Silence is golden – or at least bronze!

So I seem to get worse at writing this blog – it’s nearly 6 months since my last post. Largely that’s because life has been busy with the house, family, work and cycling.

But the last 6 weeks have just been horrid. Not related to myeloma – for once my numbers have been behaving and even reducing slightly which is good news. And absolutely needed with everything else we’ve been trying to get our heads round.

The saddest thing has been the loss of my mother-in-law, Joy. It wasn’t expected and came as she was getting ready to come home from hospital. She was putting her make up on and just had a heart attack. The shock Nick had, when the phone-call he thought would say that she was home, instead was his dad saying that she’d died, was huge. It shocked everyone. It has been just over 6 weeks since it happened and the funeral only happened on Friday so it’s been a very long period of grief, starting to acclimatise to a life without her and then having to grieve again at the funeral.

The children are devastated to lose their grandmother. She was a big part of their lives and was definitely a matriarchal figure that linked everyone together. Nick has been amazing but misses her very much. And my father in law is very lost but doing an amazing job at trying to find himself. 6 weeks has helped everyone a little but it’s still been a long 6 weeks.

Within that period the kids both had birthdays. Sam’s was just 4 days afterwards and felt very bizarre as it didn’t really feel right to celebrate. Rebecca’s was 2 days before the funeral, so again didn’t feel like a major celebration. The first birthdays without her present.

Alongside all of this I had the biggest event I have ever done for work and I was the main organiser for my bit. I love my work for Brain Tumour Research so much and just couldn’t let it slip. Too much at stake. The event raised over £30,000 so I’m really proud of what was achieved but it did add in lots of pressure at a time we could have done without it. It was such a big event I had to bring Nick and Sam along as Volunteers to help – again, Nick could probably have done without it had we known about his mum, but I couldn’t afford to let him off the hook. And he was amazing at knowing that I really needed him, and yet again putting me before him.

And just to top all of that off, today we said goodbye to Rebecca as she hopped on a plane over to Australia. She’ll be staying there for a year we think, mainly with family but hopefully she’ll be brave and work and maybe travel too. I didn’t think I’d be worried about her going. I know my nephew and my niece will look after her (and my sister once she arrives next month!). But today I woke up and just felt sick. She’ll be half way round the world and I can’t get to her easily. She also has to transfer in Dubai (about 3.5 hours from now!) and only has a 2 hour transfer window! She won’t be here for Christmas for the first time ever.

Saying goodbye at Birmingham

So I might be making a fuss about nothing, but it’s all seemed quite a lot to deal with this past 6 weeks. Oh yes, and it was treatment day today so it’ll be a shit week anyway as the drugs hit me on Wednesday in particular. I cannot wait till Friday/ Saturday when I hope that we’ll get a chance to breathe again.

We’re doing ok though so no need to stress. Nick has been amazing at supporting his dad and we have him round most days for dinner which I think helps both of them. The next few weeks will be interesting to see how they both do (along with Nick’s brother) and how easy/difficult the acclimatisation will be to a different way of doing things. We do miss Joy – she always lightened the mood and brought a twinkle to the table. 3 blokes are a bit different – and now I’ve lost Rebecca too!🤣😳🤣

Finally, I’ve got a new fundraiser for everyone to help with. I’m raffling a ‘Barrowful of Booze’!! Just £5 a ticket! And there is so much in it that I need a disclaimer saying I take no responsibility for anyone who becomes an alcoholic if they win!! Even if you can’t afford one tickets, perhaps you would consider promoting it for me with your friends and family. If everyone I knew on Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn and WordPress bought one ticket and got five other people else to buy one, I’d sell out!! Even if you just got 5 people to buy (check it out for where I can deliver to!)

A Barrowful of Booze!!

To buy tickets, click on the link above, and the ticket picture has the link to tickets – just make sure you edit the costs to make sure you don’t pay costs – you can change it to £0!!

Having passed the £200,000 mark now for fundraising, I’m determined to reach a quarter of a million as it sounds SO much better! So please help me if you can