Our News

It has been such a long time since we last updated the website and we apologise.

2007 was a hectic year for Peter with so much work that for most of the year we spent most weeks living in Reading with Alistair & Vicki, only returning home at weekends. Pauline took the opportunity to visit her Mother in Slough quite frequently although from October her health deteriorated so much that she was admitted to hospital. Pauline's visits then became a necessity to help with her care and feeding as the hospitals were not able to provide adequate care to put it mildly.

Sadly she died in December and her funeral just before Christmas rather dampened the festive season.

However Christmas was a pleasantly quiet and relaxing, spent at home with Peter's Mother staying for a few weeks. Alistair & Vicki were absent this year as Alistair was working in Seattle where he had been for sometime and so Vicki took the opportunity to have a holiday with him in the USA. The holidays were something of a relief after the stress of 2007.

2008 started well enough with Peter slowly picking up the threads of the outstanding jobs left over from December when he decided to visit his Doctor about a peculiar problem that he had experienced about 3 times during the previous year - nothing more than a feeling that his chest was bruised; a sensation that appeared suddenly and went within a week. It recurred at Christmas and left him with an asthmatic shortness of breath at times. Our G.P., who it has to be said is excellent, did numerous tests at the surgery and became somewhat concerned, sending him for an x-ray with instructions not to drive himself. Since then life has been turned upside down and at this time Peter is in the middle of a course of Chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma which was ultimately diagnosed after about 8 weeks of tests and 2 stays in hospital. Work and life is slowly returning to some normality now that breathing, which had become something of a problem, is no longer an issue. Schedules have to be arranged around the 3 weekly treatment cycles and the periods of vulnerability to infection when meeting people is not so desirable.

As if that was not enough of a challenge Pauline, whose ability to walk has been restricted for sometime, has virtually become housebound due to a completely disintegrated hip. The various other surgeries and problems she has to endure have her taking rather large doses of pain killers every few hours but even with the addition of a very high dose Morphine patch she is still in agony. She has been waiting for a date for sometime; unfortunately the operation could have taken place by now if it were not for the fact that when she went to see the Surgeon for pre-assessment her blood pressure was through the roof. The tablets she has been given seem to taking effect and she now has a date for the surgery on Wednesday 28th March at a local hospital. The surgery is carried out under local anaesthetic and she should be back home at the weekend with a list of exercises and things not to do. On a more hopeful note the Surgeon who dealt with her Mouth Cancer operation has, after several years without seeing her, put her in touch with his new Orthodontist. This specialist is, over the next few months going to endeavour to create new sets of dentures that she can hopefully succeed with - whereas to-date she has been restricted to just the upper set and a restricted diet as a result - so fingers crossed.

That then is a synopsis of our life to-date; not exactly inspirational and somewhat unfair after the previous years challanges.

We hope that all our friends across the world are fairing somewhat better and enjoying good health, peace and prosperity.

Last edited on the 11 May 2008 20:03:21