More plans

How glorious has this last few days of sunshine been? I can very reliably tell you that it has been three years since June began like this as, the last time I basked in such pure blue skies, I had just given birth to Kitty. Paul and I and Cass rolled around the garden for almost two weeks of unbroken heat and it hasn’t happened since because I rue it every year. But it looks like it may happen again.

I spent almost a whole day with Paul today which really doesn’t happen very often. We didn’t do much just read papers, drank coffee, yawned and chatted sporadically when we had something interesting to say, Paul dozed on and off and nurses and doctors came and went. With the exeption of the medical interruptions and of course the setting, it was almost like an ordinary Sunday……..

He’s had a temperature for about four days now and he’s feeling very feverish and lethargic. He’s being given antibiotics and they are keeping a very close eye on him. They think he has some kind of infection which is apparently quite normal because of his challenged immunity. It’s just a mystery as to what kind of infection. We are just really hopeful that it doesn’t get any worse as it will scupper the plan. The plan, the plan, the plan – it’s daft to have one in a way when the illness you have is so unpredictable but at every stage in Paul’s fight from ITU to Haematology to ITU to back upstairs again the doctors always talk about ‘The Plan’. In ITU the plan can change by the hour because his condition has been critical, in haematology it changes by day and by week and is dictated by his response to the chemo and the outcome of various scans etc. Up to a few days ago the plan was to get through this round of chemo then if the next scan shows, at the very least a partial remission, then he could come home while they find a donor for a bone marrow transplant. That would mean maybe a month or so at home while he gets fit and strong enough to have a transplant. He also needs to put on weight and he has to pass a lung function test for this to happen. So we are just hoping that, whatever this infection is, it doesn’t interfere with the plan.


Plans, plans, plans. There’s the get better and come home plan and there’s Paul’s plans for the garden. I have to go to the garden centre tomorrow because he wants me to extend the herbs and is dismayed I have not done anything about tomatoes this year. The there is my ‘Around the world in eighty bites’ plan or as Paul has put it ‘Around the farmyard in eighty bites’! I felt there was a bit of an anticlimax after the lamb episode in that the experiment was over almost as soon as it had begun. So while I was making some bacon for Cassidy last week to have with his pancakes and maple syrup I realised there are so many things that I have never tried as I turned Veggie so young. There are so many things that Paul has put on his plate that have made me wonder what they taste like. I guess it seems to me right now that life should be about tasting and living and experiencing. If I were told that I were dying tomorrow I would not regret the things I have done but the things I haven’t so I have decided to try at least, all those things I have wondered about. And yes I did try the bacon and maple syrup and it was pretty damn good.

I’m making a list – it’s inventively called ‘The meat list’ it has all the things I have never tasted – I will post it and maybe you can come up with things I should add – as long as there’s no offal – I’m definitely not ready for that

Anyway have to go get ready for school tomorrow. Feel a bit sad about Cass having to go back as he has had such fun over the last half term, with late nights most nights, running feral in Victoria Park till way past his bedtime with Kits and Scarlett and mud under his nails, coming home with the smell of coal and fire in his hair after dancing to Drum and Bass at a BBQ, birthday parties, too many sweets and defiantly not enough fruit, mini beast hunting, visiting Daddy with no time constraints– no wonder kids hate school……