I’ve lost count of the number of sketches I wrote from the chemo ward as Jill went through the hell of cancer treatment

It’s been a while since I last wrote the digested week. Last May, my wife was diagnosed with cancer and life has been a struggle ever since. Jill’s story is hers to tell, but here are some of my initial thoughts on finding myself a primary carer on the cancer frontline (it’s always been me who’s needed looking after up till now). From that first consultation, when the doctor told us that a blood test for a tumour marker had come back raised – “How seriously should we take this?” “Very” – I had a feeling of being separated from the rest of the world. I was in a shadowland. There were those of us in Cancerworld and those who weren’t. It wasn’t that we stopped seeing family and friends – far from it, we couldn’t have got through without their love and food parcels – more that at an emotional level we were out of sync with one another. My life has become existential. I wake up every morning thinking about cancer and I go to bed thinking of cancer.

I’ve lost count of the number of sketches I wrote from the chemo ward as Jill went through the hell of cancer treatment

It’s been a while since I last wrote the digested week. Last May, my wife was diagnosed with cancer and life has been a struggle ever since. Jill’s story is hers to tell, but here are some of my initial thoughts on finding myself a primary carer on the cancer frontline (it’s always been me who’s needed looking after up till now). From that first consultation, when the doctor told us that a blood test for a tumour marker had come back raised – “How seriously should we take this?” “Very” – I had a feeling of being separated from the rest of the world. I was in a shadowland. There were those of us in Cancerworld and those who weren’t. It wasn’t that we stopped seeing family and friends – far from it, we couldn’t have got through without their love and food parcels – more that at an emotional level we were out of sync with one another. My life has become existential. I wake up every morning thinking about cancer and I go to bed thinking of cancer.

I’ve lost count of the number of sketches I wrote from the chemo ward as Jill went through the hell of cancer treatment

It’s been a while since I last wrote the digested week. Last May, my wife was diagnosed with cancer and life has been a struggle ever since. Jill’s story is hers to tell, but here are some of my initial thoughts on finding myself a primary carer on the cancer frontline (it’s always been me who’s needed looking after up till now). From that first consultation, when the doctor told us that a blood test for a tumour marker had come back raised – “How seriously should we take this?” “Very” – I had a feeling of being separated from the rest of the world. I was in a shadowland. There were those of us in Cancerworld and those who weren’t. It wasn’t that we stopped seeing family and friends – far from it, we couldn’t have got through without their love and food parcels – more that at an emotional level we were out of sync with one another. My life has become existential. I wake up every morning thinking about cancer and I go to bed thinking of cancer.