That was my yesterday.

 A day off when I did not get up silly early to go and walk around the water. I did get out of bed and go to make tea at daft o'clock. This day we had to go and see father. The prospect had made us both speculative and uneasy. I slept badly and then once up did not want to do much. Usually I would put on washing,,,,tidy up....hoover and then go and take photos of the dawn. This day I googled lung cancer and read all I could about this type of cancer, it's causes and prognosis. None of it made happy reading. There is no happy ending here.

A day off and I had plans to go to Ilkley. These I had been hatching my whole shift!

 I got home last night to Lee's bear hug and him telling me he missed me. Monza ran to greet me too. Dinner was in the cooker and Lee had a phone call earlier in the evening. His step mother. A week ago father had gone into hospital, tests had shown he had lung cancer. A week ago? yes a whole week ago. So this morning I was up and googling Lung cancer and awaiting a respectable hour so that we could set off to Kirkstall to see father.  All we could do was speculate as to what stage father was at and any treatment he may be given.

There was a dawn this morning, but there was also a lot of mist. These photos are from a couple of years ago of Yeadon Tarn. This morning I busied myself taking dolls to and from the attic and swapping over others to different displays....drank a sea of tea and then just sat still.
I was first up at around 3am and as a consequence I am weiry and totally knackered now. The time soon ran on and we found ourselves outside father's house taking our time about getting out of the car.
Eventually and after much questioning I found out what I needed to know.  I spotted a leaflet father had been given at the hospital and inside a doctors writing of notes. The doctor's hand writing Said...Shadow on both lungs...cancer....a blood clot on one lung and swollen lymph glands. I knew this was not good from my earlier investigations.
Father also displayed every one of the symptoms I had read about in the early hours. These are persistent cough - This he has had for quite some time in fact I am thinking now and I can not remember him with out. He keeps getting flu like symptoms too "Ah don't feel right well. There's a bug goin' round again." . Feeling breathless and wheezy- this I noted last time I saw him a few weeks ago. For a seventy five year old  smoker he could actually run quite quickly especially if he thought he would miss a bus!. Chest and shoulder pain- this has been waking him up in the night and he now does not sleep. He takes paracetamol by the lorry load generally, and now he has been given something more, though I am not sure what .Loss of appetite and weight loss- This is shockingly extreme. Before Christmas he had developed a pot belly from sitting in front of the telly and eating pastries and chocolate whilst watching Jeremy Kyle. Now he finds it difficult to swallow and is a skeleton. Fatigue and lack of energy- this has been this way for a few years. Just thinking about this too, probably about two years in reality. father used to come over to see us on the bus about twice a week at one time This was just after he had a stroke and his driving licence was suspended, so he had to walk to the bus stop and to our house. Once he got his licence back he would drive over, this worked out for a couple of months until he wrote the car off smashing into a parked car about a year ago now. Hoarseness in voice is the last symptom- father has been this way for a long time. He is a long term extreme smoker so has a" smokers voice" It is something we never thought anything of up until now.
We found father sitting in front of the telly playing with his Nintendo. Loose women was on the telly all about the Duchess of Suffolk .

"shall ah start at the beginning? Ah don't know much. They kept asking me questions and ah got confused. Treatments? eye....er yeh that chemical injection and radosummert. Don't know when it starts. I got injections from t'hospital...ah has te tek 'em every day....."

I took out the injections from the prescription paper bag and looked at the label. Innohep syringe. for "exteneded treatment of Venous thromboembolism and prevention of occurrences in adult patients with active cancer."...so this is for the blood clot then. As the visit to father wore on I managed to piece together what had gone on. Father had originally gone to the doctors for his leg. The doctor had taken one look and referred him to hospital. Father went for tests on what he thought was his leg problem, which is something that has been causing him pain for a couple of years too

 "Me brother had the same. they took out the veins and he were fine. They stuck a needle in te unblock the artery...."
Whilst he was there they also did X-rays CT scans and a lot of blood work. I think there were other tests too, but getting any more information was impossible .
Father has an appointment on 21st February and transport has been arranged to take him to hospital. He has no idea why. I think this is best. This appointment was written into the leaflet I found on his table with his medication. That is how I know.
So that was my yesterday.

 This day is damp and misty and I have not got up yet. It is Friday and therefore an Otley visiting day.
I looked out and thought much better of going to walk around the tarn. There is no way it will look as good as this!

 I have another day off and had all kinds of plans. I have dumped them all for this week as I am not inspired enough to go out and take more photos. Having said that it is raining, dark and misty. there are  so many pictures like this  already......I have been sorting out the doll collection and getting ready to photograph some out and about.

 We did have a little excitement after we got home yesterday. A police cordon blocking off this street and the police turning even people on foot back and directing them away....

We are not used to this. This area is full of older people in retirement bungalows and the Tarn park. Some grenades had been found stashed above the off licence on the corner.

"that it?" asked Lee as I read him this. "ah get more tea. OHHH! good ah gets a e-cig today.......were that it? there's more? oh sorry Ah though war an'peace were over."

So .....The day before yesterday we went over to Horsforth to look at junk shops and get some lunch and a treat for dinner....Lee slipped off to buy his cigarettes. I pay no attention. It is something Lee does...smoking...that I ignore. I have mentioned giving up and realised this was futile and only causes arguments so I leave it. This day he came back to the car and said he wanted to stop.

Lee wants to stop smoking? ummmm I thought. A little gentle questioning and I had the answer. His cigarettes have gone up in price to nearly £10.00 a pack. Even with my limited maths expertise this adds up to £70.00 a week.( I am not factoring in the beer drunk here as that would be a true shock...though I can tell you he goes through 4 boxes of lager a week at between £14.00-£18.00)
So at the age of 52 on a cold damp day in February just before his 53rd birthday he wants to give up smoking. This at this point was a financial decision. By the following day, and a slap around the head with a wet fish, we were sitting talking to his father .
 Lung cancer will inevitably kill him very soon.
 So this Friday we are not just going to junk shops we are going to the E-cigarette shop to buy Lee all the kit for vaping. Yes. I have bought him all this before. And No he did not get on very well with it and put it all in the bin. Now? well he is giving up smoking. That is an end to it.
 I am paying! It is me who works the crappy job. When it is all added up I am working whilst Lee sits in the garage and drinks and smokes the money. Put like that it is a no brainier.

That was my yesterday, and now I have today to get through.

It is Saturday 9th February and I was going to a vintage fair at Bradford Cathedral. Firstly I was put in to work all day. Then there was a drastic weather warning...just listening now to a list of fallen trees and flooding. As well...a supervisor called last night to change my hours to afternoon and night shift, so I could have gone to the vintage fair.

Lee does not even want to get the car out. It is so bad with rain and wind that it is not a good idea to walk Monza either. .....So what happened with Lee giving up smoking again?
Friday as always we went to Otley. I wanted to go straight to the E-ciggy shop. Lee wanted to get there on the way around.....so this we did after a few junk shops.

We walked into the shop into a cloud of perfumed vape. Clouds of different smells being expelled from the lungs of the young assistant. The whole shop was a happy cloud. I do not smoke so it was a bit of an eye waterer for me, Lee loved it and that is why we were there. So ten minutes later I left just under £50.00 lighter on my credit card and Lee had a new silver E- Cig which came full charged. The young guy filled it all up with tobacco flavoured vape liquid and in ten minutes he was already to start making clouds of his own.
We walked to the church and Victorian arcade, and by the time we were crossing the road to the 20p shop lee was vaping like a professional and exclaiming...
"hey! this is right good. OOOH! I like this. I'm getting a good kick from it...."

So on we went doing our Otley day until it came to the supermarket part where we buy some lunch and dinner and then cue for cigarettes. I was deluded again. I thought the vaping was instead of smoking. No not at all apparently. It is as well as smoking. We still cued for cigarettes and I am still paying £10.00 a pack.
"ah can't just stop. Ah needs te cut down. Ah can vape in between cigs."

I asked father directly if he was still smoking. He said he "had cut down" and was only smoking half a cigarette a day. I also know he lies. It is way too late for father and it really does not matter now. He is on his way out. That is what I get for asking a direct question to father. I know he is lying and smoking as he always did. I could smell it all for a start. He had two strokes and a very bad accident in the 1970s all of which he survived. When we went to see him in hospital he had been sneaking out in his pyjamas to smoke, unhooking himself from the machines to do so too.

Lee has had a vape kit before. He has said all this before too. I really thought he might give up this time, but I do not hold out too much hope. I have worked out that half of the money I earn goes on drinking and smoking. I do not drink now and have never smoked. The other half of the money goes to council tax, utility bills, Monza dogs medication, and the mortgage. We scrimp and save on food and clothes. I thought stupidly that this realisation would make Lee want to stop. Nope. .....
As far as going on holidays and days out even a meal out goes...there is no chance of any of these things. The decision I have to make now is.....Do I really want to live like this?  Is it worth me working to pay all of this? Working to pay bills and mortgage is fair enough, surely there is more to life than this? I know there is!  Remember it was me who went straight back to a cleaning job when I should have been "off sick" myself having just come out of hospital from surgery to remove cancer.

The big question that this throws up is Do I really want to end like father ?  And the big answer is NO.  So it is quite simple. Lee stops smoking and we get a life together or he continues on his own and I get another life for myself.