Just a short update:
Scan results in for Mum. Last week we received some welcome news. The scan results revealed that the tumours have not spread further, as they would have expected them to, and the Chemo is having some effect.
This has helped us all feel more positive so Praise God.
We will continue to pray for a full healing.
Tuesday 24 August 2010
Saturday 21 August 2010
Doh - a sense of reality
It was the strangest feeling as I walked out of the cinema after the amazing film that is 'Inception'. I get really involved in films so I got quite tense when it was all hanging in the balance and when the credits finally rolled I actually had to tell myself that I was in THE real reality and this was THE real bump back to it.
Yes it is, London, 11pm, Orange wednesday. Yes it is a reality that I cant escape from. I almost felt the burdens, which I had blanked for 2 1/2 odeon hours, load back on to my shoulders.
Then I had one of those 'wow' moments walking up my road and this will likely sound cheesy but hey ho. I thought; hang on one minute. This is reality - yes and it does seem rubbish sometimes - yes and sometimes I want to be in any dream world rather than this one - yes. BUT within this same reality (this earth) I can actually still experience the most amazing and uplifting reality ever: the reality of being able to know my Creator personally!
The film is well made with a clever plot and provokes the viewer to ask questions of the characters, the ending and the concepts it represents.
However I try to distract myself from reality I know deep down that none of these distractions last long, just like the dreams. I know that one minute spent in His presence is better than thousands elsewhere and I can lay my burdens down there. If I know all this then why on earth do I forget and so often go everywhere else for comfort before God?! Doh!
Is hope found in the worlds we create for ourselves or is it found in the harsh reality of the world we find ourselves in? This is the messed-up world that Jesus died for.
Yes it is, London, 11pm, Orange wednesday. Yes it is a reality that I cant escape from. I almost felt the burdens, which I had blanked for 2 1/2 odeon hours, load back on to my shoulders.
Then I had one of those 'wow' moments walking up my road and this will likely sound cheesy but hey ho. I thought; hang on one minute. This is reality - yes and it does seem rubbish sometimes - yes and sometimes I want to be in any dream world rather than this one - yes. BUT within this same reality (this earth) I can actually still experience the most amazing and uplifting reality ever: the reality of being able to know my Creator personally!
The film is well made with a clever plot and provokes the viewer to ask questions of the characters, the ending and the concepts it represents.
However I try to distract myself from reality I know deep down that none of these distractions last long, just like the dreams. I know that one minute spent in His presence is better than thousands elsewhere and I can lay my burdens down there. If I know all this then why on earth do I forget and so often go everywhere else for comfort before God?! Doh!
Is hope found in the worlds we create for ourselves or is it found in the harsh reality of the world we find ourselves in? This is the messed-up world that Jesus died for.
Friday 20 August 2010
Sad Sherlock
One of my favourite programmes is 'That Mitchell and Webb Look'. On Tuesday I switched over and was pleased to have half an hour of a comedy sketch show to watch with Dad in the home on a Tuesday night.
I certainly wasnt prepared for the final sketch of this 'comedy' to be filled with such irony, sadness and poigniancy about an Old Sherlock Holmes!
Watch a Sherlock suffering from Dementia and how he interacts with Dr Watson on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp02ubGuTIU
I couldnt hide myself from the fact that the subject of this sketch was just a bit too close to home for me and maybe many others with relatives with other diseases such as Alzheimers. The last minute especially is rather powerfully heartbreaking as Sherlock has a moment of "clarity" and reveals to Dr Watson: "I know, I do know, I just cant get the fog to clear"
Last week the pair had joked about how Blackadder ended their series with a sad and serious scene (lads climbing over a trench wall into German gunfire) so the ending of this episode/series they had ripped that idea off and fulfilled it in their own show.
Now I know that Mitchell and Webb sketches are often close to the mark and often this kind of comedy would likely be offensive to one group or other but this one for me was not really offensive as such but left me incredibly moved. Maybe they wanted to show that they can actually act (and they really can) but also did they want to go straight from the comedy into serious to make it more hard hitting and thought-provoking? Bringing age, ill health and time to a fictional character. I was expecting a final laugh but it ended very emotionally.
What made me think even more about this was that, although Dad doesnt make sense of much at all, he said to me a few minutes later. "As long as it doesnt end up like on that show" - gulp!
All the comments I have come across on the web have said that people have cried or were sad and that it was slightly unwelcome but yet it was very clever. We tend to be uneasy about laughing at much of it because of the state of real people, like my dad and others in homes, but maybe this hints to us that laughing and other emotions are actually not as far apart from each other as we think they are.
What do you think?
I certainly wasnt prepared for the final sketch of this 'comedy' to be filled with such irony, sadness and poigniancy about an Old Sherlock Holmes!
Watch a Sherlock suffering from Dementia and how he interacts with Dr Watson on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp02ubGuTIU
I couldnt hide myself from the fact that the subject of this sketch was just a bit too close to home for me and maybe many others with relatives with other diseases such as Alzheimers. The last minute especially is rather powerfully heartbreaking as Sherlock has a moment of "clarity" and reveals to Dr Watson: "I know, I do know, I just cant get the fog to clear"
Last week the pair had joked about how Blackadder ended their series with a sad and serious scene (lads climbing over a trench wall into German gunfire) so the ending of this episode/series they had ripped that idea off and fulfilled it in their own show.
Now I know that Mitchell and Webb sketches are often close to the mark and often this kind of comedy would likely be offensive to one group or other but this one for me was not really offensive as such but left me incredibly moved. Maybe they wanted to show that they can actually act (and they really can) but also did they want to go straight from the comedy into serious to make it more hard hitting and thought-provoking? Bringing age, ill health and time to a fictional character. I was expecting a final laugh but it ended very emotionally.
What made me think even more about this was that, although Dad doesnt make sense of much at all, he said to me a few minutes later. "As long as it doesnt end up like on that show" - gulp!
All the comments I have come across on the web have said that people have cried or were sad and that it was slightly unwelcome but yet it was very clever. We tend to be uneasy about laughing at much of it because of the state of real people, like my dad and others in homes, but maybe this hints to us that laughing and other emotions are actually not as far apart from each other as we think they are.
What do you think?
Tuesday 17 August 2010
Not "why?" but "what now?"
I am an emotional person but usually in public I manage to cry in a civilised fashion with just a couple of tear marks on my cheeks. Not so back in February. I lost all composure and frankly didn’t have the capacity to care about what on earth the people on my packed train were thinking. I was ‘proper balling it’ as they say in Essex, with extra noise, blubbering and undignified sniffing.
I had just received a call from the hospital asking me to gather the family together for a meeting with the consultant to hear a diagnosis for mum. At this point she had been in hospital for 4 weeks with a visiting ban in place and all the nurse had revealed to me on the phone was an acknowledgement that it was ‘serious’. Despite actually having no idea what was really wrong and how much I could have been blowing it all out of proportion, it hurt lots! I reasoned that maybe our family’s bar of what is ‘serious’ had been set quite high since Dad and maybe I was just thinking worst case scenario?
When my fears were confirmed I was really angry all of a sudden. Why did you have to prove my fears right God? For the first time in my life I want to be proven wrong! Why would you allow this to happen to us twice? I can cope with one parent with cancer but two – really!?
After a few weeks of feeling completely overwhelmed I began slowly to look beyond my immediate circumstances and realise the world around me again. I began to think that maybe “Why?” was the wrong question for me to be asking.
I don’t ask God why I was born into a loving family, why my health has been ok so far or why I was born in the rich West with a roof over my head and money, not just for food, but for all kinds of luxuries. No - it seems to be just the bad times when we may ask this question. Had I been acting as if I have some kind of inherent right that things should go well and that my life plan should go the way my culture tells me it should? What about the family in Pakistan who are cut off from aid, whose children are now open to all kinds of disease from flood waters, and their home has been swept away?
Life just isn’t about rights or what we deserve or don’t deserve. Grace is above all that.
To manage to look beyond difficult circumstances is very hard to do when storms come. Battening down the hatches and waiting it out seems like the only option. However, lifting our head and looking outwards puts things in perspective even if it risks danger or pain. It enables us to continue living life again and being grateful for what we have. So, we have a chance to shift focus to asking the question “what now?”
How will we respond when troubles come? When the cares of life are overwhelming and our heart is sinking down will we fix our eyes on the hope of glory, on the one who can provide peace beyond our understanding?
I’m still working out my personal response as time moves on and sometimes it is a long learning process but I really don’t want to end up bitter or holding on to my wounds.
God doesn’t reveal his grand design for life or His ultimate purposes to us - but he does reveal Himself and ‘I like’!
I had just received a call from the hospital asking me to gather the family together for a meeting with the consultant to hear a diagnosis for mum. At this point she had been in hospital for 4 weeks with a visiting ban in place and all the nurse had revealed to me on the phone was an acknowledgement that it was ‘serious’. Despite actually having no idea what was really wrong and how much I could have been blowing it all out of proportion, it hurt lots! I reasoned that maybe our family’s bar of what is ‘serious’ had been set quite high since Dad and maybe I was just thinking worst case scenario?
When my fears were confirmed I was really angry all of a sudden. Why did you have to prove my fears right God? For the first time in my life I want to be proven wrong! Why would you allow this to happen to us twice? I can cope with one parent with cancer but two – really!?
After a few weeks of feeling completely overwhelmed I began slowly to look beyond my immediate circumstances and realise the world around me again. I began to think that maybe “Why?” was the wrong question for me to be asking.
I don’t ask God why I was born into a loving family, why my health has been ok so far or why I was born in the rich West with a roof over my head and money, not just for food, but for all kinds of luxuries. No - it seems to be just the bad times when we may ask this question. Had I been acting as if I have some kind of inherent right that things should go well and that my life plan should go the way my culture tells me it should? What about the family in Pakistan who are cut off from aid, whose children are now open to all kinds of disease from flood waters, and their home has been swept away?
Life just isn’t about rights or what we deserve or don’t deserve. Grace is above all that.
To manage to look beyond difficult circumstances is very hard to do when storms come. Battening down the hatches and waiting it out seems like the only option. However, lifting our head and looking outwards puts things in perspective even if it risks danger or pain. It enables us to continue living life again and being grateful for what we have. So, we have a chance to shift focus to asking the question “what now?”
How will we respond when troubles come? When the cares of life are overwhelming and our heart is sinking down will we fix our eyes on the hope of glory, on the one who can provide peace beyond our understanding?
I’m still working out my personal response as time moves on and sometimes it is a long learning process but I really don’t want to end up bitter or holding on to my wounds.
God doesn’t reveal his grand design for life or His ultimate purposes to us - but he does reveal Himself and ‘I like’!
Wednesday 11 August 2010
The God of Order and Logic
I finished my visit with Dad in the Nursing home the other day with a prayer as usual. He prayed for at least 10 minutes to God who is the “God of order and logic” to come in and sort out our mess and muddle. Whilst to begin with this sounded silly to me as I guess I had not put it high on my list of God’s qualities. God doesn’t fall into a Myers Briggs type box; logical or creative he can be all things rolled into 1. The more I thought about this the more I realised that this made sense and it was coming out of what my Dad was experiencing inside his head. He has found it so hard to communicate to us just what kind of world he lives in now. “It’s just a muddle and a mess” he says.
It is not like some alzheimers sufferers who may not realise they are in a muddle and are in kind of a happy muddled world – no, he knows things are wrong which is must be even harder for him to conquer the frustration. Over 14 months we have seen this horrible tumour take over bit by bit with changes of personality, mood swings, confusion and memory loss– it’s quite scary really. We are still resisting its advances as much as we all can and my Dad is still himself in many amazing ways like his humour, his care for us and he is still very spiritually connected which is great. His prayers are really something else – very powerful!
My Father has always been a very detailed, pedantic, intelligent person and he would often spend his time correcting grammar, proof-reading mum’s reports and we share the same passion for good quality writing. Even though so much of this is lost now - and he can’t even use his computer anymore – his occasional high quality vocabulary demonstrates that his intelligence is still very much there (just clouded over a bit). He is so desperate to make some sense – “I’m talking a load of twaddle again aren’t I?” he says.
At times he insists things that certain objects are not what they are or what we tell him they are. My Dad – previously a quality assurance engineer in Marconi – was insisting to me that he needed to take the power lead from the radio into the bathroom to plug into the toilet to make it work! His brain is telling him different stuff. He still has a keen ear and picks up on stuff from others and the telly. He hears Eastenders in the background talking about a wedding dress and the next conversation 10 minutes later he is expressing concern that we have to sort out a dress for a wedding deadline and it is all his responsibility. A few weeks ago we would talk about someone who is elsewhere and then for the next half an hour that person is hiding behind the curtains or under the bed.
It is very much the Brain tumour that has caused all his suffering but through it all he knows that God has all the positive traits and gifts he needs to help sort him out – a bit of order and logic!
God is wholly good and all things come from him so let us praise our God who can bring order and logic and goodness to our human chaos. Even when we can’t see any clarity, logic or reasons – He is still to be trusted and will ultimately bring right this muddled and messed up world in his timing.
It is not like some alzheimers sufferers who may not realise they are in a muddle and are in kind of a happy muddled world – no, he knows things are wrong which is must be even harder for him to conquer the frustration. Over 14 months we have seen this horrible tumour take over bit by bit with changes of personality, mood swings, confusion and memory loss– it’s quite scary really. We are still resisting its advances as much as we all can and my Dad is still himself in many amazing ways like his humour, his care for us and he is still very spiritually connected which is great. His prayers are really something else – very powerful!
My Father has always been a very detailed, pedantic, intelligent person and he would often spend his time correcting grammar, proof-reading mum’s reports and we share the same passion for good quality writing. Even though so much of this is lost now - and he can’t even use his computer anymore – his occasional high quality vocabulary demonstrates that his intelligence is still very much there (just clouded over a bit). He is so desperate to make some sense – “I’m talking a load of twaddle again aren’t I?” he says.
At times he insists things that certain objects are not what they are or what we tell him they are. My Dad – previously a quality assurance engineer in Marconi – was insisting to me that he needed to take the power lead from the radio into the bathroom to plug into the toilet to make it work! His brain is telling him different stuff. He still has a keen ear and picks up on stuff from others and the telly. He hears Eastenders in the background talking about a wedding dress and the next conversation 10 minutes later he is expressing concern that we have to sort out a dress for a wedding deadline and it is all his responsibility. A few weeks ago we would talk about someone who is elsewhere and then for the next half an hour that person is hiding behind the curtains or under the bed.
It is very much the Brain tumour that has caused all his suffering but through it all he knows that God has all the positive traits and gifts he needs to help sort him out – a bit of order and logic!
God is wholly good and all things come from him so let us praise our God who can bring order and logic and goodness to our human chaos. Even when we can’t see any clarity, logic or reasons – He is still to be trusted and will ultimately bring right this muddled and messed up world in his timing.
Tuesday 3 August 2010
Where do I start?
I have been thinking about blogging for quite a while and I still dont know if anyone will be interested in my musings but even if it is just for my own benefit, that is fine. I want to try and share aswell as gain some helpful and hopeful and life-giving nuggets (for want of a better word) as well as being real and honest about the experience. God's grace has been getting me through this far and grace will lead me home.
It has been a long 14 months since my Dad's diagnosis with a Gliobastoma Multiforme level 4 brain tumour in June 2009 which started this emotional rollercoaster ride. Mum's diagnosis followed this year in February of widely spread secondary bone cancer (with unknown primary). Even though its been 6 months since that and I have got used to the facts, I still struggle when the reality hits me each day.
I'm gonna have to think how to start this blog and give some history to personality and progression of illness while not letting myself get carried away with unecessary length. I'll be back soon once I have thought it out.
It has been a long 14 months since my Dad's diagnosis with a Gliobastoma Multiforme level 4 brain tumour in June 2009 which started this emotional rollercoaster ride. Mum's diagnosis followed this year in February of widely spread secondary bone cancer (with unknown primary). Even though its been 6 months since that and I have got used to the facts, I still struggle when the reality hits me each day.
I'm gonna have to think how to start this blog and give some history to personality and progression of illness while not letting myself get carried away with unecessary length. I'll be back soon once I have thought it out.
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