The retreat

 The potpourri conundrum.

I was asked a really good question today, which goes right to the heart of what I’m doing. Would Jill have jumped in to make corrections, and is it a bit too rose tinted? Have I made Jill into something akin to a saint? I’m sure Jill’s recollections of events would be different, though if we talked through our memories of events (like the first kiss) we generally ended up with a composite. Which is an idea I really like, that I have some of Jill’s memories in my head, right now. Honest to god, if we could have inhabited one soul together we would have done. But yes, I’m sure that I’m painting her in a very good light. But that’s my memories of her. That’s how I want to remember her; I’m not writing to or for, anyone but me.

This journaling has expanded into more than I was expecting, and I have kinda dragged you on for the ride, but as an observer, rather than as an audience. And it’s just >you< that I’m talking to. I’m really not thinking in terms of an audience at all. That’s why it’s a conversational style really. So how could anyone ever compete with her, approaching sainthood status? They can’t. There are women out there who are cleverer, better at sports, more graceful than her, but no-one else could be her. She was unique, same as you. But it was the whole of her who made the woman she was. I could never find another Jill because there isn’t one. But yeah, sure, I’d score her 100% on every metric. She wasn’t a saint, but she was as close as dammit, and that’s my truth, which makes it THE truth. I’ve paid in tears to hold the patent on that one.

[But this bit is just for you, my silent conversationalist, so don’t tell a soul but I’m usually fairly high when I’m writing. It helps with both recalling memories and helping with the lazy conversational tone. But schhhh! Don’t tell a soul, ok?]

Jill’s favourite perfume was called “Blue grass” if I remember correctly. But as ever with her, she wasn’t content to leave it at that. So she studied up on the science of perfumes and different notes and combinations then added in a bit of biology for good measure. Then she went on courses to learn about making perfume, and finally got to make her very own scent. This then lead onto aromatherapy, and she sat and learned the science, then the biology, then she jumped right in with oils and burners. This in turn helped when she was doing massage as well. I do think her role in life was as a healer. She was always interested in biology and human evolution, she was a properly qualified first aider and she almost certainly saved the life of a guy who collapsed on the tube, in conjunction with another first aider. She was always the company first aider wherever she worked.

And I think that was her downfall. She liked alternative medicine, and would self diagnose and self treat. She was sure her symptoms which she’d had for years was IBS. She’d self medicate and sometimes the symptoms subsided. I trusted her. I always trusted her and if she’d said to me “pick it up the red hot poker, it won’t hurt you” I’d have done it without hesitation. It never crossed my mind she could be so catastrophically wrong. Eventually we had to go to the hospital for checks. I remember we were taken into a side room, where a nurse explained that they’d found a tumour. It’s almost impossible to explain what that’s like unless it’s happened to you. It really is like in the movies, everything goes faint, and everything slows down. Your mind has been stunned with a hammer beam blow. I came around in time to hear the nurse trying to be reassuring, and even then I knew it was a lie.

I can’t remember the exact chronology of this. I know she had an operation to have the tumour removed, but I can’t remember if this is before we found out she was terminal. Anyway, at some point she was seen by a consultant, who maybe the one who did the tumour.. that makes sense, so he saw us and told us the operation was a success. He did add there was something a bit odd about her liver, but he was sure it was nothing. We got called back a couple of weeks later and we sat in his office and he then told us that the cancer had already reached her liver and was travelling up, too fast to stop. He told us two years at best. He then took Jill away into another room, being ripped apart from each other at that most awful time. The nurse sat with me and said “how do you feel?” I remember as clear as day I said “You’ve just told me my wife is going to die, how do you think I feel?” She shut up after that. Then of course we had to drive home. There’s only one way to do that, and shut parts of your brain off, just concentrate on getting home. That is something you learn to do a lot.

Anyway, we ended up with a consultant in Southend. You’ll excuse the language, but she was a fucking bitch that I’d kill if I could. She was very tall, blonde, elegant and arrogant as fuck. She looked through Jill’s notes and just turned to us and said “if you decide to work with me I’ll be able to give you 2 years. If you don’t you’ll be dead by Easter”, which was about 6 months away. Jill had done her homework and started discussing different drug trials and so on, but Bitch Face was having none of it. She and the local authority had come to an agreement with pharma on the use of one drug or another. Which meant we lost out. She did however offer to send her case to the Royal Marsden in Sutton, ironically about 5 miles from where we used to be. In actual fact, because it was an early appointment we stayed in a B&B about 100 yards from our very first flat. The day of her appointment is forever in my mind; it was her birthday. It would have been 5 months in total since the tumour was discovered.

The staff were great, friendly and chatty and every single one noticed her DoB and wished her a happy birthday. They were very optimistic, because Jill was 52, and strong, with few contraindications. Lots of promising trials with the potential of adding years to her life, and by then there would be more drugs and so on. I wanted to believe him; I’d lick hope off a sharp knife if I had to, but we both bought into our lie.

Jill’s job had been great and kept her on full pay for 6 months and half for another 6. So we were ok there. She got on a trial, and this is what we would do. I think it was Tuesdays we would go around the M25 to the Marsden, and we would set off early hoping to avoid traffic. Sometimes we would be early, often late, and that affected where in the queue you were to have bloods taken, which would delay the start of chemo. Then we would sit and wait for an hour or so talking about nothing. Eventually she’d be called and we would know if she could have chemo. I tried to work on my laptop in the canteen but the signal was crap so I would usually go to Sutton Library. She’d ring to say when it was finished, and depending on when it started it could be between four and seven o’clock. I’d then drive back and pick her up.

At first she would be excited to tell me how some measurement of something else was doing the other… basically was the treatment working or not, and it was good news for a while and then she’d forget to mention it from then on. I was too scared to ask. She would have a pouch of chemicals that had to be pumped into her for 3 days. Then we would have to remove the pump, flush the lines and a bunch of other medical shit. She also needed blood thinners, warfarin I think, and I had to inject her every day. We got a district nurse in to teach me how to do it. I did it every day and it took every ounce of courage to do it. Usually I’d do ok, but sometimes I’d fuck up and she’d be left with bruises. But better that we did it ourselves than have some random stranger in the house.

Of course sometimes things wouldn’t work out ok, such as the pump stopping working, and we would have to make an emergency dash back to the Royal Marsden. Sometimes literally in the middle of the night. We got very used to sitting in silent half lit and cold waiting rooms. If she caught a cold it was a major incident, but because she was on a pharma trial they gave her drugs that were costing hundreds of pounds each to clear it up.

So stuttering from night into day driving back home, we stuttered through each day. She’d be ok for day 2 of the chemo, then be bad, then really bad for about a week, then ok for another week, after which the process would begin again. If the blood tests were negative though, it meant we’d have to come back the following week, but it did mean she could reclaim some more strength.

I think that’s enough for now. Really wasn’t sure where I was going when I wrote the title but it certainly wasn’t here!