That about 4 years ago my friend KP suggested that I write this blog. I only hope that he is reading this now as I miss him a lot and understand the he is going through hard times himself. At the moment, I also realise that I can't help, I'm not wanted and that I have to keep my distance. Or maybe I'm wrong - here's the open note to say - can I help you? You've been a rock to me, even if you don't know or don't admit it.
I understand these things because that's what I was like when you spoke to me 4 years ago - it wasn't quite "I am your Father Luke" but it was near enough. Oh yes and I didn't know the difference between Prostate and Prostrate Cancer - DOH :-)
That's the way it is, that's how you feel at the time but - you know - we're you're mates, we're your friends and if you can't confide and let us just listen, then maybe you've not remembered what it was like when I was really ill, when I was down to my lowest ebb, when I thought I was going to die and when I'd reached the bottom and was preparing to dig down further and you said to me that - "it wasn't as bad as that". "Why not write a blog and tell everyone what it is really like". When you base-lined what was happening to me, it made it seem real and made it all make sense and a reason for me to start this blog. you did that fella - it was YOUR suggestion.
Fella, I did it because you told me it would help me and that it would help other people, because it was a way out of my cul-de-sac, because we are great friends and go back to when we were nutty teenagers together - for all close scrapes we got into, for all of those larks, those explosions, those precious moments, those laughs and the drunken evenings and the great gigs and the girls and all that. What times we had - how cool those times were how we still laugh at them - "Who me sir?!"
Don't leave me know (Supertramp). For everything you did for me for the past 4 years - for making me write this blog and for being there when I needed it the most - don't leave me know, don't sit alone and wonder, don't sit there and brood, don't blame yourself, don't wonder "what if", don't think I (or we) don't care. You've been there for me for these past 4 years, you really have, you've been kind and cruel (in only a way that a true friend can be) we've shared the grim reaper jokes, the Monty Python Tee-Shirt (goodness you were in on that as much as I was) and you've got me through what can only be described as the lowest point in my existence. I'm coming out of that now - 4 years of darkness, depression and all that stuff - it was you my friend that helped me do that. Yes you did!
Please, please, let me be there for you now, whatever it is, whatever ails you, I would never have been brave enough to bear my soul on this blog as I have without you - this record both good, bad, ugly, bigoted, right wing, left wing, commie, rubbish, true, half true, helpful and unhelpful is all because of that wonderful time when you spoke as a real true friend to me and suggested a blog could be the cathartic way forward for someone, like me, to share the emotional and physical issues I was about to have.
Think about what you did for me? At a time when life was just a matter of weeks or months survival (as I thought then - who was to know), when it was black and beyond the colour of pitch, when I was at my absolute lowest you gave me something to work towards and lean on and base my future on. Giving, at the very least, hope or consolation - or perhaps a realistic view of what cancer was like to others as a legacy (for that is initially what I thought it was) about the way to approach living with the disease.
Tonight, at the pub, I sat there and wondered where you were? You were really down the month before last (of course you would be) and unfortunately I cannot make next Tuesday (unless you can?? - I will cancel to meet you). Please note.
I want you to know how much you mean to me. I want you to realise how important you are to my survival. I want you to understand that if by your actions and my following them we made a difference to one person in this world suffering from cancer - what a good job we have done and I want you to realise that this blog - that I started because you suggested it to me, has been a real life line in my 4 years and 3 months (but whose counting) battle against this disease.
Understand you've helped me work my problems out (sure I've done them in public) and shared those with many other people who also now realise that to get angry, be tired, get frustrated, find stuff funny or find stuff sad is just part of the journey we are all on with this disease they call Cancer.
Whatever it is, let's talk, let's meet, let's sort it out. After all that you've done for me, it seems that this is the very, very least I can do for you.
I can't always sort out the problem but I can at least listen. I owe you so much but you want so little from me. You are a true friend indeed KP.
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