Five things I wish I knew when my Dad was dying of cancer #cholangiocarcinoma

Last November my Dad died from bile duct cancer, cholangiocarcinoma. Bile duct cancer is an incredibly rare cancer with current estimates of 1,000 new case in the UK each year and 2,500 in the USĀ and an annual incidence rate of 1-2 cases per 100,000 people in the Western World. Search twitter for people talking about […]

Life after Bobby: Happy Birthday Dad

I’ve not blogged too regularly of late, I blame Social Care Curry Club, which has been a brilliant distraction and useful channel of so much energy. That said I felt like today warranted a post, as today is Dad’s 66th birthday. Well it would have been his 66th birthday but he died last year. Do […]

The legend that is Paul Clarke

Many, many years ago I started following Paul Clarke on twitter. I wasn’t sure who this man was particularly, and until today I had no real notion how digital he was, so either he was very modest or I wasn’t paying enough attention, but I liked his tweets. He was eclectic, witty, said it as […]

Life after Bobby: Missing Dad

It’s 264 days since my Dad died. Nothing particularly significant about that, I had to sit and work it out as I don’t carry a mental tally of the days since his death. In one hundred and one days I’ll have lived a full year without one of my parents. I feel very lucky that […]

In sickness and in health

Yesterday was my parent’s Ruby Wedding Anniversary, 40 years of togetherness, in sickness and in health, till death do us part….and therein lies the rub, I guess technically it wasn’t their 40th anniversary because my Dad died last November. Do you stop being married when one of you dies, obviously legally you do, but do […]

Hope sings eternal

There have been several claims in the news recently that singing in a choir is as good for your health as yoga! Unfortunately there is zilch evidence to support that claim which was based on a very small scale, observational snap shot of a handful of teenagers in Sweden. So while medical benefits may not […]

999: Show them the love!

Rarely do I sit down and write a blog post in an instant response to something I’ve seen, I’m quite a reflective person, bit of a thinker and I tend to muse on things and have a list of ‘to write when I have time’ blog posts, but occasionally, not often, but every now and […]

Life after Bobby: my birthday

I’ve always loved reflecting and looking back on the year, I’m the sort of sucker who loves those programmes at new years where the year (or better still, the decade) is shown in highlights. So as a bit of a birthday ritual I’ve been ruminating on the past twelve months and pretty much the one […]

My 35 thousandth tweet

Unusually for me I didn’t check twitter the moment I woke up this morning, instead I visited the twitter website as soon as I turned my mac on. It was this that meant I spotted something quite surprising, to me at least – that last night I’d reached the (completely meaningless really) marker of 35k […]

Life after Bobby: the first six months

Today it is six months since Dad died. I can’t quite believe it, one minute it feels like yesterday and the next like it was years ago, six of the longest and shortest months of my life. Time is a funny old thing, especially where grief and loss are involved. To mark the occasion this […]