Much Ado About Nothing?

In my last post, I was in a state about the water running down the wall and causing damp to get under the wallpaper in the bathroom, causing mould to grow through the paper and the beginnings of the same in the room beneath.

We couldn't get hold of a plumber who was known to us (unless we took pot luck by getting some one in from The Yellow Pages.) This is always a risky thing to do.

We realised that there must be a problem with the ballcocks in the two tanks connected to the central heating in our roof space, causing the overflow to be in use. The problem was..... where was the outside overflow and why wasn't the water running clear of the wall? On closer examination, it appeared that the overflow had been cut off by the men who had put new facial board on the back of the house when they decorated it over ten years ago. This meant that the water came out from beneath the facial board and tricked down the wall unnoticed until it started to seep through the wall. Obviously there hadn't been a problem with the overflow until recently and that is why it wasn't discovered before.

My son, Sam, went up to the roof space and looked into the tanks and was able to see the need for two new ballcocks and they were easily replaced. Trouble was now, there was a slight leak on the outside of the tank for some reason, that would in time come through the ceiling in the bathroom. So now we had to put a container under the drip and we worked out that this would need emptying twice a day because it took quite a while to fill the container.

In the meantime, my son managed to get a plumber friend to come and see the problem. He called round today and he was very efficient and knew what to do immediately and for a very reasonable price.

The trouble with the facial board can be dealt with maybe in the warmer weather as it will not cause any more problems for a long time.

If I still could get in touch with the men who chopped the pipe off because it would be easier to fit the facial board, then I would. However, after ten years I feel that they are long gone from our lives.

This week has been very up and down for me. The weather went very cold just at the time that the wet was coming into the house and my pain was playing me up and I felt depressed. It is now a month since the last radiation treatment and I have been very disheartened not to be feeling better than I am. I was told the pain would peak after a couple of weeks and then start to diminish. This didn't seem to be happening to me. On top of that I have heard of the death of two other cancer suffers within the last week or so whom I was relating to and thinking that they were a good example of delaying this awful disease with courage....... and now they are gone.

Will I be the next? It is only natural to wonder. Harry, who also has late stage cancer, just says *What will be will be* but I cannot sit back and think like that and am kicking up a fuss. Anything to delay it for a while yet. I have to get to seventy at least but realise that I haven't got a God given right to do so. However, I will give it my best shot.