the following weeks..

Following on from my hubby Pete’s first blog last week, here is the second instalment. For anyone who hasn’t yet read the first, please feel free to scroll down below this one and you will find Part 1! We have had such a fantastic response to this addition to SamSpace and I am so unbelievably proud that Pete has been brave enough to write this (and let me share it with everyone!) The third and last part will be posted next Thursday but please forward to anyone you may think will find it helpful. It is so important that the men, partners and support networks, in these situations, are given their own support and solidarity. Enjoy. 

‘It’s cancer’ is hard enough when you are sitting next to a loved one. It really is. It puts a halt to everything. Being thousands of miles away was testing to say the least. It was about 9am New York time and the first flight I could get home was 7pm. To this day I don’t know what I did for the 10 hours. There was whisky and a conversation with Noel Gallagher in the BA lounge – I remember that bit but the rest is a blur. We have been lucky. We have phenomenal friends and family supporting us. I don’t have time to mention them all, but that day, while I was helping myself to scotch and trying to find out who Sally was and what she was waiting for, Sam’s dad (affectionately named ‘pops’ since grandkids arrived) was my stand in. He had accompanied Sam to the appointment. He was so calm and supportive that day. I always want all the facts. ALL of them. Was Mr. Kissin smiling? Was he nervous? Will the next appointment be Monday or Tuesday? When is the operation? As the person processing the news it’s impossible to have all the answers and Sam passed the phone to Pops who handled my interrogation with great calmness and understanding. I will always have great respect for him for that. I sometimes forget that he is discussing his darling first born daughter and is as distraught as me. Another man who would, I am sure, outrank me should ‘ze germans’ come again. 
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‘It’s simple – we are going to spend three days doing tests so that in five days we can tell you if its spread all over her body’. Oh great! Flipping awesome. This will be an easy five days. I doubt we will worry much at all……! Lucky for me Sam had a schedule and ‘worry time’, predictably, wasn’t in it. Moving from hospital to hospital / test to test. The biggest disagreement I remember (and I am sure my mind is just selecting the good parts!) was that Sam, who is always suspicious of her diet for causing cancer – which is strange as there are members of yet to be discovered Amazonian tribes who eat more fast food / unhealthy food than Sam – wouldn’t  consider a Big Mac in between appointments!

The next few days, while we waited for results, were a blur; Whisky induced sleep. An understanding (new) boss. Support from friends and family. Food, my god, food. Sam and her friends cook in the face of adversity. I honestly believe that, five months on, we have donated meals still in the freezer. I had to start asking guests not to bring food as it was blocking access to the kitchen (when Sam came out of hospital it changed to chocolate biscuits – literally hundreds of packets donated by guests). Lottie was in heaven!

The very personal and hard decision to ‘carry one as normal’ is one of those ‘easier said than done’ calls you make. We discussed it, and with hindsight, knew it was the best thing to do. You feel guilt throughout, but, you carry on – yes Mr. Churchill, we will keep buggering on. Calling the Mount Alvernia hospital to see if Sam had awoken from her double mastectomy ten mins before addressing a thousand bankers at the Natural History Museum will always be a strange memory from this bizarre and foggy few days of my life. Spending the days trying to work at a new job and helping Lottie have her normal life while mummy fixed her ‘ouch’ (again heavily supported by family and friends) was not easy. Then nights sat next to Sam’s hospital bed. Yet, strangely (and only when writing this blog did I realise this) I look back with fond memories.

Sam would sleep while I would watch soap operas and eat the endless supply of Maltesa’s. Daily she got stronger. One day she even asked me to bring in Mac Donald’s! Clearly, she still blames the drugs! 

The excess baggage that Sam had with her when leaving the hospital. Who needs two wheelchairs to leave a hospital?!
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Having Sam home brought its own set of sleepless nights (well sleeping on a sofa after a days work is never going to be the best nights sleep) but I honestly felt Team Reynolds had fought back again and though the waiting and being away had proved challenging, I knew we had over come another one of life’s boulders by finding a way around it rather than chipping away at it.
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