Christmas Update....

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Well Christmas is over for another year and I hope you all had a super lovely break with your family and friends. Mr P and I spent it together just us. We were tucked up in our little house for 4 days cooking our own turkey and enjoying having some time off together doing nothing.

Part of me feels very selfish for doing this and not spending the holidays with our family (although I am off to visit mine on Thursday for a Christmas/New Year celebration) but for us it was a lovely way to close off what has been a year of ups and downs....

For those who are new to my blog a quick recap (cue blurry dream sequences)

This time last year we had just found out Mr P had cancer. At this stage we didn't know what type, what kind, how bad, any prognosis etc etc. Needless to say that was the most stressful Christmas ever. We spent it at Mr P's family home in Cornwall and it was lovely but for me the horrible thought that this could be the last one (yep I'm a pessimist in these things, in my family good news stories of the Big C variety are non existent) weighed heavily on my mind at all times. Despite all the fun stuff - and we even had snow and a white Christmas - the fear of what lay ahead was always present, I can't help it I'm a worrier...

Roll forward 12 months and Mr P is very much still with us, he has for all intention purposes beaten his cancer. Yes he still has regular checkups, no he's not yet discharged completely from the hospital but they are just monitoring him. There are no scheduled plans for any more treatment and he is as far as we are concerned, fixed. Or as Gordon Ramsay would say "Cancer. Done!"

This Christmas there are so many things that are new and exciting and positive...we are now engaged after Mr P's super romantic proposal in Paris, we have less than 3 until we fly off to Whistler for a 2 week skiing break (yep be fearful Canadian skiers this is my first ski trip you have been warned) and we are planning on getting ourselves a little kitten when we get back to add to our little seaside household. So life is amazingly good and I am so incredibly thankful as for a twist of fate it could of all been so different....

So back to my original train of thought, while I do feel selfish this year for staying home, being just us, it was also just the most perfect Christmas, being just us. I adore this man I am not ashamed to say - although after my last blog post about Star Wars notebooks the same cannot be guaranteed from Mr P ;0) and I am really looking forward to New Year's Eve, not because I enjoy going out on New Years (I don't I hate it, but Mr P is playing with his band and I love watching them!) but I can't wait to see the back of 2011 and say you may have started off sucky but damn, you ended really bloody well!!

So Happy New Year to all my readers, I send you best wishes for the start of 2012 and to all the exciting things that a new year brings (and yes I include new Filofax diary inserts in that!)

Lxx

The big reveal.....

So the big secret is out, finally, thank goodness. Mr P's recent guest post will have alerted you to some of the chaos currently filling my life at the moment. Now I won't be talking about that in much detail - as due to the overwhelming response he has received to his most fabulous blog post he is started his own blog to talk about boy things on. But what I will say is this..

(Hang on to your seats as its another list made up of 5 things....I do love a good list after all....)

1) Our NHS is amazing. Yes they get it wrong sometimes, yes it takes forever to get things done, yes they sometimes forget about you. BUT the care that Mr P has received in his current hospital (we tried out several in our journey for the truth) has been fantastic. Amazing consultant, fantastic doctors and nurses that are simply wonderful. I thank you all for looking after him so well on what as we often hear are abysmally low wages (especially compared to the obscene amounts of football money spent this week - sickening)

2) Once people know about the Big C the head tilt "are you ok" referenced in Friends by Tom Selleck's character Richard actually exists. Hilarious every time it happens, usually at inappropriate times with people I don't know well but I urge you to check that episode out and then try and not do the tilt. It is impossible not to!!

3) Being "strong" for your other half comes very easily when they are such a nice person. (Being angry at the injustice of it all also very easy) but it can be difficult. And the teary poor me moments take me by surprise when they hit. Thankfully just like the burn from drinking a good quality shot of liquor they very quickly pass. Just as well, as I really can't stand people who feel sorry for themselves and don't try and make the best of things. Point in fact - I get to eat all the chocolate that currently he can't stand. Winner for me (unless you are asking my waistbands as I think they are conspiring against me)

4) Most of the time no I don't want to talk about it. But thank you for asking. But yes please come and see us, talk to us, about anything. Lets remember that Mr P only has me a lot of the time for company - and have you any idea how boring I truly am dear reader? However all this time together is allowing me to demonstrate my multiple Filofax systems to him to try and wean him off his google calendar and back into using pen and paper!! Unlikely but I do love a challenge!!

5) Fripperies - many people may feel that my ramblings about Filofaxes, handbags, clothes etc recently could be deemed to be bad taste with the current state of affairs. I disagree, if I don't write them here then Mr P would have to listen to them instead of being able to scroll and ignore. That would be far worse for him I'm sure...

So there we go, apart from whining on about fuel prices or the hospital car parking debacle which I do, A LOT, that's my synopsis of what it is like to be a cancer sufferer's WAG.