy time, a family time and I tried my best to make sure everyone had a happy time.When my grandsons were small, it was always a fun time. I remember buying my first grandson Harrison a set of drums. Not a popular choice but he loved them. My eldest continued my traditions, a huge tree, lots of decorations and presents. I am pleased she still does this, or rather I hope she does.

Christmas is a time of sharing, a time for family and time for fun. This year that will be hard. My eldest and her family are no longer in my life and I miss them so much. With David’s diagnosis hanging over us, I am not yet into the spirit of the ‘silly season’. I hope I get there for his sake. I hope I can make this special as I have always tried to do for those I love. I hope so but am doubting my resolve today.

So, on first waking this morning, life was good. The sun was shining and the glistening from the frost on the windows was amazing. I walked over to the window and looked out across the Welsh hills but could not see the beauty. It seems to have disappeared. I no longer enjoy very much, cancer has stolen that from me. Rotten rotten rotten cancer!! The world outside looks the same but I know it isn’t. Maybe if I shut my eyes again and go back to bed and to sleep, I could awaken all over again and things this time will be okay. If only I could time travel. Either back to before 24th August and stay there. Or forward to the time all of this was over and life could start again. But I can’t.

I read the group posts and on good days gain so much from them. Especially the ones where men have had the op and are now okay. Life for them is good again and I smile and rejoice in their happiness. I want that. As a child another thing we were never allowed to say ‘I want’. Well I want! I want David to be cancer free and our life back on track. Not a lot to ask is it.

Thank you for reading.x

A Bad Week and them some.

Today is a hard day. This past week has been a hard week. Friday was David’s birthday and unlike him, he seemed very down. We did what we always do, a funny cake, lots of gifts from everyone, animals included and he smiled but not a real smile. We had talked about going out but he had some kitchen ‘stuff’ arriving and so we had a quiet day, together, here on the farm. Went for along walk with the dogs, something I have not been up to for a while. That was good.

We are a small family, smaller now after being sadly betrayed by ‘family.’ It was me they were trying to hurt but as happens, my closer family also bear the brunt of this estrangement. None of it our fault and certainly not my husband’s, as the quarrel that started all of this was between me and my eldest daughter. I am known for my honesty, laughed at in the past for it by the 2 people who accuse me now of being a liar. My eldest daughter and my youngest sister. How easily people change the past to suit themselves in the moment. Keeping my integrity, refusing to lie on an Adoption form was the reason Lisa shut me out of her life. Should I have lied, pretended everything written on this legal document was correct? I don’t think so but I really wished I had been able to, because the result of not lying has been horrendous.

But back to David and the ‘c’. He is very pragmatic, he says ‘we are where we are’ more often than I can accept. Yes we are where we are, here, accompanied by this uninvited ‘guest’ cancer. I thought all of my anger had gone but I was wrong.

I don’t want to be here! Here in this sadness and fear. Here where I can’t comfort the man I love and tell him everything will be okay. Because I don’t know. No one knows.The other morning he came over and put his head on my shoulder and sighed. ‘Everyone is so down’, he said in a much smaller voice than I had heard before. I could have cried. I held onto him as tightly as I could. As you would a child who was desolate and afraid, although I had never seen either of these traits in my husband. But we have never been here before. Here in the ‘we are where we are’. In the world that has been rocked and shaken so that all the pieces of it have fallen out of place. Nothing is normal now. Nothing is okay now. Nothing is safe now.

Until this week, I had never thought of the ‘what ifs’ with any feeling. I had brushed them aside, didn’t want to go there. But now we have to. We have made new wills, necessary because he doesn’t want the people who have caused me such pain, to be able to have anything he has worked so hard for. We have written Wills before but the ‘d’ word was way off into the future. Not close or could be. Certainly not imminent and it still isn’t. But the fact that he wants to put his house in order is scary! Heartbreaking and necessary. I know that.

We lost one of our wonderful cats earlier this month and her brother is pining. The dogs are pining, none of them are eating, playing acting normal.

It is a very sad house to live in today. The sun is out, it is very cold but crisp and I pray for snow. When it snows it is as though Mother Nature has sent it to cleanse the world. Here in the beautiful Welsh countryside, it is amazing to see. We need cleansing. Our little world, needs cleansing. We need purifying from the horrendous year we have had, firstly at the hands of ‘family’ and then illnesses and death and now the dreaded ‘c’.

2016 has been the third horrid year we have had. All we ever wanted to do was love those around us, love our family distant and close. Love our animals and give them a good life and as a couple, spend quality time in retirement, here on this beautiful place we call home. Be happy. This has been stolen from us with the diagnosis David had. But also with lies, deceit, badmouthing and evil people or one evil person who has made it her life’s work to continue where the woman they ‘called my mother’ left off.

Perhaps this will teach me. Teach me not to make plans. Not to be hopeful for the future. Maybe I was becoming a bit smug about living here, with my wonderful man. I don’t know. What I do know is that David has not deserved any of this. Any of the nasty things some people have done to me, therefore affecting him. Done nothing to be where he is, in an illness that we have no idea of the outcome. Here ‘where we are where we are’ holding me while I cry at night. Not only for him but over the past 3 years for what my daughter has put me through.

In my Christmas list, which my children would have written by this time when they were small, will be this.

David’s cancer to be cured.

My little cat Luther to be happy again.

My ‘family’ to see the truth and wake up before they are damaged beyond repair and my daughter understands that accepting the truth is the way ahead.

Next week I hope will be a better week.

Maybe 2017 will be kinder to us. I hope so.

Thankyou for reading x

One Year On and How Different My World.

This past week has made me realize how fragile this thing we call life is. How delicate relationships and family ties can be. As a child the week before 12th November, my birthday was always fraught. No-one mentioned my birthday at any time of the year and so when my Dad William arrived home, without a gift, he was in for a blasting from my ‘mother’. Until I was 11 and I had realized, that throughout the year, as my siblings big day was getting close, their birthdays would be discussed and so Dad knew when they were. He was a Royal Marine and had fought in the war and had been away a great deal. He had been away for 2 plus years when I was conceived and born. I wasn’t fathered by this wonderful man and he had no reason to remember my birthday. As my 11th approached, I bought a colouring book and some crayons and wrapped them up. The night before my birthday, I gave them to him out in his shed. I will never forget the sadness in his eyes as he understood I was trying to prevent another row. It failed, the row was different but still happened. So my birthday as a child was no fun to say the least. As an adult, having daughters I was fussed over and spoilt on the day and this has continued by my wonderful husband and youngest daughter for the past 31 years.

However, for regular readers of my social media, you would have seen the nasty cruel comments on here last year around my special day, and since, that have been written to try to put me back in the place I had been as a child. Alienated by ‘family’ and made to feel different and alone. Well, I am different and glad to be different. Last year I had most of my family on Facebook or Twitter but because of evil lies spread, I took everyone off for my sanity and safety. Of course I wish my ‘family’ were by my side at this difficult time but it ‘aint gonna’ happen. Not my doing but. I have accepted that now. But I have made contact with 3 relatives who are happy to be back in touch and that’s good. This year I was spoilt and had a lovely day except for one thing. Sunday last, after writing my blog, my little 14 year old cat Boukie Rose was taken ill and sadly later that night she died. I was devastated as my husband was. She hadn’t been ill and that was something to be thankful for but a huge shock to us here ‘on the farm’. Her brother Luther is lost without her and it is heartbreaking to see. So the 12th November was blighted in a different way from last year with her death.

Other differences from 2015, my youngest daughter married in April so that is another huge change. We lost another pony and our little herd is just that, little now. But the biggest blow is my beloved husband’s cancer diagnosis. We had no idea, nothing had made us suspicious, no symptoms, no pain. Nothing. Just a routine blood test and our world turned upside down. I have talked about this, my anger, my fear, my helplessness and fears for the future in earlier blogs. Today I was thinking how odd that he has cancer, with a little ‘c’ and is fit and well and I have been so ill! I would do anything to take the uncertainty from him, the worry but it seems his worry is for me. As I have said before, I have always been the strong one, in the family and at home. The one who others come to, but not currently. I am coming back, I know that, but it just seems strange that he is still looking after me. Everyday he reminds me of the things I have endured, both as a child and as a young adult. Recently in the unforgivable treatment from ‘family’. Hence the verse at the top of the blog.

Today I was sent a video of a man singing in a square. The song he sang went like this:

‘You raise me up to stand upon the mountain

You raise me up to walk on stormy seas.

I am strong when I am on your shoulders

You raise me up to more than I can be’.

Of course I have heard the song as you will have,many times but today I say these words to David. He is my rock and I am beginning to be his, I can see a way forward now as I couldn’t before. This year has been momentous. Many losses, huge changes and scary health issues. But together, with me on the shoulders of the man I love, we will make it. Family may not need me, not want me in their lives but we have each other and that’s what counts, in our truth, with the truth on our side, we will make it.

One of the reasons I believe I was successful in my work as Counsellor and Psychotherapist, is because of my own experiences. I have always believed that the best people to turn to, to help you through the storms of life are the ones who have endured their own storms. Having suffered most things in life that can hurt us, not said for sympathy, just a fact, I am able to understand where people are coming from. I never insult them by saying ‘I know how you feel’ because we are all different. But I can understand the depth of their feelings and their fears. I have facilitated groups and group work is very successful. Since David’s diagnosis I have joined a couple of groups on social media,Prostate Cancer Support group being one of them and the help, advice, support and love has been amazing. Can’t do it without that input so thanks guys.

So another year gone and I will be glad when 2016 says goodnight. 2017 can’t be worse, in any way so I will look forward and see the light, standing tall at my husband’s side whatever life throws at us.

Thankyou for reading x

My Letter To cancer with a little ‘c’.

You don’t know me but I know you. We have met many times before. You crash into people’s lives uninvited, destroy dreams, take away the future they planned and their dreams along with that. You steal their peace of mind and replace it with anguish, fear, sadness and grief.

You are a sneak thief, creeping in without being seen or felt, spreading your damage with nobody aware of your presence. We don’t want you c. Nobody wants you but here you are! Not satisfied with taking those already taken, those we loved and knew, you continue to inflict your poison not only on your prey, but on everyone in the lives of your victims.

You put grief for those we love, in place of surety of a future. We talk of people dying from cancer but what about those living with it? David is fit, active and healthy but because of you, a stowaway on our journey that is called life, he has to undergo treatment that could make him poorly. Give him problems, make him unwell. Yes that may be temporary but this will happen and he does not deserve any of it! You have put fear into us, both your victim and the people who love that victim. You were not invited, we didn’t want you , we didn’t even know you were there! How cowardly and cruel is that! You gave us no warning, we didn’t go looking for you. A simple routine test and suddenly, there you were with all you nasties, all your fear, pain and heartache.

You make us angry, not with our loved ones but with you! I hope I am speaking for all of us who are on this unwanted journey alongside those you have tainted with your evil disease.

You have crept in and caused the reason for our sadness and fear, cunningly, quietly giving us no chance to shut you out because we didn’t even know you were coming. An unwanted and unexpected ‘guest’ at our table.

But most of all you give us helplessness, something I for one, find hard to cope with. So Damn you cancer. Damn Damn Damn you!!

Yes I am angry but mostly I am afraid. For my husband and what is ahead for him but more afraid of the unknown for us both. Afraid that feeling as sick as I do now, with my own health problems, that I will not be strong enough to cope. To care for this man I love. I would do anything to take his place. Anything.

Friends say ‘You are the strong one Carol Ann, look what you have been through so far and survived. You will cope’. But I have my doubts, especially on days like today. I have scary irrational and intrusive thoughts, that bombard my aching mind without respite. I ask myself, ‘I feel so weak, I am in such pain how will I cope feeling this way?’ At first I don’t have an answer.

I wrote in an earlier blog, not to you cancer, but to readers, that as a child I was never allowed to say ‘It’s not fair’ or ‘I hate..’. Well do you know what? I grew up in a dysfunctional family without the love of a mother, without love that was showered on my siblings and without feeling safe. I was often the scapegoat. I never ever said it wasn’t fair. I suffered a lifetime of CSA, lived in fear and pain. I never once said it wasn’t fair. I never hated. I was helpless. But as I said, I grew up. I eventually found lasting love in David, found happiness and love . I wrote my story, recovered enough to deal with the legacies of my childhood and even then never hated.

Today, this morning, I was that child again. Living in fear, in pain and terror and helpless to a fault. How dare you creep back in, as ‘family’ did a few years ago, through the back door, silently with no one knowing what was happening and try to steal the reason for my happy life where fear didn’t exist! How dare you take people from those who love them, in such a cowardly horrible way?!

You stole many in my life with your cancerous illness, loved ones who didn’t survive your onslaught. Relatives, siblings and best friends, now you think you can steal my man, my rock, my life! Well not on my watch! I need to be kinder to me in all of this, give myself some leeway.

So I have given myself permission to say it’s not fair. Permission to feel scared, angry and sad. I need to try to look after ‘little Carol Ann’, to make her well enough to fight her fears and gain strength from remembering how far I have come. I thought I had survived the worst that could happen in my life but was not ready for you. I need to try to find the fight that I used to have.

Tomorrow is a new week, I am hoping this sickness I have will turn a corner and I will be on my way to recovering and fit to face whatever life throws at us next. You won’t keep me down for long, believe me.

So cancer; my enemy and every one elses’ enemy, sorry, but medicine has improved, people are working all over the world to toss you out with the garbage. When all of this is over, when I have regained my strength, helped my man through this, hopefully comfort him if he feels scared, carry him if he is weak and love him all through, I will, with every ounce of my being, fight you all the way to your own death. Your extinction.

Yes I will shed more tears, some out of fear for where we find ourselves, some of anger and frustration but mark my words, I won’t go down without a fight. I will win.We will win and we will one-day have a world without you.

Carol Ann the strong is a formidable character, and I hope she will be back here very soon, so watch out!

Get ready.

Your enemy

Carol Ann

The Importance of ‘me’ in this journey.

I tell the person in front of me, everyday, that they have to keep going. Sometimes I don’t think she is listening or rather she doesn’t hear but I will tell her everyday anyhow. Who is she? The person in my mirror.

This blog is my story, not David’s not any one’s but mine. Indulgent? Maybe. Selfish? I hope not. Necessary? Yes.

Writing things down is a tool I give my clients so I am taking my own advice.

I said, the first week of this blog at the end of August, early September, that this is the story of how I am dealing with my beloved husband’s diagnosis and ultimate treatment for Prostate cancer.Not how he is dealing with it, not from his perspective because that is his journey but how I deal with or don’t deal with the many shocks and fears since he was diagnosed, out of the blue on the 24th August this year.It will cover the things we do together but mostly this is my chance to offload my anger, fear,sadness and shock at finding myself in this helpless situation that life has thrown at us.

Of course we are not the first couple facing this horrible disease and we won’t be the last. We are not special or needing sympathy because how would that help? We are an ordinary couple, still very much in love after 31 years together, who thought the next part of our lives, the time we hoped was for us, would be different from how it is panning out. This was ‘our’ time. Not having to worry about children, who have all gone their own way, not worrying about money because we have all we need . Not concerned about anything but the two of us. Well, perhaps we became complacent, a bit smug living here in this beautiful home looking out over the wonderful Welsh hills. I don’t know. All I do know is that we weren’t ready! Did not expect this. Never even thought of cancer entering our lives and turning our peace and quiet on it’s head. Wrenching at the pit of our happiness and replacing it with fear, pain, uncertainty and helplessness.No. We were not ready.

Today I am writing my blog from my sofa after being attacked by another nasty, Shingles. I have been and still am quite poorly and in excruciating pain, so although I will check this before it goes live, forgive me if I have made mistakes.My GP says it is because over the past few years I have been under a great deal of emotional strain and suffered bullying by family that has rendered me very low. That is when this virus attacks people, when they are vulnerable . So here I am, under attack from something else outside of my control. Not a good feeling and just when I need to be strong to plan ahead for David’s treatment. This illness has been coming on for a while and in a way, knowing what it is explains a great deal for me re my moods. Perhaps it wasn’t the shock of the cancer alone, maybe some of how I have been feeling or how I handled it,is a result of the Shingles. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I have to start taking care of me. As I tell clients, how can you take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself. That it is actually okay not to be there for everyone who ‘needs’ you. It’s okay to step back, to opt out, to rest. It’s okay to let others take the strain now and again, especially now. I need to get strong again to be there for David. I need to look after me to be able to look after him. I think this to be good advice for other wives, partners and families of men going through this horrid disease. The waiting, the not knowing, the researching and calculating and the endless tests and visits to hospitals that seem to have no immediate answers. We, the partners of our men, need to firstly be selfish and look after ourselves, or like me you may find yourself ill and not even capable of looking after you.

Nothing has changed since last week. We are still waiting for the appointment with the ‘team’ to discuss the way forward, so that in itself, is a strain.

We are all on this journey. You, reading this maybe, your husband or your partner, your family and in some way your friends. All battling this fight together and so we must start with looking after ourselves. It is okay to feel every emotion under the sun, goodness knows, those who read earlier blogs know to what extent I have felt them. Yes, I am still angry. Still scared. Still confused and bewildered by how a man as good as my beloved man has this nasty disease and this horrible fight on his hands. But I am here and will be here, standing alongside him and hopefully giving him strength when he needs it. But to do this I must look after me. David has been my rock, especially during the onslaught I have suffered over the past 3 years. He has always been here, held me in his arms and comforted me, no question. I need to be here for him.

Many years ago, a young mum of two daughters, I lost a baby boy at 25 weeks. I had been offered a termination because I was unwell but chose to continue with the pregnancy. My life wasn’t in danger and I wanted this baby. But it wasn’t to be. My son didn’t form properly in the womb and he was born sleeping. That evening my dad William, came to see me and I cried to him asking him why did It happen. Why did he die. My lovely dad said it was a test from ‘God’ and that I had passed. I didn’t feel I had passed anything, I felt such sadness that I can’t explain. My Dad told me that the easiest thing for me to have done, as the baby would have been disabled severely, was to have chosen to have the termination. I refused and he told me that was the test. Because I chose the hardest way forward, the decision had been taken away from me and I had passed God’s test. I never understood then, as I don’t understand all the very many other tests I have been given since. If this latest blow is a test then I have to pass with many gold stars.

Prostate cancer has been in the news lately, talking of not doing routine PSA tests. Yes, I wish I could un know what we now know. Yes, I sometimes wish David hadn’t had the test as a routine check because then we wouldn’t be going through all of this. But the alternative doesn’t bear thinking about. Had he not had the test, then years ahead the cancer may have spread, unknowingly to us and killed him! So whilst all of this scare, this shock and this worry is painful, losing the man I love would have been indescribable. So NO. We can’t allow the PSA testing to stop.

So. Today I feel like ‘s..t. I feel scared still. I feel down and depressed but I also feel determined to get myself back to being me. So, I will keep looking in that mirror and keep telling the woman looking back at me, that although she feels tired and poorly, she must never give up. I will bounce back, I always do. I just wish it wasn’t taking so long.

So remember, always look after you first, then you will be able to look after those you love.

Thank you for reading .x

Taking My Own ‘Advice’

Well perhaps I should start by apologizing for last weeks blog. It was down beat, self indulgent, angry and full of sadness. Maybe apologizing isn’t good enough, I don’t now. So I won’t say sorry but will say that I am today, understanding how my clients feel whilst in therapy. This is the first time since I began Counselling, that I fully understand how each person who has been brave enough to come into therapy, can feel. Using CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) I work with my clients to enable them to make changes. If they are not functioning properly, changing may enable their lives to improve. If they are depressed, working with their thinking, being more positive and this can be hard for those feeling down or anxious.Looking at their thoughts, the way they think, because it is this that controls the emotions and that results in their behavior. You can’t go straight in and change the emotion or behavior without first looking at to how your thoughts are at the time. Some will say, ‘I can’t change, I have always been like this’ or ‘this always happens’. And that is often the issue.’ If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got’, is something I was told during training. If you don’t like what is happening, only you can change it. This can be harder for clients than I think I had acknowledged in full.

Most times with collaboration, we can achieve the goal the client has been seeking and so they improve. Given strategies for survival and maintenance, they are often less likely to have the same problems in the future.

We go through, ‘nothing can change this’ ‘I can’t do this’, To ‘I feel more capable of doing it now’ Things get better. Their lives improve.

But sometimes you can’t make it better, you can’t make the nasty go away so you have to work on acceptance. Like in loss. The bereft can’t have the person they grieve back and so by working on their feelings, we can gently change the thought process and allow them to grieve properly. Grief will take as along as it takes but sometimes needs a little push, to enable the person left behind to accept the situation and ‘move on’. Always at their pace.

Here endeth the first lesson!

Well, none of this has been working for me. Physician heal thyself, as I have said before isn’t working. I know it will, but I am impatient and need it now. I don’t like the Carol Ann I have become. I don’t like feeling as I did as a child. Alone in my thoughts and pain and helpless .

So why am I feeling this way? The alone is because David is strong, pragmatic. He says whatever happens we can’t influence it. We can’t change the fact that he has Prostate cancer. We can’t un know what we know. And he his of course, right. So, I need to find away to stop thinking about it all of the time. Stop researching, reading everything sent to me and some I find myself.

The helpless is back to childhood. No love from my ‘mother’, a dysfunctional family and sexual abuse that I suffered all of my life until I was 22. No one helped me because no -one knew and I was helpless to stop the horrors. One of the reasons I support spreading facts about the devastating long term impact CSA can have on victims and work to help some of them become survivors, like me.

Today.

Things are moving forward,we now know David’s ‘case’ has been discussed with the ‘team’ and we are now waiting for the appointment to go and see the Oncologist/Surgeon to discuss options. Does that feel better that something is happening? You would think so but it only makes it more real. But it is real and that’s the problem.

So today I have been reading a journal that I kept while I was working and am reminded of clients who struggled as I am struggling. Sometimes, after weeks of work I would think nothing was actually helping them. Nothing was changing.But then one day, a client would come to session and say they suddenly had ‘ a light on’ moment. Something would suddenly look different, life would look different and become clearer. It didn’t mean their pain had stopped. It wouldn’t mean they were suddenly ‘cured’ of the bad thoughts or behavior or had stopped having the nightmares etc. But something had happened and they could see their way forward. A different approach to a situation, a way out of the grief and pain. And then there it would be; a smile. Every therapist’s ‘worth it’ time.

I am waiting for that light. I know I can’t counsel myself but I can listen to others who have been where I am. Other wives and partners of beloved husband s who are fighting this fight. I can gain strength from those who write about recovery and the future. I can stop feeling sorry for myself and find my inner strength that has been alluding me of late. Don’t know how but I will.

The future is where my thoughts need to be so I am house hunting. I know we can’t consider this yet but there is no harm in my looking. It may be back in Hampshire where I have family and friends. It may be in Pembrokeshire or Somerset where again I know people. We have no idea but looking forward is something I have always encouraged in clients and so that is what we will do.

When it is all over, I aim to try and raise awareness in younger men of this awful disease, promote testing and helping with fund raising. Not yet but after.

I think and hope that Carol Ann is coming back, so cancer, you had better watch your step!

Thank you for reading x

The Falling of Tears and the rolling of Emotions

In my work, I teach clients how to let go, how to be ‘in the moment’, how to allow themselves to cry. Tears are healing I will say. Just let them come and you will feel better, I will say. Well, do you know what. I lied. You don’t feel better, I don’t feel better and I have cried buckets of tears these past weeks. Do I feel better? Does letting go make you feel better? No it doesn’t and I apologise to everyone I have told that they do.

I thought that once we had made the choice, as to what treatment David will undergo, we, or rather I as I can only speak for myself, would feel better. I don’t. We don’t as yet know whether the surgeon will operate as my hubsnad is over 70. This in itself causes us obvious worry. It is all in the hands of the ‘team’ who will meet and decide whether to see us for an assessment. Horrible that others may know before we do, how our future will pan out. Helplessness is evident now.

I am currently not sleeping well. I wasn’t sleeping at all but have a kind of ‘bracelet’ that induces sleep and it works. So I get a few hours each night, enough to help me through the fog that is my today. As I awake, everything is okay. Normal. I look around my beautiful purply/Lavender bedroom and am okay. Then it comes, like a sledge-hammer hitting me in the very pit of my stomach. I remember. All is not okay.

I try to retreat back under the duvet but my wonderful husband is already coming up the stairs with my breakfast. Yes, David, with all that he is going through, believes in the ‘norm’. The norm in our house and has been for 30 years, is his bringing breakfast up to our room and we sit in bed and chat. With our curtains drawn back, we look out over beautiful countryside, hills and valleys and had always wondered at this amazing scenery.

But not any more. I don’t see the beauty anymore.

Anytime it can strike, anytime during my day when I have worked on ‘normal’ ,suddenly the rush of emotions from deep inside of me cause a huge rolling sea of apprehension and fear. A legacy from my childhood returns in all it’s glory. Panic. The feeling of something huge and horrible coming. I try to find the stop cock for these empty emotions, to try and turn it and twist it firmly shut. I have always been able to do this in the past, switch it off and carry on as though nothing happened, nothing is wrong. But not now. I can’t seem to reach it fast enough and suddenly salty unstoppable emotions stream down my face .

As I said before, in an earlier blog, life these past years has been fraught. Lots of losses, some forced upon us by death, my eldest sister and a close friend. My youngest daughter’s unborn baby. Some others because I have always needed to be honest. This need to keep my integrity cost me my eldest daughter Lisa. Yes I could have lied on a legal statement and said everything written about us was true but I couldn’t. I had tried to prevent a little foster girl being treated as I had been treated, by the woman they called ‘my mother’. I had tried talking to my daughter about how she was with this child. and she shut me out of her life but still expected me to lie for her. I couldn’t do this, it was far too much to ask as the lies were too huge. So life became full circle you could say. Trying to stop this cost me my daughter and my grandchildren. At that time I was helping her adopt a foster baby, my granddaughter Hannah, who was 4 years old this past week and that in itself brought the tears. This falling out,was followed by horrendous treatment from my youngest sister who had, sadly, barged into our lives after 40 years of no contact and taken over the family that was mine telling wicked lies to keep them onside. They should all be part of this. Supporting us in our hour of need. That’s what families do isn’t it. Not my family.

So I was already in a bad way when this new nasty hit us all. Yes I know that it is David who has this disease but I have been shocked and angry at how it has affected me. I should be the strong one as I always have been. I should be comforting and encouraging him, not the other way around. I had read that wives and partners are affected as well as the patient but was never prepared as to what extent. This disease changes people. It has changed us, changed me, changed the dynamics, the conversation, the way we are. It has stolen our ‘norm’ and replaced it with ‘canceritis’.

Looking out of my study window as I write, I can see the Welsh hills and valleys. It all looks the same but the beauty has gone. The leaves are beginning to fall, a time of year I usually love. Things obscured by the leaf laden trees have become visible again. Today I can see the top of a little cottage that is obscured all Summer, stolen from my sight. It looks the same and as it always has in Autumn. Like nothings changed.

But everything has changed. Yes, the seasons always do, but here ‘on the farm’, life is now different than ever before.

So how do I survive to help my husband? How do I get the ‘normal’ back? I don’t know. But what I do know is that the Carol Ann who is the Health Professional. The Carol Ann who everyone comes to in a crisis. The Carol Ann who is the survivor, needs to buck her ideas up and come back from wherever it is she thinks she is hiding. Because I need her, here, now!

Last week I said I would find humour. Still looking.

I said I would be strong. Still trying.

I said I wanted ‘it’ to stop, to turn the clock back. To un-know what we now know. Didn’t happen. So I need to look forward. Plan Christmas. Plan where we will move to after David is well. Yes we have decided to move, maybe back home, who knows but move we will. Life here has been spoilt. Spoilt by ‘family’, spoilt by illness, spoilt by loss,so a new venture is on the cards. If I can plan ahead, then all will be well. As a child, an emotion I had, never served me well. I ‘hoped’ that my life would change. That the abuse would stop. I ‘hoped’ that one day my ‘mother’ would show me love. None of that happened. So I believe I am now due some good. That ‘hope’ will prove justified.It’s time it began to do that. So Hope. If you are listening, I am now hoping life will get better. Please don’t let me down.

Thankyou for reading. x

Feeling the extremes of pain.

Well, I am hoping that the above does happen. Hasn’t as yet, but still hoping.

The early part of this week, we, David and I , talked of nothing else apart from what is happening, re the invader of our peace, the unwanted guest in our thoughts. The cancer that has hit our little family like a thunderbolt. We have read , I would think, everything ever written about this nasty disease, the treatments, the outcomes, the side effects. None of it very enticing or reassuring. Whatever David decides to do, he seems to be dicing with his future, our future. None of it can be done without some kind of repercussion and that makes decisions very hard.

All week we have tried to contact our specialist nurse to no avail. We then decided to talk to our GP and I must admit he was very good and very helpful. Eventually a lovely lady, one of the nurse specialists rang and went over the options. Although David was almost sure he had decided on surgery, Robotic, she asked him to take a few days to think, to make sure it was what he wanted. She is ringing tomorrow morning for his decision.

We also have had support from our local group, on Facebook and another lovely lady whose husband has been through it all. She has offered to talk to me or my husband on the phone when and if we feel the need. Very kind.

For those who know me, they will know that I don’t cry. Sad movies, music, weddings etc. I feel the emotions but don’t and sometimes, can’t cry. A legacy from keeping my emotions under control as a child. But now, I seem to be in floods at every upsetting thing I hear or see and every time I try to discuss what is happening to my wonderful man.

We are a very private family and very small. Yes we both have extended family, not local to us but we do. My own ‘family’ however, has been infiltrated by its own kind of cancer. Someone who has always wanted my life apparently: my ‘mother’ often said my sister was jealous of me, why I don’t know but several family members have said the same. With lies and deceit, she now feels she is living it, pretending my daughter is her daughter and my grandchildren, her grandchildren. Sad really but dangerous.. Friends and family on here know who this is and I am just thankful that the nasties that have been inflicted on me over the past 3 years, mostly instigated by her since she appeared in their lives, have stopped . They have done irreparable damage to me and David and had left me very low and poorly at a time in my life when I need all the strength and support I can summon. I hope she is very proud of herself.

Back to the purpose of my blog, journey. I have experienced heights of pain and emotion I didn’t know I had, these past weeks. I have been scared, no terrified, angry, sad, full of hatred and yes helplessness. I have been to the depths of despair that the thought of losing someone you love so much, takes you. One minute I want to scream that it’s not fair. The next I can’t summon the breath to do anything but survive. I read that things will be okay and feel better. Then on the same page I read that nothing will ever be the same again. That thought breaks my heart.

Life has been put on hold it seems’ here on the farm’. I can’t seem to look forward, can’t plan and can’t see my way through the fog of literature and research that anyone in our position must go through.

Help! I want to scream, but who to? Hold me! I want to ask but can’t ask. Make it stop! That’s the biggest. Make it stop, turn the clock back. Let’s un-hear what we heard. Let’s unknow what we know. Let’s go back to normal. To ordinary. Even to boring. Anywhere but here!

On the visit to my GP he asked me to go in the following day, on my own. He said he could see I was struggling and asked if I had family to support me. He knew I had 2 daughters as I had talked often of the baby my eldest daughter was trying to adopt a few years ago and how I was helping her. He knew how excited I was by that and how I loved my daughter. He didn’t know what had happened in the interim.He suggested I contact her and tell her what is going on. I felt ashamed to tell him why I couldn’t do that. I told him why and exactly what happened and he was in disbelief. But it made no difference, she has shut us out and being told what is happening will not affect her in any way. Sad but true.

So my world has fallen apart. I am on my knees and waiting for this help that my poster talks about. Tomorrow we will at least be on some kind of waiting list. Not sure how long but it will seem a lifetime. I know I will wane between wanting it over and not wanting it to happen. Love is keeping us afloat, love for each other. Whatever happens, nothing in that will change. He will always be the love of my life, my rock. I will always show my man that he is just that, my wonderful, sexy, loving, kind, intelligent funny man and eventually we will find the one thing that has kept me sane during trying difficult times. My sense of humour. But not today. No humour here.

Thankyou for reading x