Friday 30th July

Just to say that Jane is feeling much, much better and may be allowed home tomorrow. She is due to see the oncologist and the orthopaedic consultant on Monday so I will blog after that.

Wednesday 28th July 2009

A quick note to say Jane is in the hospice as an in-patient. She contracted gastric flu (or something like it) earlier this week and the nausea prevented her from taking painkillers. It all got a bit too much so she went in today and we are confident that they can get her back on an even keel in the coming few days.

Jane has had some blood tests that showed deteriorating liver function (compared to last 6 months) but that may be a symptom of something else that can be treated.

As you would expect, the staff in the Hospice are brilliant and Jane is so good at being brave in these situations.

I attach a photo taken last weekend at our dear friends', Michael and Ellie, Golden Wedding.

I will write again soon, in the meantime, we are grateful for your prayers.

Peter

Sunday 11th July 2010

I wanted to blog today because I have a bit of time in which to upload photographs etc. I know that next week will be really busy and I won't find time to do as much. We have just come back from lunch with friends in the New Forest. They have a lovely house up a dirt track right in the middle of the forest - 'idyllic' is absolutely the right word.

Last Friday Jane had a surprise party. She really didn't have a clue who was coming or what we were doing until she came downstairs on Friday evening. All she knew was that two couples were coming to stay and she needed to put a dress on. In fact 14 of us assembled at home for drinks on the patio and then we all went to Fisherton Mill for dinner where Nigel and Molly met us (they had dashed back from Wimbledon especially).

Lydia did the flowers for the tables, Leo's face tells the story about the wonderful food and after dinner Pete Aves played wonderful guitar and sang; it was a lovely evening.

Not such good news - Jane's neck hasn't improved as much as we had hoped from the radiotherapy. She saw her GP during the week who thinks she may have cracked a vertebra. The immediate recommended response is to take steroids but we know that will mean moon face, weight gain and, most importantly, will adversely affect her joints in the longer term. Jane is seeing the oncologist tomorrow and so I will blog again shortly. Suffice to say, we are all a bit concerned at this turn of events and hope for better times ahead.

To finish on a brighter note, Jane's nephew, Jake, has been discharged from hospital having had really positive results from the bone marrow transplant. He still has a long way to go but this is very encouraging.

Please keep praying for Jane and Jake.

God Bless you.

PS If you are in need of cheering up take a look at David Sedaris reading his Stadium Pal essay on the David Letterman show on You Tube. The link might be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBdymtyXt8Y