Wednesday 16th August 2017

My sister brought these flowers with her for Mum when she came over with my niece for lunch. Yellow is Mum's favourite colour flower, as she finds it very cheerful. The wound on her face is starting to bruise up now, which the surgeon said it would do. Mum has been very stoic about it, even though the scar is quite big and will definitely show on her cheek. She feels it's better that than to have a skin cancer growing inside her face. I had surgery to remove a tumour from in front of my left ear twenty years ago - a Parotidectomy. It left me with quite a dent where the tumour had been, and I was temporarily paralysed and numb down that side of my face, because they'd had to pull the facial nerves about to get it all out. I was terribly upset when I came round, because the surgeon hadn't warned me about the risk of paralysis at all and I had no idea whether or not it was permanent. A nurse very kindly explained everything, and told me most people get the movement and most of the feeling back, which dried my tears and made me feel a bit more positive about it. It took years for the numbness to go, and for the long scar to fade, and for a while I was quite self-conscious about it. Now I don't care, and often tie my hair back to expose the dent rather than let my hair hang over it as I did at first. I bet hardly anyone notices anyway, and that's how Mum feels about her scar. Being with her so much for the past two-and-a-half years has been a precious thing, and we have learnt so much from each other.