Living In A Food Mixer

It's a long time since I blogged on Property - much has happened in that time and life took an unexpected twist or two.

Today I've felt compelled to blog about one of those twists which has little to do with Property, unless living in a Food Mixer is your idea of a dream property! It might just resonate with some people and that's what blogging is about - connecting with people.  I'm also hoping it will be my springboard back into blogging about Property.

Living in a Food Mixer

If your partner has had Cancer you will know what it’s like.  If you want to know what it’s like I can tell you my own version – it’s like living in a food mixer.  Sometimes you’re mixed with sweet things, sometimes bitter, occasionally both and that’s when you don’t know how it will turn out.

The medics are amazing but they don’t help much.  There were two that really mattered, the one who was determined to find out which bit of my husband’s body had let him down and the one who had the courage and skill to remove the knackered Kidney.  The rest are just clever, nice people trained to do the impossible – make your life easier, but it doesn’t work.  Pills to stop the cancer returning – but you never know;  pills to reduce the blood pressure, the rash, the painful hands and feet, all caused by the pills to stop the cancer returning; pills to stop the insomnia caused by the pills to reduce the blood pressure … all into the mixer. 

All the pills to make life sweeter do just that – on one day, but on the next they make life bitter.  Some days start sweet then end bitter.  Some days start bitter then end sweet.

What you want is to go on holiday, to Italy or Spain - to the sun – for a month or two.  That would make life sweeter.  But no, your husband might be poorly, he might find himself in Italy or Spain with no blood pressure pills or even worse his remaining kidney might fail.  These things probably won’t happen, at least when you stay at home you’re told they won’t.  But if you don’t go outside you won’t get run over by a bus either.  

There’s nothing wrong with you until you say you want to go somewhere exciting and enjoy yourself.  Far better to stay safely at home waiting for the next phone call, blood test or pill top up.  Better to slide into a depression staring out of the window at home than risk watching fire flies dancing under warm stars,  better to sleep the boring afternoons away than overdo things playing Archery,  better to go to Tesco in the rain than swim in warm waters or cycle along the beautiful shores of Lake Trasimeno.

It helps to be at home where they can ring and check how you feel, take more blood and tick their boxes.  That way they feel good when they go home because they’ve been caring and considerate – they really do care which makes it taste so bitter sweet.  They’re happy your blood is OK and you will live another day.  But are you alive?  Were you not dreaming of azure skies, warm seas, great food and the sun warming your tired body when they rang to remind you what it is to feel poorly?

So you postponed your holiday, it will be easier to go later in the year, fewer boxes to tick and you’ll be healed then, you don’t have cancer so there’s nothing to stop you.   You postponed it six months to September, reduced it to one month instead of two.  You rang everyone to check and double check, to organise dates to suit all.   The mixer has produced a fine sweet after all.

Then the phone rings again. “We must change your appointment Mr King, the consultant can’t see you in August, it must be September.”  You sigh, you feel depressed and you tell them so.  They have something for that.   You return to the mixer and consider your plight.  But you won’t be beaten this time.  You won’t accept bitter, you want sweet.  So you beg, plead and make a nuisance of yourself.  The administrator is unhappy, she grumbles but reluctantly this time she gives in.  The sweet has been rescued once more.

Then the phone rings again. “You’re depressed.  Would you like to come on an anxiety course?”

“Yes, please.”

“It starts in September.”