Spreading bad news

Later on Monday morning, when I’d just finished my last blog, the phone rang.

It’s a friend, Lin, the wife of our old friend PD from the Pub days. She has bad news. PD is in hospital. He went to one of his regular consultations concerning his breathing difficulties & ended up in Intensive Care. While there, they finally diagnosed a lymphoma in one of his lungs, along with a chest infection in his other lung. The chest infection has now been treated & he started chemotherapy on Friday.

Lin asked me to ring around mutual friends to spread the word, also adding PD wanted no visitors at this stage, and anyhow he was hoping to be home any time now. He had been told he would be in hospital for 7-10 days & a week had already gone by.

As if this wasn’t bad enough news, I got on with the task Lin had asked me to do & so caught up with other people’s news as well.

First I rang Mrs B, the retired headmistress. She’s recovering from an op on her hand. She’s had to have a tendon released. That seems to be going well. She’s now onto physiotherapy to get her hand moving once more.

Then came the bad bit. I rang Dick Gobble. Long term readers may remember him from a while back. His wife, Jean, died about 18 months ago after a brave struggle against cancer. Last time we were saw him, he seemed to be coming to terms with his loss. He hasn’t rung so we assumed all was well & he was carrying on life in some other realm without us.

How far from the truth this is. He sounds as though he’s suffering from serious depression. He feels no drive to do anything. He’s ceased to go on his regular rambles with his mates. He’s spending most of his time at the Pub, drowning himself in alcohol. I think the only thing that is keeping him going is that the dog, his wife’s really, continues to demand walks & other attention.

I suggested he saw his GP. Apparently he has. He was sent to Bereavement Counselling. Unfortunately, the chap who did the counselling was taken ill after the second session & Dick has heard no more. I urged him to go back to the GP. Dick desperately needs help & I’m not sure I’m the person to help. The most I feel I can do is add him to the list of people I ring to have a, hopefully, cheering, or at least reassuring, chat to so he knows someone at least cares, & add him to my list of people in need of prayers.

It was reassuring to pop into our village pub after the hospital on Monday afternoon, to discover that Tony M, the power station worker, has at least had the all clear. He’d blacked out some time ago & has been having several tests to check on the cause. He suspected that he was the victim in a hit-and-run accident. He had been standing, bicycle in hand, at the kerbside, admiring the view. The next thing he knew he was being taken to hospital, with no memory of what had happened. When he eventually got his bike back, it was badly out of shape, which makes him think someone had driven into him. However, the power station insisted he had all the medical checks as they can’t afford to have someone pass out when they are doing potentially dangerous work in a nuclear power station. He’s finally got the all clear.

The Fox has been trying to reassure Tony that it is perfectly possible to lose a bit of memory if you are involved in an accident. The Fox himself, as a teenager was knocked down when he ran across the street for a bus. Even now, in his 60s, the Fox still cannot remember the details of what happened. It seems probable that something like this is what has happened to Tony.

It was also pleasing to bump into Helen K, the widow of Mike who died with Motor Neurone Disease some years ago, at the golf club yesterday. She’s re-built her life. It’s centred around the golf club where she has met a group of ladies who holiday together, playing golf all over the place. She’s off to Worsley, near Manchester, next week. Then in summer she’s off with them to Madeira. The ladies’ team regularly has a challenge competition with a club in Scotland which involves a week’s break there. She still misses Mike. That’s inevitable, but she has moved on unlike Dick, & got on with life.