Rick's Christmas Homework

Photos Copyright: Maggie May

The Christmas and New Year period went very fast and now my daughter and grandsons have gone home and it seems very quiet here now.

I was very grateful to my daughter for all the help she gave me with the mounting up of cleaning jobs that neither Harry nor I have been able to do very easily. I thought I had tidied up the place before she came, but she got to hidden places and dealt with them, often in secret.

Now I will have to make a better effort to do regular tidy up jobs and get rid of surplus clutter on a daily basis.

New Years Resolution? I don't think so, but I will endeavour to do a little more and often.

When the grandsons came to visit, Rick who is on the Autistic scale (nearer the top) and who isn't exactly an easy child being 15 yrs old, brought an art project to do here because he had not completed it at school.

It seemed to be a mammoth task and involved bags of material and my ironing board and iron and a good chunk of my back room. This went on for days during the holiday and the difficulty was getting him to start the work in the first place. He seemed to think it was a very overwhelming thing to have to do and he was very down hearted about it.

Rick does not believe in homework and seems to be constantly at loggerheads with his teachers who make him stay in at lunch times to complete it. This suits Rick fine as he doesn't like noise and would much prefer to be in a quiet place and to retreat into his own safe little world. There was a dead line to finish this work and he is a very slow but thorough worker. He had to follow a plan and complete a collage of nine squares individually made and I assume they will be fitted together somehow at school and will go towards his exam result.

Although it was a great effort on our part to get him motivated, when he did get going, it started to take shape and on the last day of the holiday, he completed the last square to much cheering and encouragement. I took photos and told him it would be going on my blog. He was so thrilled to have finished it on time and the look of satisfaction on his face was a treat to see.

I would have loved to do this when I was his age, but would have probably worked a little on each square to get the general effect first. However Rick likes to work meticulously one square at a time, so that only he new what each square was supposed to be and he left the middle bit of the face till the last.

So well done Rick! Hope the school like it and realise what a tremendous amount of time and effort you spent on it.

The Scream

Photo Copyright: Maggie May

Yesterday when I was really hurting though I was trying not to show it in front of the girls, Millie, the youngest drew a picture on the blackboard with chalk.

I thought then, that this was the perfect picture of how I felt. She had unwittingly captured it with chalks.

It is easy to fob off children at the age of nearly five and seven.

They asked me why I wasn't at school ( because they know I work there lunchtimes.)

I told them I had to have my stitches out and that I had been a bit sore and that I felt sad.

That was readily accepted and off they went.

Of course the older grandsons are a different matter altogether. I had been dreading phoning my daughter because she has already had so much stress through her husband's illness and death last year. However she phoned me during the time they were at school. We cried a lot and got that out of our systems. However, when she phoned me again in the evening for a further chat, she told me she had got on touch with the hospice where her husband had died and where she still goes for councelling. She asked what she should say to the boys about my cancer. They love me dearly and have already been hurt by cancer and loss.

The hospice strongly advised her to tell the truth.

So she said to Dean the 11 year old that Granny had cancer and his eyes brimmed with tears. She asked him if he wanted to know the details and he shook his head. She then went on to ask if he would like to know if Granny had some good things happen in her illness and he said that he did want to know about those things.

This is the lad that cannot go to the grave of his father or even talk about him. He is shutting it away.

Rick is 13 and autistic and Deb thought that he might show the wrong emotion because he sometimes gets confused and giggles at inappropriate moments. So when he was told that Granny had cancer, he just shouted "I hate that word cancer...... I hate it!" But he didn't cry or show anything other than anger. He also said he didn't want to know details of my illness but readily agreed that he would like to know of any progress I make.

Of course all this started me off crying again, however, when I woke from a sparse and restless sleep this morning, I knew what I had to do. I must compile all my thoughts, struggles, love and everything that is in my life and write it down so that this blog will be there for the family long after I am gone. And..... I don't plan to go anywhere too soon.

So here we are in a slightly more fighting mood than yesterday. No good kicking doors down, knowing me I'd probably break a foot.

Eddie and I told the doctor all our fears about not starting treatment straightway.

The Doctor examined me in lots of places and didn't feel anything obviously was wrong. He said that he thought I was a very fit person and that it really was very essential to get to find out exactly what kind of cancer that they are dealing with as treatments vary and he would hate to start me off on the wrong one and spoil my chances later.

He thought two weeks was a quick time to get to see the gynaecologist and he has booked me in for an MRI scan. (There is a waiting list for that though.)

In the meantime I am eating chocolate and comfort food and to hell with the 5 fruits & veg that I have been religiously sticking to.

I will get back to healthy eating eventually.

Thank you all for your continued support, prayers and positive vibes that have helped me no end..... for my faithful blog followers and the ones who read my blog but don't comment........ you know who you are. Also for the friends who come round and hug me in person and do all sorts of little things for me.

I won't forget all the kindness....... I really will not. I appreciate all of you.

One of you said something that made me think. Everyone has been sending up prayers for Maggie May and are the prayers really benefiting me? (Gulp!)

Well if all the hairs on our heads are known and counted as Jesus said they were...... then he knows surely who I am. My name is Maggie and you all know where I live. So you can offer up prayers to Maggie in Bristol UK and you can be sure they will benefit me.