In Freefall…

Round about Wednesday last week I finally felt as if I was on top of things. I’d pulled back from all the delays resulting from attending wargames show Colours at Newbury racecourse: orders were up to date apart from a handful of backorders, and I was about to do a pile of mouldmaking and mastering for Helion.

On Thursday I got up early to deal with emails to clear the decks, and posted what I hope was the final message to a disgruntled customer (yes, I get them) who’d gone nuclear on The Miniatures Page. And then J. came in and said the doctor had asked for me to accompany her for her follow-up appointment that morning.

I’m amazed how calmly and how well she took the diagnosis of leukaemia, and how it was she who comforted me, not I her. In fact she’s been a constant source of hope and optimism the past few days now. And she looks too well to be so ill.

Today was the big day: the transfer to a mainland hospital for the important tests and the beginning of her treatment. It’s been a slow day, with lots of waiting for hospital transport. J. has borne it with typical good humour and, on reflection after a period of twitchiness on my part, so have I: there’s going to be so much waiting in future that all today’s is just practice.

Life for us has gone into freefall. There are parachutes, but they’re the scary stunt parachutes that experts use. We hope they get us down to earth safely.