Hard Week

Apologies for the lack of posts. Last week was a hard week for both of us and I just didn't have the energy to write. On Monday I had a major emotional dip. Then on Wednesday my physical symptoms took a major turn for the worse.

In the afternoon I started to feel terrible. I went to lie on the bed but I couldn't rest. My mind kept slipping to thoughts of Kay and I kept being hit by panic attacks. In the evening I started suffering from neck and shoulder pain to the extent that I was horizontal with a hot water bottle and strong painkillers. I also had a thundering headache and nausea. Coincidentally on Thursday I had standing appointments with the homeopath and, separately, the physiotherapist. The homeopath gave me yet another, but stronger, dose of the same medication that I had two weeks ago. The physio recommended acupuncture and proceeded to stick me with 10 needles.

Now, I remain completely neutral about homeopathy. I take the medications and hand them to Marion and she manages the application. I pay no attention to what I'm taking and I have no expectations. Acupuncture is something different, from previous experience I have some expectations.

The acupuncture delivered more or less immediately, the feeling of nausea decreased as did the pain in my shoulders. But neither to a huge extent. However on Friday I felt a hell of a lot better, less pain, no nausea and generally mentally stronger. The effect of the homeopathic medication? Draw your own conclusions.

Further, on Friday afternoon I had a fantastic massage from a friend, which was so good that for the first time in ages I felt some pure, uncompromised enjoyment. I had a smile on my face for the whole of Friday evening.

The combination of all these things is that yesterday I managed to spend the whole day doing jobs around the house. Between 9am and 6pm I think I didn't sit down for more than about 30mins. It was good to be busy in this way, the house is showing signs of a distinct lack of TLC. Light bulbs have now been changed, lights and pictures hung, the fireplace cleaned, etc, etc. We're working on creating a "Kay Corner", a permanent location for her beautiful photo with a table underneath with the hockey ball from her final match in which she scored five goals, and all the other important momentos of her life.

Irrespective of all this we continue to struggle emotionally. Marion has just this minute burst into tears. I asked her whether Kay got a trophy for winning her club spring tennis championship this year and this was too much for her. Yesterday it was my turn. We were visiting friends and Nattie and their son started making candles. This suddenly reminded me of the soap and perfume making sets that I got Kay for her birthday and how we spent a few hours here and there making smelly soap. This memory was just too much for me and I fell to tears, as I'm starting to do now while writing this.

It is truly terrible, how much I miss Kay. My heart aches for her. Everytime I walk into the lounge and see her photo I just want to put my arms round her and hold her close, so very close. Today I went mountain biking and it's so hard to put to one side how much Kay was looking forward to coming on her mountain bike with me.

We're now entering the difficult festive season and I'm dreading it. There will be so many tears and so much pain. I can't believe that it's possible for a year to contain so much. This is the year that Kay won the tennis, when she played inspired hockey, when she drove herself to take part in selection training, when she survived chemotherapy and terrible mistakes in her treatment, when she came through the bone marrow transplant extremely well, when she weakened, when she died. How can all this be possible in a single year? How can our lives have been ripped to pieces in such a devasting way?

I was thinking this afternoon how difficult it is to tell people just how certain Marion and I were that Kay would survive. We never really believed for a single second that Kay would not survive. The thought never really crossed our minds. This may seem strange, certainly if you read Kay's blog, but it's true. We never never NEVER expected to be here, now, in this situation, without Kay. Think about it, that after everything that happened the possibility of failure never really was a possibility to us. Then just maybe you might begin to understand one of the most difficult aspects of how we feel. Certainly this is one of the major reasons why I'm still in shock, I still can't begin to comprehend our loss.

I've rambled on for long enough right now. Long blog entries become boring.

Night night.