Accomplishment

Well the marathon came and went - and we both completed it ! The sense of accomplishment was amazing there were tears when I finished and I was just glad I was on my own as I managed to regain my composure before I met up with Rebecca and our friends who had supported on the day. I was elated and I knew my Dad would have been so proud of me ! I felt so close to him as I crossed the line. This allowed me to quantify just how far I had come. Yes, there are so many sad times to our story, but there are so many good times too and these take on even more importance knowing what we do know about how precious life is. Completing the marathon raised £1500 for Sue Ryder hospices and I so pleased that I managed to give them something back. The marathon was hard without doubt one of the hardest things I have done but it was something I had to do. It times like this that I so miss my mum as she was before her illness , I could tell her what I had done but there was no flicker of acknowledgement from her for it and I know she would have loved to share my pride in the achievement.  The week after the marathon passed in a bit of a blur - aching legs and tiredness like I had never known but nothing could dull my sparkle !
The onslaught to Christmas began again. I remembered helping Dad with his Christmas cards the year before and reflected on the huge loss of the last year. I am not a Christmas person in fact I don't really like it , heading to a log cabin with my nearest and dearest would be my ultimate guilty pleasure at Christmas. Hiding away until it was all done with ! Having Rebecca means that Christmas has to be celebrated , gifts have to be exchanged and brave faces have to painted on ! She loves Christmas and despite my dislike of it I always go all out to ensure it doesn't rub off on her. Having such a small family can be a blessing at times but it makes Christmas much quieter  and I know Rebecca finds that hard.
While looking for Dad's address book to get some family addresses for Christmas cards I found some letters from the containing health care ( CHC) team - I hadn't seen these before and It would appear that just before Dad passed away CHC had assessed my mum and decided she wasn't eligible for health care funding - what did this mean and what was the CHC funding they mentioned in the letter ? I started to look in to this and from information on the Internet I found that CHC is a huge resource of money that can be used to pay fully or partly for a persons care dependant on their health care needs and limitations. Interesting - I hadn't really been aware of this before and certainly no one had ever mentioned to me that Mum had been assessed. Mum is unable to verbalise her needs or requirements so I was interested to find out more about this assessment process and how it had been carried out, had anyone been there to articulate Mum's needs and requirements ? I was going to have to do some research about this process and see what it meant for mum long term ? I was not really happy that I hadn't been involved in the process and was even less happy that I hadn't been made aware it was happening. I was going to try and find out why this was the case and the implications of it. This was the top of my list to assess in the new year - we just Christmas to get out of the way now !