Kath Lewis

I would like to start my first blog of the year by wishing you all a happy and healthy 2018 and personally saying good riddance to 2017, I am not sorry at all to see the back of it. Although there have been some great high points, physically and emotionally it was not a good one.

After writing my last blog I felt quite down again, and think that in some ways 2017 was a year of grieving for me, and trying to coming to terms with the changes in my life. It is hard to explain in detail, but basically even though I had unknowingly been living with my uninvited aliens for years acceptance of their on-going impact can still be hard. Essentially I am still the same person I was, but this thing does play with your head at times, it slows me down and stops me physically doing a lot of things I want to do, and many times I have felt very sad and lonely often overwhelmed by the smallest of tasks. There have a good few tears shed.

There have been a lot of broken nights again during December, which involved lots of hot-water bottle hugging and plenty of pain-killers, I am still having problems with malabsorption which is not helping either, so my Christmas spirit did take a while to kick in. We did however manage to get the conservatory floor finished and the painting done in time for Christmas, and a big thank you to my in-laws Kay & David for getting us over the finishing line on that one. Not only did they help Ade with the painting, they helped me to clean up all the builders dust and get the rooms back together. The cleaning took three of us 4 hours, boy that stuff gets everywhere.

It was lovely to see some proper snowfall, and Buddy loved the stuff, and the added bonus was that it was still there when we took our grandson Arthur on the steam train to see Santa. Adults got mince pies and sherry, Arthur got a fishing game from Santa and a balloon pig, he was beyond excited at getting to go on a Steam train, a real version of Thomas the Tank Engine😀🚂

It did however mean that I could only make the last half of the last local NET Natter group of the year, but it was lovely to see everybody who could make it and wish them all Happy Christmas and New Year. Also, after a couple of cancellations due to my stomach I finally managed to catch up with some of my long-time work colleagues, we had loads to catch up on as we had not seen each other for 12 months.

I attended a candlelit yoga session as well the Thursday before Christmas, which was lovely. Even though I do yoga on my own I really enjoyed the group experience, and it was very relaxing. Then my friend Shelle treated me to afternoon tea at the local spa, Moddershall Oaks, the Saturday before Christmas, it was an early birthday present and just the pickup that I needed. Thank you Shelle.

The Christmas table was very small for us this year, only 6 of us, usually it is anywhere between 10 – 15. Our oldest son and his partner came over to stop on Christmas Eve so we still were able to have a big present opening session like we usually do Christmas morning(one of my favourites being my personalised zebra cushion), but unfortunately they weren’t with us for Christmas dinner this time, the rest of the day was very low key for us. Children wise it was just our youngest son here for Christmas dinner, and after we had eaten we Skyped our oldest daughter and her husband in Canada.

Our youngest daughter, husband and grandson came over Boxing day, as this year they had done their own Christmas dinner for the first time. Arthur is now getting the idea of what Christmas is all about, he loved all the present opening and what was inside. It did all get a bit overwhelming though, it’s a lot for a 2 year old to handle, but we had great fun with him.

The next few days were pretty quiet, which was fine for us, we had hoped to make some extended family visits, but we were both very tired. We did manage to get a couple of good walks in with Buddy though and to get to the pictures to see the new Star Wars film, which we thought was rather good.

I am glad we had the opportunity to do very little as we were hosting the New Years Eve party this year. The theme was musicals and Ade set up karaoke in the conservatory so as people could sing a song associated with their character. I think it turned out to be one of the best New Years parties we have hosted, we hosted as Jake & Elwood Blues, and the singing went on all night, we didn’t even get a chance to do the quiz!

I definitely feel that I have entered January a happier person than I was in December, and long may it continue. Next on the agenda is our sponsored walk on Saturday 6^th January to raise funds for the NET Patient foundation. I think I can now safely say that this is now an annual event as this will be our third year. If you would like to sponsor us and help us to reach our target, please follow this link, and this year there is the option to do it by text too. Just text code NPFW62 to 70070 with your amount of either £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10. Every little helps, and thank you to those of you who have already sponsored us already😀

Finally I would like to finish this blog by saying a big thank you to all my family and friends who have kept me going during 2017, you all make it worth it.  Especially my husband Ade,  not only does he have the job of dealing with me everyday, he takes is by my side for every scan and consultation, and gives me my monthly jab.  Buddy our rescue lab, who has brought back the joy of having a dog in the house and my youngest daughter Judith who does her best to make sure I get to spend quality time with our grandson Arthur every week.  I love you all xx

“I’m not afraid of dying, it’s time I’m afraid of…” Interstellar 2014