Luxor hospitals private wing.

I have looked back over my posts and I can't see where I have written about my diagnosis......the discovery that I had bowel cancer, if I have then maybe it isn't such a bad thing to publish it twice for those who just happen upon my blog and don't know about bowel cancer.

The background to my diagnosis must be the fact that I suffered from IBS since I was a child. If I hadn't then I think I would have been more aware of changes in bowel habit, but I didn't even think twice about it.
I did have griping colicky pains and a sudden urge to use the loo on frequent occasions but I did nothing until I found myself awake through the night with terrible gut ache, so bad I phoned in sick and went to the gp. By then the pain had gone he checked my abdomen and decided it was a urine infection. I was quite happy to leave and forget about it.

A couple of weeks later I set off with the boys for a holiday in Luxor Egypt. We arrived in Gatwick with some time to spare and Adam said that he wanted to buy a wrestling magazine from wh smiths for the flight, I told him to be quick and meet us there. Joe got what he wanted and then Zak and then the most awful thing I heard our flight being announced as ready to go.....no Adam, joe ran around wh smith but he was no where to be found....then they called out for the family elkamouri really panicking now I went to information to get them to pita call out for him when suddenly I saw him meandering towards us from the other side of the airport, not being able to find his mag he went to the others shop.
We ran and we ran as they announced over the tannoy that our luggage was about to be removed if we didn't arrive at the departure lounge soon, the boys were way ahead of me jumping onto the next moving walkway, I was flagging finding it hard to keep up I just kept running and running when suddenly joe appeared behind me shouting this way !!!! Ii had run right past the departure gate.



We quickly went through with our tickets and passports only to arrive on the Tarmac faced with a bus full of passengers waiting for us..... We hadn't been on the bus more than two minutes before I announced to all that it was Adams fault, I couldn't deal with the shame.
We had a good flight and on arrival at the airport we got a cab to the hotel ibis. I made an arrangement with the cab driver to pick us up the following day with a guide to go and see the valley of the kings and queens and Hatshepsut temple.
The receptionist at the hotel was very nice and gave us a lovely room with a view over the Nile it was stunning. We unpacked and the boys changed and went down to the pool later we had a buffet meal, I only booked half board so we got breakfast and an evening meal and paid for our drinks, as I wasn't fussed about drinking this was a cheaper option.
The following morning the cab arrived to take us sight seeing. It was soooo hot baking, only a few tombs are open at any one time and out guide took us first into a small one and then to a couple of larger tombs, we weren't allowed to talk in the tombs but it was enough to see the  ancient hieroglyphics. We had our picture taken next to. Tutankhamen s tomb which you can see somewhere else in the blog.
We saw the temple which was astonishing, it had been renovated over forty years back to its original splendour and was just amazing. Whilst we were there the most famous Egyptian historian was filming next to us, whenever you see anything on the news about Egypt he is there with his blue shirt and wide brimmed hat.
We spent the afternoon by the pool after I arranged with the cab to come back on wed morning to take us to the Karnak temple, then in the evening had something to eat.
Around 8pm I sat chatting to an English woman briefly in the reception area during which I started to feel a bit bloated. I headed back to the room and attempted to go to the loo to no avail. I felt really uncomfortable and just wanted to pass wind at least, but nothing.
The boys went to bed and I tried to settle but my stomach wasn't moving and now I was starting to have griping pains, these increased as the night went on and became more and more excruciating. I was desperate to pass a motion but however much I tried nothing would come, the pain came in waves rippling through my abdomen. I was curled up in bed, then on all fours, then sitting up, then lying down, then walking around, then back on all fours I had become a little bit out of control starting to moan and groan with the pain. As soon as it was morning I told Joe to phone the reception for a doctor.
A young Egyptian doctor came to see me, seif the receptionist came to the room too. The doctor gave me some tablets and said that if it wasn't better in an hour to call. It wasn't he came back tried to put a drip in put couldn't and then said you have to go to hospital.
Both he and seif went with me in a cab, the boys were in the pool by now and I didn't get a chance to tell them what was happening.
We arrived at the hospital and it was just a blur of people and me in the middle of it just in agony, I was vertically incoherent by now. No one gave me pain relief apparently it is policy. Seif and the doctor were talking to the hospital docs. I was taken to the private wing and had a room to myself, a basic room by uk standards but a haven for me none the less. The nurses were very sweet with their little English and my bit of Arabic we managed. They gave me an enema, my first ever! But i was beyond caring by now, put a drip in my arm and a tube down my nose into my stomach, a singular experience. I began to feel so much better and had a snooze.
I then was take to have an X-ray and also an ultrasound, the male nurse who carried this out did so whilst chatting me up!
I returned to my room and a while later the boys appeared!! They had gone back to the room at the hotel and found me gone! They went to reception and had been told I was at the hospital so they got a cab and here they were! It was good that by then I was virtually back to normal so they flopped out on the sofa in my room for a snooze. Later they got a cab back to the hotel after I made sure that they knew where my purse was in case they needed anything, as it was they had made friends with a few kids who got them drinks with their all inclusive bands and whose families took them under their wing.
I was never told by anyone at the hospital what the problem was just that I needed to sea doctor when I got home. The following day the boys arrived again but this time with the woman I had spoken to the night I was taken ill, she was still wet having jumped up when she saw the boys leaving not wanting them to travel alone again. It turned out that she lived in Lewisham too....small world the boys remained in contact with her children after the holiday.
By now I wanted to go one doctor wanted me to have a colonoscopy another said I had to stay, I became upset and the nurses indicated don't worry they would sort it, they talked to another more understanding doc and he let me go but said I had to come back on Friday the following day to have the colonoscopy.
I went back to the hotel and that night spent the night on my own in the hotel room whilst the boys went to sleepover with a friend in another part of the hotel!!
The next day I asked seif to go to the hospital with me, they had my passport and I needed to pay my bill to get it back, I withdrew 500 pounds in dollars from the cashpoints this was all I needed to pay. I got my passport and went to see the doctor in a busy clinic, he told me i didn't need to have the procedure just to seethe doc on return home, even though it was a colonoscopy I was going to have I made no link with bowel cancer, I didn't have any thought abut what it was I was just glad I felt better. I got a fit to fly certificate from the doc as advised by my insurance nurse and left.
I did not eat for the rest of the holiday or drink anything fizzy. I can't remember if I used the loo at all. That afternoon me and The boys went for a sail on the Nile on a felucca, the boys were not happy about this at first as they had things planned with other friends but it was a lovely thing to do peaceful and beautiful as the sun went down.
I booked a ride in a hot air balloon over the valley of the kings for the Sunday morning, we just spent the day around the pool on the Saturday. The boy who took the hot air balloon bookings chatted me up too and asked to remain in touch, he was quite tenacious. I sat with a couple of young British girls that evening on the terrace chatting and remarked on how full on the Egyptian men were.....they didn't know what I meant not having he my problem, I think I must have a look they like as I was constantly approached when I was outside the hotel, my limited Arabic does come in useful at times, imshi the most meaning go away!
We had to get up really early on this day morning and had them waiting for us already before we were all up, I got the boys to move as quick as they could and we landed bleary eyed in reception and were taken by minibus to the riverside picking up other travellers on the way.
we then got into boats with a covered area where breakfast was waiting for us, we sat with a middle aged couple from Australia and the wife's sister, they were very nice.
we arrived on the other side of the Nile and were taken to the launching site where there were at least ten or more balloons lying on their side with gas flares blowing them up. It was still dawn before the sunrise and they looked like huge lanterns, they gradually got bigger and bigger until they were all standing proud and we were told which baskets to get into and scrambled in.
I had never been in a hot air balloon before same as the boys an as i don't like heights i was a bit apprehensive about how this was going to go. One by one the balloons gently lifted off until there was a stream of them lighting up the sky, we rose higher and higher and i didn't mind at all it was lovely. Gradually the sun rose and we saw the pyramids basking in the glow, it was magical. We continued to travel and floated over other historical ruins, we ended up on the green side of the Nile and the pilot played with us as the date palms came towards us and it looked as though we were going to crash into the tops we would just skim them, you could have reached out and plucked yourself some dates. At one point passing over what looked like shells of houses i realised that it was the open roof of somebodies home and could make out the shape of two bodies under a cover fast asleep, right beneath us.
The flight lasted about an hour and we landed in the desert with children of eleven and twelve begging for money all around us they had been following the balloons on their last few meters.
We still got back to the hotel in time for breakfast and then spent the rest of the day again by the pool, the boys favourite pastime hooking up with all their new friends.
Our final day was Monday, i was sad to say goodbye to Seif as he had been so kind, he took my number and did keep in contact with me for a good few years by intermittently wishing me a happy new year or just asking how i was. this stopped about a year or so ago the number i had didn't work and then i lost it. I still have the same number but i doubt i will hear from him again.
In the morning Adam and Joe stayed by the pool and Zak and i went to the museum of mummification, where we saw mummies in various states and animals that had been mummified. Zak really enjoyed it and we got a horse and cart ride back to the hotel.
We flew that afternoon back to England and ended up in the same seats we had coming, i even had the same Asian couple sitting next to me.
About half an hour into the flight i started to feel queasy, just not right. I asked the flight attendant for some water as i had been avoiding fizz, but she bought me tonic as it is good for sickness. I started to feel very uncomfortable and ended up in the toilet to throw up which made me feel better for a while.
I noticed a spare chair right next to the door so moved into it leaving the boys a few rows behind. Whenever the loo was empty i would pop in.....heave and then return to my seat. I watched the clock ticking round a five hour flight, it was excruciating.... bearing in mind the fit to fly cert and the nurses warning about landing elsewhere if need be i kept going till i knew we were over the channel. I had already told the flight attendant that i had been in hospital, they said someone should have informed them but this hadn't happened.
Once i knew we would land in the UK i asked the flight attendant to get a paramedic on arrival, i had been sitting there working out if i could manage getting the luggage by now i was visibly shaking and just felt so bad just ill not in pain. I decided i couldn't, if the car had been parked at the airport i may well have found he strength to struggle on and drive home but as my friend Lu had it whilst we were away and was meeting us i just gave in.
The plane landed and then the captain announced that there was a sick passenger on board and would everyone mind remaining seated until the paramedics were on board.....i could see everyone looking around and felt like raising my hand in acknowledgement, yes for it is i holding you all up. In the end it wasn't too bad as i was at the back of the plane they let everyone in the front go. I told my tale to the ambulance man and he said that i needed to go to the hospital with him.
The ground crew took the boys passports from me and Lu's number who i had spoken to and told what was happening, she ended up having the boys for a week for me.
I walked off the plane into the ambulance and ended up at the east surrey and Sussex hospital. I was in a and e for a bit and Lu came there with the boys and my suitcase, we pulled some things out of it that i would need including my x ray! and then she left with the very tired boys.
I was taken onto a ward for the night, well actually a nice room to myself and after getting pain relief had the best sleep.

In the morning my room was suddenly filled with various nurses junior doctors, heads of department, registrars and my consultant. It was all a bit of a blur they had looked at my x ray luckily still having an old fashioned screen to use. My consultant introduced himself as mr Aslam and as quickly as they arrive they left. One of the nurses came in and said that although Mr Aslam could come across as abrupt he was very good and most nurses would be pleased to have him looking after them which was reassuring.
I remained in that room for a couple of days during which i had CT scans and then a colonoscopy, i truly had not considered what was causing my problem until then i felt well now and in my optimistic way just assumed everything would get sorted one way or another.
I was awake and watching the screen during the colonoscopy and saw the camera snake through my colon until it came across a huge donut like thing blocking its way, there was no way it was getting past that. Mr Aslam told me that it was a tumour and that this was the cause of my problems. I then was tided up and left in my bed in a little cubicle next door.
Mr Aslam then came to see me, he was very straightforward he said that they needed to send a piece of the tumour that he had got for a biopsy but that he had 25 years experience and that he felt that this tumour was malignant, did i know what he was saying?....yes i did. So that is what it is, ok we cut it out  and carry on.
The bowel nurse came in then and was very sweet and kind and made me feel more upset than the doctor had.
I returned to my room until the next day when i was moved to the step down ward, where i would go after my op, there was a spare bed and they didn't want to lose it.
On Friday 30th August 2007 in the afternoon i was wheeled down to theatre. I had the epidural that i didn't want in the first place and then went to sleep.
I woke up on the step down ward, it was night time and in a bed in the corner i could here a young guy complaining of pain and heard the Doctor say his epidural hadn't worked. I was in a cold sweat and feeling very weird i couldn't work out why but when i heard this i realised i was in pain. I called the Doctor as he past and he said he would come back. He did and ran some ice over my legs could i feel it? yes i could!! mine hadn't worked either so they set me up with a morphine pump.
When the biopsy came back they found that i had one lymph node affected out of 24 and that chemo would be a probable option. Nothing had gone through the bowel and i think i was very lucky, later my oncologist would talk about two lesions on the lungs that they thought maybe chest infection scars.
The long and the short of it is i spent 12 days in the hospital after that. He managed to avoid fitting a colostomy bag for which i was grateful and once the bowels started to move a bit i was able to go.
The day before i left my wound was found to be infected and the sister asked if i would stay a bit longer but i wanted to go, i was lucky that the district nurse at my surgery was very good i called them to let them know i was home and she came to see me and got me registered onto the system although this should have already been done. I guess the problem of two authorities being in the mix.
One day she asked which way henryson rd was and i asked if she was going to see jenny a friend of mine who was nearing the end of her battle with breast cancer. She was so for he next few days we passed messages through her. When i was able to get out and about i went to see her, she was in bed and not responding at all, she had three boys like me the youngest carl was only 13 and crying in the lounge......Jenny died the following day 11th Oct 2007. I see the boys out and about the oldest two were in their late teens early twenties when she died....they are all doing ok. Jenny was the glue that held them together, but they are managing and getting on with their lives.

Special K

Saturday morning after I returned to the ward I was quite sleepy, I wasn't aware of anything more than that but sue in the bed opposite said that they had been quite concerned about me and muttering about ketamine. I remember being woken by the nurse calling me and opened my eyes to see her looking at me quite intently, I had it seemed gone pinpoint and Jenny the nurse called the junior doctor to have a look at me. They decided to stop giving it to me and up the fentonil doses that I was getting. The hallucinations were still happening when my eyes were shut, the consultant anesthetisist came to see me and just before he arrived I told him that I had just seen people walking round but that they were drawn with a pencil, he said that this was a typical ketamine reaction and agreed I should come off it. Not sure why anyone would take it recreationally on the basis of my experience.
The night before sue in the opposite bed had realised that we had a mutual friend in suze from the beating bowel cancer forum so we became chatty very quickly. As we talked I could hear a voice from the end of the ward complaining about it is, later I could clearly hear her complaining to the nurse that she won't be bullied and she wanted to go home, she knows staff are busy but she needs them and she had enough and wanted to go, I realised that she was talking about me. The atmosphere became a little tense until Adam and Zak came to visit that afternoon, after they left pat suddenly exclaimed from her bed oh aren't your boys lovely, beautiful hair, lovely lovely boys. From that point I decided that it was better to work with her than against her.

Post operative opera.

So I was wheeled down in the morning but later than expected as they had not taken bloods for cross matching so one of the doctors had to come down and take it before I went down. It turns out I have a particular antibody and they had to check that they had compatible blood in case I needed it, they thought that maybe I received it in a previous transfusion.
So finally head down around 10am and am wheeled into the pre op room. It was really cold in there, but I met with the aneasthetist again and her colleague both ladies and both lovely. I had to have the epidural again given awake sitting in the edge of the bed, not the best feeling but manageable. They were pleased with where it was sited. We chatted away whilst all this was being done and they answered any questions about the procedure including one about my allergy to chloramphenicol eye drops. I didn't think that this was particularly relevant in terms of my op but she y do said that actually it really was as during the op my eyes would not be blinking and can dry so they would inset eye drops and usually chloramphenicol to hydrate them.
So then then they do the knock out injection and as happened before the next thing I know I am waking up in recovery.
As I woke in my stupefied state I could hear people asking how I was and there seemed to be some concern, I remember feeling a strong urge to pass a motion which I knew I couldn't but there was this huge pressure down below and also that my stomach felt like it was covered in bee stings. I drifted in and out and then gradually woke up more fully, for the second time my epidural hadn't worked properly so they set my up with a pump with fentonil.
I had one to one nursing through the night and towards the early morning, two of the nurses were concerned about my pain relief, they still thought that the epidural was delivering some pain block to the abdomen, but they were not too sure now, I should have not been feeling anything but I was. They sprayed a cold spray onto my abdomen and I nearly went through the roof, on each spot the feeling was the same as the next. They mumbled to each other and said that someone needed to come and look at this.
I can't remember who came next but they did the same with the same result and they came to the conclusion that the epidural hadn't worked at all.
At handover in the morning a lovely nurse called Dora came to look after me, she usually worked in itu but they were short in recovery so she was working there for a bit to help out. She couldn't have been nicer and more professional. One of the staff nurses questioned my continued placement in recovery as the other patients had left and was told it was because that had to sort out my pain control.
Dora washed me, got me drink checked the dressing and removed the epidural. Did my observations and chatted through the day.
Someone came to see me from the pain relief team, they suggested that ketamine was a good pain reliever if I didn't have hallucinations.
After they gave it to me I felt fine whilst my eyes were open but when I closed them It would be like watching a movie screen, I saw ants marching in line down a rock and remarked to myself at how the
high definition, there were other little scenes all completely different to each other, but as I was fine when asleep or when my eyes were open I didn't worry.
I the afternoon my middle son Adam arrived to see me with a paper and my favourite Lindt chocolates, my appetite was quite gone and at that point they were not sure whether I could eat or not as a care plan hadn't been put together. So I asked the nurse to pass them round the recovery team, ther was no polite refusal they went within minutes with squeals of delight and 'oh just what I need!' It was quite satisfying. After staying for an hour or so Adam headed home and I waited further whilst they got me sorted.
Finally around 7pm I was ready to go up onto the ward, Dora came with me and I felt quite emotional saying goodbye to her after she had spent the day caring for me so well.
On arrival at the ward Leon and tash my two salsa friends were there in he corridor as they wheeled me in in my bed then Alyson a neighbour , Trevor who I used to work with and my cousin sue appeared. Alyson and sue had made friends in the day room whilst waiting. It was nice to have such a welcome.
They all remarked on how well I looked which I guess was true, for someone who had been through such major surgery I felt quite awake and with it, more so than I did last time, there was a mention that I might not be morphine tolerant which would explain why I was so out of it after my last op.
After a while equine left and I settled down for my second night on the ward. I was to be woken at around 3am by pat calling for the nurse, I told her they were busy and later asked why she didn't use her call button......this didn't go down too well as I was to find out later.

Admission day

So finally the admission date comes around. I had been told to wait until two pm and then someone would call to tell me what was happening. Three came and I decided to call, they still can't find a bed, at five they phone back and say you might as well come in to page ward although a bed still hasn't been found. I don't head in until 7 when I get there I am told that originally a bed was found on the other side of the hospital but that someone had just been discharged so I could stay he which is the digestive system ward.
I wait another couple of hours in the day room with a sweeping vista over Westminster  and Big Ben and the London eye.  Nurse comes in with a goody bag, two protein drinks, two pre op drinks and two sachets of picolax. Lovely!
I bolt down the picolax and then try one of the the fortisip drinks...tropical... Yuk!!!!! Unpalatable I don't make the black current either but they manage to find a caramel shake one, very nice.
Finally they lead me to the ward and the first thing that hits me is the stench!!!! I guess of people with wounds and no baths for a little while, it was truely awful. I immediately just wanted to go home, but instead I sat on the bed and unpacked. I ended up in tears I was hoping for something more like I experienced at Lewisham the wards there are fine but theses beds are too close together and as I said the smell!
I asked for the curtains to be drawn and after a while I was much better, managed to tether my I pad to my phone but it means that I will be constantly going over my data, I cannot believe that the hospital doesn't have wi fi access for the patients. They have one of those prepay tv,s over the bed but I will still to my I pad.
Lights went out at 11 and then this woman in the bed at the end started,  nuuuurse eye please oh dear no nurseesss in a very winy woe is me tone. Constantly!!!! For an hour nuuuuurse, however much sympathy you have for someone who has had surgery it wears thin as does her voice.
I have another picolax and wait for the results nothing as yet, I have been given an undulating bed I assume for pressure sores and to keep me moving after the op, it's like being on a boat! So now I am going to try and catch a bit of sleep I am to be woken at 6am if the bowels don't get me first for my pre op drinks, and then the old me will depart and this new model will appear nuuuuuurssseeee!!!

D day

In January I was due to have an op a pelvic excenteration to remove the pelvic tumour that had been discovered....the oncologist cancelled it....a year on and the tumour is playing up more than the ones in the lungs, so now I can have it done!
I went to see Mr George again to discuss whether he would do it, last January despite the condition of my lungs he offered me a 'second bite of the cherry' this time he was at pains to explain that he would not in anyway be curing me.....I knew that last time but you would never tell a doctor not to tell you everything is going to be ok even though you know it won't be. I nodded and agreed yes it isn't going to cure me but somehow a slow painful death seems preferable to a ........slow painful death. The tumour has for the last couple of months been making itself known just a bit painful here and there and affecting my bowels, but nothing I can't handle but I don't want it to get the point where I can't manage it at all.
So last time I was offered a choice of a bag or not....this time it doesn't seem worth having that option , if I have an ileostomy with a view to a reversal I might or might not manage the output that I would have with chemo and it may not be successfully reversed and I would be stuck with an ileostomy and it also takes time out of chemo in order to have the op to be reversed. So a permanent colostomy it is then....something I really didn't want at all.
Everything is to go .......a once in a lifetime offer, a hysterectomy, a colostomy and no repair vaginally as of course it isn't worth doing with a life sentence hanging over my head....this was on offer last time, but i do get the offer of keeping my bladder. This is just a keep you going a bit longer without pain job. Yes I knew this and no Mr George wasn't dismissive with me at all he was charming and helpful and to the point, but you can't help feeling that you've been put out to grass. All I will be good for is looking after my boys which is of course the whole reason that this surgery needs to happen. But I don't like it and I don't want it, except that I do want it.
The other pissy thing is the timing, I go in on the 24th jan which means that there is no way I can be around for joes 21st on feb 8th, he says its ok but I am gutted!!!
The one consoling thing is that I hope this produces another dramatic loss of weight, there has to be something to gain from this, oh apart from getting rid of a life threatening painful tumour.

22.11.99

Today was Zak's 13th birthday, another teenager in the house after i managed to get rid of one when Joe turned 20 earlier in the year.

Joe 10 Adam 6 Zak 2

It doesn't seem 13 years ago that i was in Lewisham hospital waiting for Zak to make his appearence, even more astonishing that Joe is on his way to 21!
Joe was due on the 26th January, but it wasn't until the 7th of February 1992 that i started to feel the twinges in the morning that would gradually increase in force until at around 10pm that evening i called the hospital to say that i thought i should come in.
Rachid Joe's dad prayed after i told him it was time to leave, later in the evening he was to tell me that the baby would be born at 2am, i didn't really take much notice of this until a few days later when he told me that when he prayed he was told your son will be born at 2am.....that was even more intruiging as i was told at the scan that he was a girl!
After i arrived at the hospital i was examined and found to be 8 centimeters this was around 12am, less than two hours later at 1.57 on the 8th Feb 92. Joe was born like superman with one hand infront of his head, causing me to have 16 stitches. He also weighed 9lb 8 ounces, a big baby.
Adam four years later was a different affair altogether, i felt my waters go in the morning of the 15th April but didn't have any pains, we walked Joe to my friend Jaqui's and carried onto the hospital on a lovely bright spring morning. When i got there she examined me and said no not yet and the waters haven't broken, well i hadn't wet myself! Turned out it was the hind waters.
I went up to the ward and settled in around 5pm whoosh! the rest of the waters went, i pressed what i thought was the help button, turned out to be the panic button and to my horror four nurses came charging up the ward towards me! i only wanted the sheets changed!

Zak 11

The pains started rolling in then, at 9pm hey felt like the ones i had with Joe at 8 cm examined and no not in labour yet only 4! what!!!!!!???? i asked to go to the labour ward and they reluctantly allowed me to. The midwife warned me that she had another lady there and it was likely that i would be sent back to the ward she didn't think he would come until 6am probably......i couldn't take that in it sounded impossible to me that i would manage the pain that long. I lay on the bed and somehow the valves and pins on the top of the gas and air bottle beside the bed felt really comfortable, to anyone else my head crooked sideways hanging off the bed and lying on a hard clylinder i must have looked like i needed saving which is what rachid did, again and again the third time he was told to f ing leave me alone!!!!!
Come 11.30 i was good to go and the other lady was sent back to the ward. Adam made his appearence at 8 minutes past 12 on the 16th April. He had a shock of dark curly hair and i don't remember him crying he just looked around the room out of his cot taking it all in, i think Rachid said that he was still in the sack when he arrived a good omen in many countries.

Zak 5

Zak 13

Zak 13 years ago on November 22nd was not ready to relinquish his cozy home. He was due like the other two two weeks earlier on 6th november. I had some signs of movement around the 19th and was admitted Joe and Adam went to stay with my friend Sarah at this time. After an evening they sent me home as they were short staffed and nothing was likely to be done. On the Sunday i got a call from the doctors, haven't you had this baby yet?...no well you must come in this evening then!
I went in and spent the night with the young girl in the bed opposite in agony and not keeping it to herself. The next day nothing so around 3pm they took me away and appleied some gel to get things going.....nothing....a drip was put up and set on slow to start htings that way......nothing.....turned up.....nothing.......turned up again and around 7.30pm it all kicked off, at 8pm to the strains of Coronation st on a tv in the room that had been left on Zak came screaming into the world, a little red angry face at the indignity of being kicked out before he was ready.
I always said he had the look of someone who had 'been here before' indeed as he grew he was always older than his years and continues to be so. This stands him in good stead in some areas but at the moment answering back to his teachers because they are not being reasonable in his esptimation is getting him into a lot of bother... i hope that this is something he tempers and learns to respond more appropriately to adults.

Zak 8

He is lovely though with his big brown eyes and shock of curly hair, a heart breaker in the making!

This one's for Suzanne......Cousins

Me and Suzanne.

Suzanne wanted to know when she would appear, so this is her spot.

I have Six first cousins and none of them live in England!!!

Me Auntie Joan, Uncle Joe and John

John and his mandolin

John is the son of my mum's brother. We are at opposite ends of the scales he being the oldest cousin and me being the youngest. John grew up loving wildlife and music and to that end departed to Scotland a number of years ago to become Senior Countryside Ranger at Calderglen Country Park. He plays mandolin in a folk band called Cockalorum. He is the cousin i know least, i was the bridesmaid at his sisters wedding in 1973 and never saw him again until his dad became ill in 2006 i was with my cousins and aunt at the hospital the day he died and later saw him again at the funeral. We got on very well at that point i guess the years that were between us until then had melted away and i am now in contact with him more especially since Auntie Joan died in 2009. He is now in the process of selling up and moving to the isle of Skye with his girlfriend Carmen, even further! away.

This is Val

Valerie is John's sister, she was the only bridesmaid at my mum and dad's wedding and i in turn was the only one at hers. out of all my cousins we are the most alike, in looks and in character. Val's daughter came over a few years ago and couldn't get over how alike we were. Oh Val emigrated to South Africa after marrying in 1973.

And this is me

Val and Melinda who has the genes too.

For a few years before her parents died Val would come over and do some work for an agency supporting people in their own homes over the summer, this gave her the opportunity to visit her parents and earn some money too. Val divorced from her husband after having two daughters Melinda and Sandy, she spends the majority of her time with the local church. Val graduated from the guildhall school of music as an opera singer and continues to play guitar and various other instruments whilst singing for the church, i have an album of worship songs that she made. Val is lovely, there are ten years between us but again the age gap that was there when i was a child has gone. It's a shame that we are so far away from each other but we text now and again. Oh and the things that make us alike....timekeeping, leaving things till the last minute, Val was still making her wedding dress the night before her wedding! Not wearing shoes, whilst clearing her mums flat after her death we both trotted up and down stairs barefoot. Music though our tastes vary and looks we are very much alike especially now we both have short and grey hair.
The genes i think were particularly strong in mum's side of the family, certainly as i get older i look more and more like her. Adam has inherited them too.

So onto dad's side

Uncle Gerald Katherine and Annie in 2010

Katherine, dad's older brother Gerald moved to Paris soon after the end of the second world war, he met my Aunt Annie there during the liberation of Paris. Katherine is the same age as Val and there is a photo of her and Val on another post when they both visited in the sixties. In my teens i spent a lot of time in Paris visiting them after staying in Ramboulliet with a pen friend. At that point i knew Paris far better than i knew London. Over last year Uncle Gerald was unwell and we got into a habit of emailing each other and sadly he passed away in December. Auntie Annie therefore is the last of my aunts and uncles remaining she is 93 her mother lived to 100 so i imagine she is going to be around a while longer.

Stephen on the right with Helen and Keith Winnie and me 

Stephen This is the oldest child of my dad's youngest brother John, who married Winnie i think first or second cousin to him through her mum's father. He is an interesting individual, he works in a tax office in Australia and lives about an hour's drive down from Sydney. He likes Shakespeare, medieval music and world war history amongst other things. He is the clumsiest person i know, and someone with loads of knowledge and no common sense. He has visited the UK a few times in the 90's but is not the easiest house guest to have. But he is my cousin and i keep in contact with him infrequently now because he doesn't seem to have internet access at home.

Keith The second child of three and the naughtiest one when small. He couldn't be more different from Stephen, he is a builder married to Margie with Mark and Naomi their children. I get on with him quite well and keep in more regular contact. I visited Austraila in 1997 with mum and the two older boys. Keith lives in a lovely little town called Tumut somewhere between Canberra and Melbourne. His son Mark and his wife Haley have a little girl Aliza and at the time of writing is expecting again.....everyone is hoping for a boy as if not the Willards will eventually die out. The Hawells' on my mum's side will disappear with John he is the only one left.

Richard and Helen

Helen is Keith and Stephen's sister. I don't have as much contact only through Facebook, she has two boys Joel and Simeon and is married to Richard, i only found out a while back that we shared the same initials HJW she saved me from the name Helen so i got Hazel instead, which i prefer. She was two on the day my parents married which makes her my nearest cousin at 3 years older. Unfortunately she doesn't get on with Keith and they don't speak. Her and her husband moved to Hong Kong about three years ago to do mission work. Er i didn't take to her husband when i met them in 1997.
So that's it my cousins!!!!........................

Janet

Zak and Walter

Ok so there is!!! one more......she isn't my first cousin though, she is my second cousin i think, anyway her mum Janet was my dad's cousin. Suzanne and i share great grandparents, Her grandad was my grandmothers brother.
I used to see her about once a year when my dad would take us down to visit his relatives, Suzanne is 9 months younger than me so we used to be left together whilst the adults did their catching up chatting thing. We got on ok i remember but never really spent enough time to know each other very well. I do! remember her brother at age 11 and me 9 driving me furiously around her grandfathers field in a clapped out van i think it was.

Percy and Walter

Suzanne and Brother Derek

Suzanne

I think where we got to know each other better....and Suzanne i am sure you will correct me if i am wrong is after i got married, i took pics down and then Mum and Dad moved to North Yorkshire and would visit me and whenever they did we would go down to Sussex too. Then we realised how well we got on not least because only  6 months after my Joe was born Suzanne had Percy. Then she had Fred in 95 and i had Adam in 96........ then i called her to let her know i was pregnant again and she said well so am i!!!! and Walter was born a week to the day before Zak in November. So we both had three boys around the same ages. She lives in a beautiful area of Sussex, and i live in the City. She had support with childcare where i had none, my boys basically no medical issues, Suzannes boys.....well where do i start!!!!????? They certainly make use of their NHS! Our boys don't get on as well as we do, in fact there was a time when they positively disliked each other!..well Adam and Percy. I lie Zak and Walter get on when they are together very well.

Walter

Suzanne over the years has become more like the sister each of us never had. She lives not too far away unlike all my other cousins! and for me is the only family outside of my boys that i have left here. We have never argued, though Suzanne will tell me what is what and that is fine with me, she knows me too well and she knew my parents well which is helpful when wondering what to do sometimes.
When i was taken ill she came to visit in the hospital and made sure i had what i needed. She has continued to be a great support and has become involved with the bowel cancer community.....she is Suzfitzy on twitter.
When dad died she and her mum attended the funeral which doubled the family attendance, and when mum died she came up to help to clear mum's house with me, which consisted of a trip to the charity shop, a cup of tea in the cafe, trip to the charity shop, cup of tea in the cafe.

Me and Suz my thin years and a year before finding out i had cancer

We are quite capable of talking about tough things without us generating into tears and more often able to have a great laugh together. So there you are my sister from another mother and the closest to me of all my cousins.