Brief glint

Not much brightness in my day today. I just managed to catch this brief sunny interval -- it soon clouded over, and it's raining now.

I've only mentioned it obliquely in my blips up till now, but our friend Sue, whose husband R died very suddenly and unexpectedly almost exactly two years ago, was diagnosed with cancer in February. Since then she's been through many exhausting and painful rounds of chemo and radiotherapy. I and other friends have accompanied her to appointments and done translating as necessary, as her French was not brilliant and got worse as her health deteriorated. And her sisters and two adult children plus other friends from the UK have visited when they can.

Anyway, at the end of the summer she was told that it was not possible to operate on the tumours, so since then she's been on palliative care, aka industrial strength painkillers. While we were in the UK, she was admitted to hospital as her condition deteriorated quite suddenly. So I went to see her today. What can I say ... it was distressing not just to see how frail and  wobbly she is, but also she was completely confused and I couldn't make sense of what she was saying some of the time. It was hard to hold a conversation with her. So upsetting, especially as she has no family here now. Her daughter is coming over on Monday, and another friend at the weekend.

So 2024 has turned out to be a pretty shit year one way or another ...