TraceysTrek

Best bits: amazing weather, fantastic accommodation

Worst bits: emotional overload

Distance: rest day

I had a good night sleep and a lazy start this morning as I had arranged to collect Emma from the train station at Axminster at 11 am.

Emma‘s train was on time and it was great to see her again. I greeted her on the platform waving two TraceysTrek flags to draw attention to myself!! We then drove to Lyme Regis and managed to find the accommodation and designated parking for Priscilla.

The accommodation is absolutely top-notch. It even has its own roof top balcony from which I got my first overhead view of Priscilla. Clearly, she needs a wash.

As Emma was only here for the day, we got to work straight away. For those of you new to reading this blog, Emma is making a short documentary about my journey and grief.

First of all was an interview where I spoke about how Angela and I first met, our early life before children, the secrecy of our relationship, our decision to have children and how things were culturally and legally in that era and how different they are now.

Then we moved on to talking about Angela’s illness, the journey of the development of what we know now was a large brain tumour that affected her personality so subtly in the beginning over about a ten year period. The larger personality changes after she retired from work, followed by the seizure in November 2022, A&E and diagnosis of a massive tennis ball sized brain tumour.

We discussed the initial surgery and how after this we got the old Angela back which was absolutely amazing. We were all feeling relieved and happy. This is us all on Christmas Day.

Then the setback of complications in January 2023 and six more surgical procedures culminating in a 12 hour operation.

How she was just recovering from this when she developed acute excruciating back pain. Then the bombshell of the cancer diagnosis in March 2023 of multiple myeloma, followed by a further diagnosis of amyloidosis, followed by further devastating news of mutation in her white cells that meant chemotherapy wasn’t working and the cancer was very aggressive.

We then covered the time relating to Angela‘s discharge home and the time we spent together with our family and friends. How I focused on care making sure Angela had everything she needed which sometimes pissed her off and she told me off for fussing too much. I spent long periods of time just sitting holding her hand.

Recounting the final stages was more difficult and emotionally charged. I explained to Emma the concept of a love radiator inside yourself that we told our boys about when they were little. We always asked them how full their love radiator was. I did ask Angela before she died if she felt hers was full and she replied that it was.

Emma then filmed me reading out some sections from my blogs that she had selected.

After all that heavy emotional activity, we decided to go for a walk on the beach. Emma found it tricky walking on the shingle and nearly fell over trying to film me. Then she decided to get up close and personal to the waves. I was waiting for her to get wet, but fortunately she didn’t.

I found it entertaining to film Emma filming me. We did get some strange looks.

We shared a table with Richard at the Kiosk, this place was a recommendation from Debs which proved to provide excellent food. We had a good long chat with Richard about our backgrounds and careers and families.

Then it was back to our accommodation to meet Claire and Chris before taking Emma back to the train station.

Claire, Chris and myself had gin and tonics in the sunshine followed by a lovely Indian takeaway.

Then Claire and I spent awhile talking more deeply about my journey, processing my feelings of grief, how it might have changed me, the interactions with people I meet and the questions people ask me.

All in all, it’s been a different kind of tiring day.