Something I Learned This Evening

Nolan and I went for dinner at David and Beck's (Pat's older son and daughter-in-law's) and I read an interesting article in The Guardian about how fiction is dying and morphing into non-fiction. Wiser heads than mine have accepted the fact that my Nanowrimo novel is not a complete anomaly after all ... in fact it is part of a growing trend to mix autobiography and other non-fiction with invented bits to create a new kind of fiction. Whoo! And here I thought I was just incompetent ... that I started with no idea at all and so had to rely on what was there in my life in order to write anything at all! What a relief!

Nolan and I visited Pat this morning and again this afternoon when we took her a large container of soup I had made for her so that she could eat real food again. Yesterday she was so doped up on morphine that she kept dozing off in mid-sentence. It was very worrying. Today she was in far better shape mentally and I managed to massage cream into both feet and one hand in between visits from a variety of friends, her two grandsons who come every day and wreak havoc (1 1/2 and 3 1/2 ... sweet little boys), and various medical people who pop in and out often.

Tomorrow another Canadian friend from the same era that Pat and I were good friends will be coming for a few days. Claire lives in Peterborough and is enroute to Amsterdam to visit family.

Pat will have surgery in a different hospital on Monday and will return to her home as soon as they feel she is able. This surgery will clean up any remaining infection between the lung and the rib cage and will allow them to ascertain whether there is any cancer in that lung. Then she will be able to undergo chemotherapy once she has recovered from the operation.

I am having a good time ... being with Pat ... spending time with Nolan ... getting to know her family again ... it's all good. Pat and I tease one another and Nolan ... and Ethan, her older grandson asks me for kisses and chooses me to tell him his bedtime story. Tonight I got to read about Pooh and Piglet trying to trap the Heffalump. He is a very gentle little boy and I feel privileged. The baby, Joe, is more direct in his demands and VERY noisy ... but after a good long visit to the park in the rain, he was a dear too.

This is a very short visit but I will leave knowing that Pat is being very well cared for and wonderfully loved by family and friends. If I hadn't come I'd have been worried that she might need me here. Now that I have seen for myself that she is absolutely cocooned in love and that she is getting excellent medical care, I feel much better about things.

I have been watering plants, sketchbooking and journaling in between visits ... no knitting time at all so far. I think I'll take my knitting with me tomorrow. And now it is midnight and I need my bed ... as any of you who know me well will understand ... this is way past my bedtime.