You are all familiar with that lovable, cantankerous, humorous cheerful Grandad?

Well, underneath lurks another part of him that rarely surfaces — the one who takes all the pain, tribulations and misery.. He’s a sort of lurking Gollum.

Well this Gollum is in trouble. For the last while he has been in almost constant pain – pain he had never experienced before. One night the pain was hitting like a needle jabbing into an ear. It happened every ten or fifteen seconds or so and each time he winced. Herself thought he had developed epilepsy and was having a fit until he explained the cause. He is drowning in Nurofen and Paracetamol and neither are doing much good. Pain can be an ache or a sharp pain. It doesn’t care. it is nearly always confined from the eyes to the neck. Last night the left eyeball took the brunt for some reason.

Then there is the fatigue. Getting out of a chair requires considerable resolve. A walk of any more that a couple of dozen steps requires the aid of a crutch. Even with the crutch, the short walk from the pharmacy to the coffee shop required two rest breaks panting against a garden wall. This is fatigue on a level never previously encountered. Naturally it’s accompanied by severe pain.

The mental state of our Gollum isn’t too hot either. It is coming up to eight in the morning having not had a wink of sleep all night because of pains that wouldn’t go away. As a result he spent most of the night contemplating a tumour that is growing on his upper lip. If they remove it they’ll have to remove the upper lip altogether leaving just the lower jaw to do all the talking and eating. This is cheerful stuff to ponder at four in the morning. The only hope is that the treatment will kill it first. Apart from that he is pissed at the string of appointments . They have doubled – instead of a trip to Vincent’s every few weeks they have doubled up each one so they come in pairs of consecutive days. All are timed for peak morning rush hour.

As well as the physical fatigue there is the constant need to sleep. Last night is proof the desire doesn’t always receive. Sleeping is confined to a few hours in bed [if lucky] and a day of falling asleep in the armchair.

Incidentally, Gollum has little interest in computers and has been in charge for a while, hence my silence for the last few days.

I’ll try and keep him in his box henceforth.