Battersea Power Station

Thank you for all your positive thoughts and prayers for Gavin, even though I am not responding to comments I do read every comment and the kind words and support is very much appreciated. Blip is indeed a wonderful community.

It’s a bit like a never ending nightmare at the moment. I am very thankful that Gavin has medical insurance, as I feel so much better knowing he is getting the best care here. The NHS hospital I took him out of is a truly awful one, I have since found articles and photos reporting on the poor standard of that hospital. I am sure not every NHS hospital is like that and some people are lucky to live near excellent ones. I wasn't so lucky.

We walked Xena early and then Luke drove us to London. Tommy was pleased to see Gavin who seemed a bit brighter today after he had been rehydrated overnight. He is still in the ICU but we are allowed to sit with him in the room. When we visit Gavin he is mainly sleeping so it was good to spend that time talking to him for a couple of hours this morning. The surgeon told us that his stats have been brought back to the necessary, normal levels in order to have the surgery. He is more steady on his feet and speaking less nonsense today. It possibly was due to his levels like sodium, potassium etc being so out of kilter. He hardly remembers the last two days, and doesn't remember much of Luke and I transferring him to the new hospital yesterday.

I have been very busy trying to keep family and friends updated, and of course to also keep up to date with Gavin’s personal emails. Thankfully at work his colleagues are handling everything brilliantly and kindly offering me support. I have had little time at home to do normal domestic chores like food shopping and laundry and meals are totally haphazard or not at all.

The surgeon came to discuss the surgery, and as devastating as the news is, he had us all laughing at his interpretation of a South African accent. The tumour is an aggressive sarcoma which is a rare form of cancer, and is extremely large, pressing onto the colon, bowel and some main arteries. It’s going to be a very complicated and long surgery. Once the pathology on the tumour has been done we will know what we are dealing with. The abdominal surgeon is doing the operation together with a vascular surgeon. We also met the vascular surgeon and the anaesthetist, all who very patiently explained the procedure, the challenges and the risks, and allowed us to ask questions.

We walked to Battersea Power Station to get some lunch when I took this photo. Today was cooler with some rain.

This afternoon they inserted a PICC line into Gavin which is needed to administer drugs now and after the surgery.  We had planned to stay and wait until after the surgery to speak to the surgeons to hear how it went, but they have advised that we go home as it’s going to be long, and probably will finish at midnight. We left at 8.30pm when they took Gavin down to the operating theatre, they certainly work long hours.  They will phone me so I need to stay awake to wait for that call.


Prayers and positive thoughts are very much needed now.