Desmond James Rodgers (1933 - 2008)

Grampy Des with Oliver and Lucy, September 2007

It is with the greatest sadness that I have to write that after a short illness Hayley's Dad died on Tuesday.

About three weeks ago he was admitted to hospital with relatively little concern. However tests revealed that he had advanced lung cancer with secondary tumors.

For the last few weeks we have spent much of our time down in Wiltshire so that Hayley could visit her Dad as often as possible. Some relatives were kind enough to let us have their house as long as we need it.

On the Wednesday before he passed away, Des, his partner Nancy, Hayley and myself took part in a service at the hospital chapel which was attended by about a dozen other close family members. In the service the vicar blessed and gave thanks for the relationship of Des and Nancy. She then blessed our upcoming marriage and blessed Hayley's engagement ring and a ring I chose for the occasion. Finally she performed what would normally be the first part of the wedding ceremony which is to ask who gives Hayley away to me. When she asked, Hayley's Dad said loud and clear "her father does". He then passed Hayley's hand to mine.

It was an emotional occasion, a mixture of immense sadness but also happiness and gratitude that we were able to fulfill our dear wish that Des should give Hayley away.

In the final days Des just wanted to come home from hospital, but sadly he died the day before he was due to be moved. He died around breakfast time just as Hayley was dropping off the kids to go and see him. Agonising though it was for her that no-one was there with him, he did not suffer and it seems he died peacefully.

Hayley was always close to her Dad, the apple of his eye. At Lucy's Christening my Mum told Des how glad she was that I had found someone who made me so happy and who was a wonderful mother to her grandchildren. He simply said "She's the best." I couldn't agree with him more. Des was a friendly, jovial and kind man who has passed all these qualities on to Hayley. He can never be replaced, but I will do my best to love and cherish his daughter who he has passed into my care.

The weird and the wonderous

I've had an odd couple of days.

Yesterday I had what politicians would call "a frank exchange of views with line management". I'd call it taking unfair verbal pounding. In all my 21 years in industry I left work yesterday more stressed, and indeed distressed, than I can ever remember. I must have looked depressed when I got home as a friend of ours who was there immediately offered to babysit so Hayley and I could go out for the evening.

This morning, still feeling bewildered and beleaguered, I was weighing up whether to go to HR or to first write up the events that had so concerned me, when the said manager asked me for a chat. This turned out to be an immediate apology for the events of the previous day which they admitted they hadn't handled very well. It was the least expected but most welcome turn of events and this magnanimity went a long way to improving my disposition.

Then this afternoon I had an MR scan. It's the one where they slide your whole body inside a long tube. I was completely relaxed about the whole thing. Before they slide you in they lay you out carefully, place headphones on your head and ask your choice of station. I went for Mark Radcliffe on Radio 2.

But the moment I started to enter the machine I realised just how incredibly claustrophobic it was going to be. There is a button in your hand to press if you want to come out. That in itself was a reassurance. I quickly decided that with nothing really to visually focus on, closing my eyes and relaxing as if lounging at home was the best strategy. Of course I had to simultaneously try to keep very still, but this worked well.

The noise of the machine is not as horrendous as some reports I'd heard. Maybe they have improved in recent years. There were lots of long beeps and buzzes and chugging sounds but nothing alarming. I was in there about 20 minutes I guess, which is a long time but after each scan the operator talks to you saying "another scan of about 2 minutes about to start" and the occasional "are you feeling OK?". After a while I felt quite relaxed. In fact at one point a trailer for "Little Britain USA" came on and I almost laughed!

Afterwards while waiting for the CD of my images I got chatting to an older couple after assisting them with the coffee machine which just happened to be the model we have at work in the conference rooms. We chatted away about my kids and about when their kids (with the same age gap as mine) were the same age. As the conversation meandered, I learned that the recycling centre at Worcester has a special repository for windfall apples. The man speculated that the staff take them away in the evening to make scrumpy. A lovely notion.

When I got the CD of images I got chatting to the radiographer, asking about the long list of medical questions they ask before they admit you and how they might affect whether you can be scanned. I learned about various heart pumps and fluid drains and how they can or can't be accommodated. Fascinating stuff.

Finally this evening when I took the images to my consultant, he couldn't get his fancy laptop PC with Microsoft's latest operating system to view them! Clearly not very PC-literate, even if I'd trust him as a surgeon in the operating theatre (as indeed we already did when he operated on Hayley a few years ago), I ended up taking his laptop off him and trying to get the damned software to run. After overcoming a few hurdles it kept giving a software error that was too application-specific to decipher. So I took the CD away and arranged to go back next week when they can send him the hard copies. The consultant couldn't say anything to me without seeing the scans. When I get invoiced for this lack of diagnosis, perhaps I should invoice back for not quite fixing his PC and call it quits.

When I got home I managed to view the images myself on my PC (running Microsoft's previous operating system). I have no real idea what most of them show, though my spine is very clear in several of them. It's an eery feeling to be looking inside my self in such a literal rather than philosophical sense. The whole scan experience has actually been strangely awe-inspiring and uplifting. And though I'm not quite sure what to make of these strange images on my PC, I do at least know I won't be buying Windows Vista any time soon.

New Zealand's out then

As we enter a wet British autumn after a wet British summer, my mind sometimes starts to turn to sunnier climes and dreams of raising our children away from headlines of stabbings and a life of scraping money together to pay for a mammoth mortgage on a modest home. I'm sure we won't do it, but some days it seems irresistible.

I didn't help when a former colleague now living in Australia recently sent me photos of himself surfing in the Australian winter. (That's winter, not summer.) We also have friends in New Zealand who send pictures of the expanse of green in which their children play. Compares favourably to the postage stamp we have in our back garden.

But perhaps it isn't meant to be. Yesterday I was given a sign! While I was at work contemplating the fabulous mountain biking in New Zealand over my lunch, Hayley was at home giving Oliver some kiwi only to find he came out in an allergic reaction. He complained of his mouth hurting and then his face started to swell up. She had to give him piriton but even by the time I came home in the evening his left eye was partially closed, though he was happy enough by then. We can't be 100% sure it was the kiwi but it seems to have been the culprit.

So maybe New Zealand just isn't meant to be.

In the blink of an eye

About a month or so ago I noticed that Oliver was blinking in a very pronounced way and quite frequently. It gave the impression that perhaps he couldn't see well. He would do it when watching TV but also at other times.

When I tried to ask him whether he could see OK he said yes. Probably not the best question to ask a 2 year old. I tried other ways of enquiring, but sometimes just planting the possibility of an answer in a two-year-olds mind is enough to prompt it.

We took him to Hayley's (and I guess Oliver's) GP and she recommended he see the nurse specialisaing in children's eye conditions who visits the baby clinic. (I forget the correct term: "opthalmic nurse" maybe?) Oliver had seen her once before as a toddler because as a baby he had one eye that opened slightly more than the other.

He saw her again today. On this occasion he had to look at pictures across a room - from about 12 feet say - and tell her what they showed.
A van. "Postman Pat's van."
A boot. (After a long pause) "Wellington!"
The pictures became increasingly small until for the last one he said "I don't know. You tell me Mummy and I'll tell the lady."

The conclusion of the examination was that he is fine and that the blinking is probably a nervous habit he will grow out of.

So maybe one of the answers he gave me had some truth after all. "I just like blinking Daddy".