Thought for today:
"On Boxing Day 2016, I fell seriously ill and was admitted into Airedale Hospital on the most crowded day of the year. Indeed, the waiting for admittance was so long that I was on a stretcher in the Emergency Department for nine/ten hours before I was allocated a bed.
After many tests and x-rays etc, it was discovered that my terminal cancer had transformed itself into another and more aggressive cancer and it would have been too late to act had its discovery been a few weeks later. Another six months of chemotherapy treatment was planned when my body was strong enough to withstand the treatment.
Over the next three/four weeks I twice came close to death and without mine or my wife's knowledge, I had a 'Do not resuscitate' placed on my medical file (which we later discovered that the hospital has the legal right to do without discussing the matter with you or your family in certain circumstances).
Eventually, I was placed on an acute 'end of life' ward where I remained for a further month before I improved enough to be discharged and to receive chemotherapy as an outpatient.
As I entered the acute side ward which held another three critically ill men and myself (each of which had terminal conditions), I noticed that two of them were asleep and the third man, called Alan, was sitting up in his bed and looking worried. Being polite I introduced myself. 'Hello there, I'm Bill and I'm pleased to meet you,' I said.
'It won't be for too long!' came the abrupt reply as Alan added,
'My consultant has just told me that I've only got another 14 days to live at the most, and I haven't had the chance to tell my wife yet!'
Naturally, this reply knocked me off guard. I later learned that the patient in the bed to my right had two months left to live and that the third patient in the ward had one month left and was going home to die before the end of the week. At that precise moment, I felt the presence of the Grim Reaper lurking about outside the ward, waiting to come and tap me on the shoulder also. I asked a nurse to close the door; I wasn't ready to see him yet!
A few weeks before I was well enough to be discharged from hospital and after Alan had died, I started to outline a new novel to write. I decided to call my latest romantic story, 'Fourteen Days.' Between my last hospital discharge and July of this year, I received some more chemotherapy treatment, and after Sheila and I holidayed in Cornwall, I have had four good months, many of which I have spent in our allotment with Sheila.
About three months ago, it dawned on me that this was the first year since 1990 when I hadn't written a book for publication, so I determined that I would write the story I had partly sketched out in the hospital, way back in February. I can now inform you all that book has been written and was published on my 75th birthday. It is written under my 'Tales from Portlaw' series of romantic stories and is available to be purchased in e-book format from Kindle and www.smashwords.com or in hard copy from www.lulu.com and www.amazon.com and www.amazon.uk with all profit going to charitable causes in perpetuity.
The story is about falling in love with another man's lover while he lays dying in a bed across the ward from you. Thank God for my mother's powers of imagination that I must have inherited.
In the New year, I will make this story freely available to read on my website as I have the other eleven 'Tales from Portlaw' stories." William Forde :November 12th 2017.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/758442
http://www.lulu.com/shop/william-forde/tales-from-portlaw-volume-12-fourteen-days/paperback/product-23404141.html
https://www.amazon.com./s/ref=nb_sb_noss/147-7713552-5519709?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=william+forde+fourteen+days
"On Boxing Day 2016, I fell seriously ill and was admitted into Airedale Hospital on the most crowded day of the year. Indeed, the waiting for admittance was so long that I was on a stretcher in the Emergency Department for nine/ten hours before I was allocated a bed.
After many tests and x-rays etc, it was discovered that my terminal cancer had transformed itself into another and more aggressive cancer and it would have been too late to act had its discovery been a few weeks later. Another six months of chemotherapy treatment was planned when my body was strong enough to withstand the treatment.
Over the next three/four weeks I twice came close to death and without mine or my wife's knowledge, I had a 'Do not resuscitate' placed on my medical file (which we later discovered that the hospital has the legal right to do without discussing the matter with you or your family in certain circumstances).
Eventually, I was placed on an acute 'end of life' ward where I remained for a further month before I improved enough to be discharged and to receive chemotherapy as an outpatient.
As I entered the acute side ward which held another three critically ill men and myself (each of which had terminal conditions), I noticed that two of them were asleep and the third man, called Alan, was sitting up in his bed and looking worried. Being polite I introduced myself. 'Hello there, I'm Bill and I'm pleased to meet you,' I said.
'It won't be for too long!' came the abrupt reply as Alan added,
'My consultant has just told me that I've only got another 14 days to live at the most, and I haven't had the chance to tell my wife yet!'
Naturally, this reply knocked me off guard. I later learned that the patient in the bed to my right had two months left to live and that the third patient in the ward had one month left and was going home to die before the end of the week. At that precise moment, I felt the presence of the Grim Reaper lurking about outside the ward, waiting to come and tap me on the shoulder also. I asked a nurse to close the door; I wasn't ready to see him yet!
A few weeks before I was well enough to be discharged from hospital and after Alan had died, I started to outline a new novel to write. I decided to call my latest romantic story, 'Fourteen Days.' Between my last hospital discharge and July of this year, I received some more chemotherapy treatment, and after Sheila and I holidayed in Cornwall, I have had four good months, many of which I have spent in our allotment with Sheila.
About three months ago, it dawned on me that this was the first year since 1990 when I hadn't written a book for publication, so I determined that I would write the story I had partly sketched out in the hospital, way back in February. I can now inform you all that book has been written and was published on my 75th birthday. It is written under my 'Tales from Portlaw' series of romantic stories and is available to be purchased in e-book format from Kindle and www.smashwords.com or in hard copy from www.lulu.com and www.amazon.com and www.amazon.uk with all profit going to charitable causes in perpetuity.
The story is about falling in love with another man's lover while he lays dying in a bed across the ward from you. Thank God for my mother's powers of imagination that I must have inherited.
In the New year, I will make this story freely available to read on my website as I have the other eleven 'Tales from Portlaw' stories." William Forde :November 12th 2017.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/758442
http://www.lulu.com/shop/william-forde/tales-from-portlaw-volume-12-fourteen-days/paperback/product-23404141.html
https://www.amazon.com./s/ref=nb_sb_noss/147-7713552-5519709?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=william+forde+fourteen+days
