Day 1

Well it's begun - today IS day 1 - I feel like doing that in a voice over style like Marcus Bentley, you know the guy "day one in the Big Brother house" - except this isn't the Big Brother house, and it's certainly not entertainment - mind you, by the time we get to the end of the 12 weeks or more, there may well be as many arguments, but probably less nudity!

We have figured a good thing would be to set ourselves some daily tasks, today's opening task was taking down the nets and washing them, then hanging them back up! I'm fairly sure once upon a time I had a life where washing nets wasn't a highlight of the day, but as Bob Dylan sang, "times they are a changin"!

It's been a lovely day here in Kent, which has been great as our little one has been able to get out on his trampoline. He just loves to bounce! He would bounce all day if you let him - I guess one of the great things about looking after a child with challenging needs is that sometimes their needs are just simple things, like bouncing all day long.

Watching him has made things appear normal, whatever normal is. Mind you we haven't done normal for quite a while now. We had a bit of a rough ending to 2019, my wife being diagnosed with cancer in October. Initially the belief was she had bowel cancer, though after a couple of stays in our local hospital Oncology ward it transpired she has Low grade Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, grade 2 - stage 4.

This hit us like a bombshell, especially when thoughts of cure changed to talk of treatment and percentage chances of survival over so many years. This was heavy stuff.

We are now 4 cycles into a 6 cycle treatment plan - obviously when I say "we" I really mean my wife, but to be honest it is a joint effort, we are battling this together.

Things were moving along quite well with the treatment, with few side effects. A bit of loss in her finger tips, forget-fullness (on my wife's part, not mine - I've suffered that for years) and bouts of tears and depression were the only things really causing concern. The information the tumour had shrunk more than the expected 50% was also great news, as were the other reductions from previous scans!

Then along came the Covid-19 juggernaut....