Last week I said goodbye to Beryl, a lady I had become very fond of. Sometimes when you are surrounded by the possibility of death it’s hard to see that for the person who has passed it might be the right thing at the right time! I felt bereft because Beryl has been a constant at the hospice since I first started coming here and I loved to listen to her reminiscences. She was a wonderful lady and we all miss her. Attending her funeral gave me a chance to say goodbye but it also bought back the realisation that my mortality is very fragile and I hate it when I have to think about dying. I call these days black days and I am trying to find a way of dealing with them but my efforts don’t always work and I have to just get through as best I can.

It’s a weird thing knowing that you have an incurable disease. Some days you feel ‘normal’ and it’s hard to think your life could end sooner than you want it to. These are the days you make all your plans for the future and sincerely believe that you will achieve all of them. At the moment that is where I’m at. All my symptoms are under control and I feel ‘normal’ and am making plans for holidays next year and for visits to see my grandchildren in between the ups and downs of my chemo cycles.