Help at Hand

Yesterday was a much-appreciated ‘helping’ day.

I shot off to yoga in the morning just as John’s ‘chatty chappy’, Harry from MacMillan, came and talked to John for a couple of hours. That was great – their discussions range all over but they have a common interest in the rugby, so there’s all sorts to talk about there – who’s on form, who’s going to be dropped from the team, what shape the team is in, how the scrum is holding up, should they be adopting the kicking game or not, and so on.

No sooner had I got back from yoga than the MacMillan Nurse arrived. That was also very helpful. She is really lovely and has a lot of answers to our questions. John was satisfied that he’d had all his questions addressed and I was able to tick everything off on my list, too.

David and Darrel arrived mid-afternoon. John had texted David to ask if he could give us a hand with one or two jobs and we were very pleased when he said ‘yes’.

He mended the hinge on the bedroom window with the new fixing that had been sulking on the windowsill all summer; he glued together the paving slabs on the steps – finishing the job that John had started; he replaced the awkward light bulbs in the kitchen; tackled the recalcitrant weeds on the patio; and Darrell did a bit more lawn-mowing over the bits that Jack and I had overlooked.

We had a fish ‘n chip supper and David was chatty which boosted John’s spirits, so that was good. I was a bit worried that the chat might have overtired John, but he said, ‘no’ it was all OK. That was nice. And David said he’d come again if there were more jobs to do. Ta-da!! Wonderful.

This morning we were up early and on the road to Heartlands for immunoglobulin treatment. It all went well, except that painkillers were overlooked during the morning and by the time John was due to leave, he no longer had the capacity to walk. “Would you like a wheelchair to the car, John?” they asked. “Yes, please,” replied John, disappointed that he’d had to accept.

We fed him painkillers and his lunchtime tablets, had a spot of lunch and watch a bit of TV. I said I’d pop upstairs to write the Quiz for this evening and John said he’d go into the garage to fiddle about with and mend another ‘gubbins’ for the Lotus. Righty-ho.

Meantime, Paul had phoned to say that he, Harriet and Freddie would call in after school. By the time Paul arrived, John was out of the garage and sitting on the sofa in some pain. Paul came upstairs to me and asked what pain relief was available at that time of day. More paracetamol was within the allowance, so he had that. But about three-quarters of an hour later he was still in pain, so we sought out the morphine and administered that. It took a while, but eventually the pain went off.

We had a nice time with the family and Freddie practised his keyboard skills again. He did particularly well on ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ and I was able to sing along at just the right pace. Good job.

Fortunately, John felt up to doing the Quiz tonight and joined in well. However, he was still struggling a bit so not all his answers were heard by the team and some repetition was required. He was knackered by the end of it and was delighted to get into bed as soon as it was finished.

‘Let us know if you need us to do anything’ is now the refrain from most of our friends, for which we are extremely grateful. We are not always sure what people can do, but if and when we think of things we might well be asking…..

Take care everyone. God bless.