P. D. Clifton

So, just to expand on some of the comments I made at the end of the ‘RECAP’ post… … here’s a short section explaining ‘WHY I WANTED TO WRITE THIS BOOK.’ I guess I wanted to show that when something bad happens to you or someone you care about – like cancer – life doesn’t…

I didn’t actually start writing this journal when Lizzie was first diagnosed with cancer. I started writing it a couple of months later. To be honest, when Lizzie was first diagnosed with cancer, writing about it was the very last thing on my mind. Things were way too upsetting and stressful! She found out about…

Whilst we’ve been having lunch (without the kids – they’re both out), Lizzie has been listening in to an online seminar – about nutrition for cancer sufferers. We eat our butternut squash (again) soup in silence and eventually the seminar ends. Lizzie shuts the lid on her laptop with a grave face. ‘Everything’s so contradictory,’…

The Omicron variant of Covid continues to rip through the land. And Boris Johnson has only just stopped dithering about whether to go into any kind of Christmas lockdown (his conclusion? Damn the consequences, let’s not!). One of his Brexit allies, Lord Frost, has just resigned at the very thought of it. What is it…

Today I’m feeling guilty. What if I’m exploiting Lizzie’s illness – to give me the material to write a blog? Am I? Maybe. Probably. And anyway… who’s even going to want to read it? What am I bringing to the “cancer literature” party? Well, there is one thing which might make this ‘memoir’ slightly different.…

Christmas nears. And, even though we’re all dyed in the wool atheists in our household, Lizzie’s and my talk turns to whether we should go to the local carol service. We have this conversation every year. And usually we don’t go. But this year, of all years, we feel like we could do with a…

On the subject of Lizzie’s baldness… here’s a description I wrote of the time I helped shave her hair off, back in October (i.e. before Lizzie got Covid and I ‘officially’ started writing this journal). It was just after Lizzie’s second chemo, when her hair suddenly started coming out in handfuls. There was nothing gradual…

My iPhone keeps on flashing up ‘Memories’ photos, which have a jarring rather than nostalgic effect. A couple of days ago, it flashed up a close-up of Lizzie – taken days before I helped shave off all of her hair, a month or so previously. In the photo, Lizzie’s hair goes down over her shoulders.…

‘I’ve given you the most important metric – never mind life-expectancy, never mind cancer outcomes – look at WAGE GROWTH!’ Lizzie has just shown me a clip of Boris Johnson saying the above. It was a couple of months ago, I think (I’m not sure how we managed to miss it at the time). Did…

Lizzie and I are lying in bed, unwinding after a long day. I decide now might be a good time to tell Lizzie my plan. My plan to write a journal. ‘I’ve been thinking about writing all of this down. You know, this weird year or two. Moving to the countryside. Covid. Lockdown. Everything else.…