The Floating Bear

"It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows how old - three, was it, or four? - never had he seen so much rain."
                                                                                                                - A.A. Milne

We are stuck at home today having tried to drive to the coast where I was meant to be doing a 10k run. It would've been more like a 10k swim I think but the roads are too flooded to even get there safely so we'll never know! 

On Friday Nick had her three monthly check-up with Dr Dave which is a chance for him to check her bloods, see how she's doing physically and mentally and for us to ask any questions or raise any concerns. Plus we miss Dave so it was nice to see him! The blood results were all normal apart from those pesky neutrophils which are a little low but that's not unusual at this stage because of the medication Nick is taking. The other results show her kidneys are working normally and there's no raised markers for active lymphoma. The fact that her kidneys are in good shape means that it's OK for her to take anti-inflammatories occasionally for arthritic knee pain so that she can run! Nick asked Dave if it was OK to take these before admitting she had already used them several times. Dave said "I love how you always ask permission in retrospect!" He knows her so well by now! Nick's only concerns are that she still has some pain and reduced mobility in her right hip and a small area of discomfort in her thoracic spine. These are both areas where we know there has been damage to the bones caused by the tumours, so the presumption is that this damage is what's causing the pain rather than any new disease. As a precaution Nick had some x-rays taken to check for abnormalities and we should get the results of those quite soon. The good news is that Nick is gaining weight and getting fit. Yesterday she got a PB at Killerton parkrun having run it for the first time a year ago, less than three weeks after her first chemo session. The course was so wet and muddy yesterday that it was an achievement just to stay upright let alone run it quicker than you ever have before! Oh and she ran the 1.7 miles back to Di and Jon's house afterwards. 

Of course she did. Nick loves Killerton, loves the mud, the challenge, all the friendly faces there and of course brunch at Strathculm Lodge afterwards! Last week Emily Wolf Schaffer was visiting us from Houston, Texas and she joined us for the muddy run and for brunch too which was great fun. It was also nice for her to see where all the sixteen postcards she sent had ended up!

In the middle of writing this I was interrupted as we realised that our house was in serious danger of getting flooded. This happened once before a few years ago and since then we have made some alterations to try and make sure it doesn't happen again. This was another reason we decided to turn back this morning; we wanted to be here if the house looked likely to flood! Half our garden was suddenly under water, with a raging torrent swooshing past the back door and at the front water was lapping at the doorstep. All our neighbours were out looking at the streams that had burst their banks and seeing if anyone needed help. We now have sandbags at both doors. Thankfully the water level has  dropped but the rain is still pouring so we're on our guard just in case. Our poor neighbours have water coming up from under their house soaking their carpet! Locally there are road closures, landslides and flooded properties but so far we have been lucky.

So life goes on. The further behind we leave Nick's stem cell transplant and all the treatment, hair loss, worry and uncertainty that came before it, the more normal life starts to feel. I have been back at work for almost two months and that feels good. It feels good that I mostly sleep well now and have the emotional and physical energy to do my job, to care for other people's loved ones rather than just my own. It did feel a little strange to be back at hospital with Nick the other day, seeing Dave, waiting while she went for x-rays, having a little niggle of uncertainty about what might be going on in her body again. It has taken some time to not think about cancer all the time, massively helped by Nick's determination to get fit and strong after being so weakened by the final treatment. Generally when I get home from work I hear that her day has involved swimming 100 lengths at the pool, doing her daily weights session and her exercise DVD and maybe having a short run with Olive. So any frailties in her body are not at the forefront of my mind! Nick's goal is to do a 10k event called Run Exmoor in early March. This trail run takes place close to our home and is a beautiful, hilly, muddy route on the moor. She is trying to persuade Dr Dave to do it too but he was last heard muttering something about 'maybe being on-call that weekend'! Maybe that will be the next time we write a blog...

For the time being we are counting our blessings, relieved that so far our house hasn't flooded and that so far Nick is doing well, getting fitter, getting her hair back and gaining weight. Getting on top of lymphoma wasn't a straight forward process, there was some wrangling about whether it or Nick would come out on top...much like when Pooh launched a brave mission to rescue Piglet in the flood by turning his biggest honey pot into a boat he named The Floating Bear...

"For a little while Pooh and The Floating Bear were uncertain as to which of them was meant to be on top, but after trying one or two different positions they settled down with The Floating Bear underneath and Pooh triumphantly astride it, paddling vigorously with his feet." - A.A. Milne.