in it together.

I was glad to go to an assortment of cafes this week for coffee and scones and some uninvolved people-watching after a couple of peculiarly stressful days visiting a friend in the big city who is undergoing nine weeks of radiotherapy for prostate cancer. ‘Peculiarly’ because it wasn’t in the least overtly stressful; no distressed patients or relatives to be seen. Even the nice woman whose husband is in the hospital itself in the last stages of throat cancer displayed no signs of what she must be feeling, except to say that she hoped to get him back to Shetland ‘before anything happened.’ All she wanted was a friendly bedtime cup of tea and a chat about normal everyday things before she tried to sleep. The patients, effectively out-patients, but from the Western Isles, Shetland, Orkney, therefore unable to nip back and forth, are housed in an extremely pleasant well-run place, rather like a superior Travel Lodge with nicer furnishings and textiles. It has a big lounge, kitchen and dining  area, neat fresh rooms, all en suite, comfortable beds, good hot water for showers, and a welcoming atmosphere. Everyone I met seemed determined to make the best of it all and not to be depressed or depressing. There is a war-time atmosphere of camaraderie, of all being in it together. My friend, who isn’t the most sociable of beings, has absorbed the prevailing mood, was much more inclined to talk, has even made a friend from Shetland, a retired hotelier over with his big Citroen people-carrier, who took us off to an out-of-town pub doing a wonderful carvery for Sunday lunch. 

So why stressful? Why so hard to shake off? My theory is the underlying, unspoken, loneliness and fear that walks the corridors.  I wouldn’t be so fanciful if I hadn’t found it so difficult to shake off.