A day out in Manchester

When I was moaning on Sunday that the house project seems to dominate our time / discussions, Quent said "Never mind, we've got a day out tomorrow".

And so we drove up to Manchester in the rain, Quent had his scan and we drove back again. We even had some hospital food and a cup of tea in the services on the way home. He knows how to treat a woman, my husband.

Still, what could be better than hearing that the scan was clear again? We remain in the "high risk" zone, but the results are as good as they come. There is still a lot of scarring from all the ops Quent has had, but even this looks better than last time, apparently. Slowly but surely, Quent's body is on the mend.

There's a bed in the bathroom

What am I going to do?...

In fact there's stuff everywhere. The builders are just working on the kitchen / dining room for the moment, to minimise the disruption. Some of the old kitchen is still in our bedroom. In order to feed wires through to the kitchen, they have taken up the floorboards in the spare room and dressing room. So the original contents of those three rooms (plus the rest of the old kitchen and the dining room) are strewn around the rest of the house in a random fashion. Getting dressed involves going to Oakley's bedroom for underwear, down to the lounge for a top and into the attic for anything that's on a coat hanger. I'm glad we went down the minimal disruption route. Otherwise I guess we'd be racing round the garden in the morning, looking for our pants.

We are sleeping on a matress on the floor of Oakley's room. He's delighted. And, as Quentin remarked last night, anything is better than a hospital bed. Talking of which, we heard this morning that Quent's next scan is confirmed as Monday 2nd November.

I never thought I'd say this, but a rat in the kitchen seems like quite a reasonable option now.

One year on

A year ago today, we moved into the Priory, full of hope that Quent was clear of cancer. This year, after the recurrence in November and two more major operations for Quentin, we are, once again, full of hope. Quentin is still recovering from all that the past 2 to 3 years has thrown at him, but he's doing really well and we have everything crossed for a third clear scan at the end of next month.

I thought some of you might like to see a few "before" and "after" shots of the house. Rather disappointingly, in spite of my best chivvying efforts, the builders have not finished painting / linseed oiling the front of the house for the occasion - although they promise it will be finished on Monday / Tuesday next week.



The front of the house. Strangely the best shot for comparison was taken in January. The cement on the beam above the ground floor has gone. The windows have been releaded. We have uncovered the carvings on the gables and of course repainted and repointed. Once the finishing touches have been made to paint and beams, it should be looking great. (The middle shot is from a month or so ago, when the work was being done)



Back lobby and coalshed, 2008 vs 2009.



Kitchen, 2008 vs 2009.

I am hoping that the kitchen will be fitted before the next anniversary and, who knows, we may even have a new boiler by then.

Back to school

Back to school tomorrow and back to work for me. We've had a great time in August, with a very enjoyable holiday to France. I can't resist a couple of snaps of the boys...

Oakley on the high ropes course.

Oakley and Quentin sharing a joke.

The rest of the time was spent exploring Hertfordshire. Oakley can now cycle several miles at a time and Quent has treated himself to a new bike. "New" being a relative term. A few years ago, Quent had a reasonable, second-hand bike. This was swapped for a worn out, uncomfortable contraption, by the burglars who raided our garage in 2003. This reject getaway bike served Quentin until last weekend when he upgraded to a blue one with excellent gears - £5 from the dump.

The house is progressing. The scaffolding is down and the roof came off the kitchen while we were in France (deliberately removed by builders, not blown off because it was so old). We are very pleased with the work to date. You know you have craftsmen on the job when they take tea with no sugar and listen to radio 4. The outside of the house is looking great, with nearly all the painting and repointing done and most of the old, single glazed Victorian leaded windows replaced with new, single glazed, Victorian leaded windows. (Actually most of them repaired, not replaced, as per the Conservationist's handbook.) You can tell which ones have been done because you can see through them. I know it's a lot of money, but window cleaners are hard to come by these days, so I am delighted.

Quent continues on the road towards recovery and seems to be taking a new drug called ebay. Antique windows for the garage we can't afford to build, floodlights which are too big for the house and even some useful stuff the builders have asked him to source. Another day, another package...

Save the radio!

Quentin has asked me to post the following on the blog. He's no luddite and embraces everything digital, but says it's a nonsense to turn off analogue. Which is good news for my little radio in the bathroom, which he usually threatens to replace with a Sonos unit.

Please take the time to read the article by Libby Purves (which has nothing to do with cancer):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/libby_purves/article6549533.ece

If you are concerned, you can sign the e petition here:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AM-FM-Radio/

Thanks to Ben for the tip off.

One week late...

It was my birthday last Monday and I had some fantastic presents, but of course the best was Quentin's clear scan result, hand delivered by an eminent Professor last night.

He said the scan was completely clear and that things "couldn't be better". He did admit that the chances of the cancer returning at some point were at least 60 - 70%, but says he still has treatment ideas up his sleeve if it comes to that.

I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression. Guys, if you don't have cancer, then flowers, jewelry, pamper days etc are still the order of the day. "I'm healthy" may not go down so well with women who expected nothing else.

Fundraising

On Thursday we went to Wigan.

Philip was organising a concert in aid of Prof's work and we didn't want to miss it. We'd first met Philip when he staggered down the corridor to see us, during the first week of the first round of Quent's treatment. Philip was already on his top up and gave us enormous hope as he told us it was all worth it. (We called him "Philip-the-success-story" in those days). He is a lovely man and we've become great friends with him and his equally lovely wife Sue. There's a special bond between us that we don't (and hopefully won't ever) share with any of our other friends. Not exactly John McCarthy and Brian Keenan, but certainly a shared experience of some of the less pleasant moments in life.

The concert was fantastic - Wigan Jazz Youth Orchestra - and worth the 6 hour drive up the M6. (Why are there always accidents between J19 and 21?) Prof was there with his wife, Helen - it was great to meet Helen and to see Prof outside the Christie. I urged him to have a glass of red wine and he took his medicine well - he was probably hoping I would show his talent for encouraging extra doses. Angela, one of the nurses from Nathan House, was also there and greeted Quentin with a cheery "You were the worst IL-2 patient we ever had". (In terms of bizarre side effects.)

The week before, we had been to another Christie's do. In London this time. The hospital wanted to show the medical trust funds that they were a national centre of excellence, worthy of large research grants. We agreed to speak - a "customer voice", telling the story of someone who preferred the Christie to the Marsden. The fact that the treatment was so successful and that Quent had raised money himself for the cause was a bonus - as was the cute, blond toddler in the slideshow. We mixed the family shots with a few gruesome ones of Quent mid-treatment to ensure we tugged on a range of emotional heartstrings.

The draw for the wealthy patrons was an audience with Jenni Murray and Alan Bennett - and so I found myself doing a monologue before the great man himself. It went OK, but I don't think Thora Hurd ever got choked mid-performance, so we're not expecting the phone to ring.