A drooping Cosmos...

no wonder in this heat!

Tonight I got on a very empty train at Reading (it had come from Penzance and was going back there because there were no trains from Reading to Paddington.)  Poor passengers from Paddington had to trek round to Waterloo to get to Reading, then change trains and vice versa due to a signalling failure.  Feeling thankful I only had a 20 minute train journey...and the sweating food service assistant brought round bottles of water to everyone whilst we were waiting to leave Reading....

In other news....

There are usually two sides to every story.

Yesterday, whilst my Mum has improved and shown a big recovery with alertness, speech etc and her sense of humour is back too.  

She is now feeding herself to a limited extent too and the Drs are very pleased with her progress.   Everything seems to have gone back to normal re blood pressure etc etc. She is going to be moved from the surgical recovery ward to a medical ward shortly.

However,  now that the calcium level has fallen below 3 the Drs have been investigating what was causing the higher levels.  

They discovered she has 'myeloma' which is a cancer of the plasma cells in the bone marrow.  Apparently there different options for treatments, further tests will help to decide what the best plan is.  


The Consultant says he expects Mum to be in hospital for many weeks, possibly up to another 6 or so for the treatment to be at least started.

Now that we know what the reason is, my brother and I are feeling rather relieved, even though its going to be a very long road ahead indeed.  

I'm not planning to visit this weekend, because I still seem to be coughing heavily and I really don't want to hand anything onto my Mum...

From a sultry Newbury, have a great evening :)