Open Writing

At home, we push the spectre of Alzheimer's into a dark corner of our minds and get on. We try to decorate, build cupboards, alter things to suit our needs and generally make the new house 'ours'. At the last moment, we find a decorator who can give us three days only, before Christmas, which isn't quite enough.

After a hectic, work-related weekend in London with Howard, I finish the painting on Monday night, re-lay the carpet on Tuesday and move the furniture, books, etc back on Wednesday. Thursday night I'm out late at an office Christmas party and badminton on Friday, as I finish work for the holiday. On Saturday, in our 'wisdom', we've invited twenty-six people for a house-warming/Christmas dinner party. Just to make it more interesting, both of our boys arrive home for the holidays with all their many belongings and 'the great weatherman in the sky' dumps a load of snow and ice on us for good measure.

Strangely enough, no one wants to change the date for Christmas so we hit the floor running after the party to finish the shopping, wrapping, tidy up, prepare food, go to other parties and Howard still has to work on Monday. It's something of a surprise to find it's suddenly Christmas Day and after the big meal we collapse in a contented little heap.

Wishing to share our good fortune, we organise a surprise holiday for all of our family that live in the UK. Because our extended family is relatively large, for years we've come together over the New Year instead of Christmas itself. The Oasis holiday park is ideal for our party of twenty-one people, aged from three to seventy-six years old. Each family has its own accommodation and Howard has organised an itinerary of activities, which is optional and leaves each family with lots of time on their own as well as together. It's a blessing to be able to celebrate en masse and to see Mum blossom surrounded by her loving family.

In January, James confesses that he's having difficulty keeping track of the many hospital appointments he still has to attend. He asks me if I'll put them on my calendar then remind him of any that are pending when I phone for our regular Friday chat. This seems to work quite well until March, when there's some confusion over one of the dates. Suddenly, the penny drops.

'Oh, I remember now, that's the date of my heart operation.'

'What heart operation?' I manage to splutter into the phone. My own heart is doing belly flops into my churning stomach.

James reminds me of the Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome they'd discovered during his diagnostic tests prior to chemotherapy. Now that James has been clear of cancer for five years, my adult son and his consultant have decided the time is right to correct the problem.

The operation involves threading various micro-cables into his heart from three different directions, locating the misfiring cluster and zapping them with a laser. Originally, they were going to do it as a day patient and I'm not sure James would even have told us; he's so very casual about it all. In the end the doctor decides that James is having too many palpitations for it to be safe so puts him on beta-blockers for a month in preparation for the surgery.

James may be casual about heart operations but I'm not. Bizarre nightmares fill my head the night before. I'm definitely not wanted at the hospital so James' girlfriend will ring me at work to let me know how he's gone on. When my headteacher, looking like she's seen a ghost, comes into my classroom an hour earlier than expected to say there's a phone call for me, I'm more than a little trepidatious. It's James.

'The good news is I'm still alive,' he chirpily informs me, 'the bad news is there's been an administrative error and I'll have to wait for up to a month.'

Because of his amputation and all the complications that made it difficult for him to use his prosthesis, James is able to have a car through the motobility scheme. During the wait for the operation, and in the middle of a week of crucial exams, his car is stolen. Someone put a brick through the frosted glass next to the front door, at half past three in the morning, picked up the keys and drove off before any of the lads were fully awake.

The next day, James' roommate set off to see the landlord about replacing all the door locks (the house keys being with the car keys), only to discover James' car parked a few streets away. They inform the police who put it under surveillance but give up after a while. The police ask to take the car in for forensic tests then charge James £138 to get it back. This outrageous fine on top of the cost of a new window, new steering lock, new locking system in the car, taxis to get to his police project in Wakefleld and the garage to pick up his vehicle, make it very difficult for James to sleep for several weeks.

In spite of the trauma, he passes his exams and just misses a distinction by four marks. James also manages to enjoy the intense five-week project in social medicine, working alongside the police and finding out where most of his future patients will come from. The crime files are so horrific he can't bring himself to tell us anything about them and it's clear he's appalled to discover the deprivation and horrors some people endure here in our own country.

Eventually, James does have his operation. Howard and I go to visit him a few hours afterwards and find him in a bed tucked round the corner behind a glass partition separating him from the corridor. He is pale and sleepy.

'I had to be awake for the procedure so I asked if I could watch.' There is a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead that belies his bravado.

'It was more painful than I expected,' he confesses. He looks away.

I fuss him and we offer treats we've brought to cheer him up.

'I have to stay in bed for twenty-four hours because there are only blood clots holding the various entry points closed.'

I can see his imagination working overtime on that one, as he moves gingerly about on his bed. We don't stay long and he sleeps most of time before his discharge.

Meanwhile, David's really enjoying his course and developing skills he hopes will lead to a career in filmmaking. Howard's able to offer him a couple of opportunities to make corporate videos for his company and David does an excellent job on them.

It's fun to watch all the festivities around the Queen's Golden Jubilee. It brings back memories of our trip to London during the Silver Jubilee, when we'd tried unsuccessfully to convince the government to let me stay in the UK. Now, it feels like the great, vast, silent majority of this country is lumbering to its feet and showing the world that they can have a good time without any trouble, they're pleased to live here and proud of their hardworking, dedicated Queen. We have a Jubilee tea party at school with the children and it's marvellous to be part of it. Between that and the World Cup Football, I've never seen such patriotism in this country.

We have reason to celebrate in our family, too. Our 'baby', David, reaches twenty-one and graduates. We drop him off at the designated building on the morning of his graduation, and go to park the car. Lincoln is packed with parents and their young adult children. There's a buzz trembling off the cobbles of the old part of the city. Searching for David in a large, grand old building, I suddenly turn and there he is, grown-up and handsome in his cap and gown. Unexpectedly, tears spring to my eyes. Having missed my own graduation ceremony, I'm surprised to find how emotional I feel.

Perched on the edge of the hard pew, packed in with all the other proud, excited relatives, I peer into the gloom of Lincoln Cathedral. It's a magnificent building, awesome in its scale and history. And my little boy is called to the front to receive his diploma. In amongst the swirl of emotions, goose bumps tickle my arm and I realise I feel admiration. David has quietly and with no fuss got on and achieved his goal.