Table of contents for Cancer

1. This only happens to other people…
2. DEATH: The Final Frontier
3. Slice and dice
4. Friends in time of crisis

If there was ever a sure way to find out who your friends are in life, a personal crisis will be the time when this is truly determined. Up until recently, we would have said we have quite a few friends. These ‘friends’ include people with whom we work, people we have met along the way in our new life in England, and also those people we know online. So, with Anja being diagnosed with cancer and being told she has very little time to live, you would think that ALL of our friends would come to the fore.

This assumption, however, is wrong.

It now seems that we have only a few friends. A handful of people have stoood out heads and shoulders above the rest as true friends, because they have shown they really care about us. They phone and email every day, they offer their 24 hour assistance and they are ‘here’ for us whenever we need them. These friends have helped us cope with this whole crisis and they continue to do so, every single day. They offer support to us not only in the form of words, but also with actions and support that really does make a difference. They offer to do our shopping, our cleaning, our ironing and whatever else we feel we need. One of them is even going so far as to help in chasing up the funeral requirements, because I am finding this particular aspect very hard to deal with, and so they jumped in to help. And they are doing this on top of their own, hectic lives and with no ulterior motive whatsoever. They do it , they tell us, because that is what friends are for, to be there when it really counts. These people bring tears to our eyes and make us smile in the midst of all this pain we feel ourselves going through day after day.

And people online, some who we do not even really know that well, send us emails and open their hearts to let us know they care. One of our closest friends online is even going to visit us from another country. When I asked her why is she coming to England - a holiday or business trip - she replied, ‘because I want to be there for you guys’. This is true friendship. This is more than words and shallow sympathy. It is what real friends do for one another.

But for many of our so called friends, this has been a time when they have chosen to stay away from us and not make that phone call, not get in touch, not even send an email. A part of who we are does not mind this and even understands it. We realise it is difficult to know what to say to people when really what can they say? But, we also believe that when the going gets tough, sometimes in life you just have to go that little bit further, no matter how difficult it may be. You need to make an effort and step out of your comfort zone. And then we have a few of these so called friends who do nothing more than act as spokesperson for the wider fringe of friends and in doing so, they make out that they are in our inner circle of friends and they are really helping. In reality, they are using this situation to be seen as the ‘good’ person, the one who is helping the most, the shining light! Truth be told, they are the worst of the lot, even worse than those who do not get in touch at all.

And how will treat these so called ‘friends’ when, inevitably, I run into them at the shops, on the street or by chance? Well, to be honest, and with how I am feeling right this minute, I have to say that I think I will be blunt, brutally honest and possibly even very negative. I am not one for confrontations, but I am also no hyprocrit. Why make out that I am their friend when I actually have ill-feeling towards them? Perhaps my body language and my lack of response to them will be enough to show them they no longer have a place in my life, but for one of two of them, I think it will be very hard for me to not take that one step further, open my mouth and give them a true account of what I honestly think of them and their lack of friendship when it mattered most.

Anja is not far from from leaving this world forever. She is a wonderful person, and even now in hospital she is forever ending going out of her way to help others. She is terribly sick, she is in pain, she is scared, she is terrified of what lays ahead and yet, even in this extreme time, she still gets herself out of her hospital bed and goes to help others in her own ward who cannot reach that item, who need hug, who need help, who need a friend. She has a sore face from all of her own tears, but this does not stop her from supporting those around her. She makes the nurses cry because she is so positive about the whole situation and she laughs in the face of death. And all of this within her and not a religious thought in her soul.

Anja is more than just my wife. She is my closest and best friend. And I am hers. Why? Yes, because we are in love, but more than that, because we both know we can count on each other, no matter what the circumstances.

To those people who we know online and who we class as our friends [you know who you are] thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support and your willingness to take that extra step, write that supporting email and in whatever way - let us know that you care! To us, you symbolise the meaning of friendship and show us that distances and differences in world times etc, are no barrier to showing how easy it is for friends to be ‘friends’ in the true sense of the word.

But some advertising goes too far. Sit down and watch TV for a night/day and take notice of what is advertised most. A few stand out in my opinion: toilet rolls, shampoos, new cars, shaving products, tooth cleaning products, perfume, car insurances and mortgage lending serices. I live in England, so maybe it is different in your part of the world, but I imagine you have certain products that stand out above the others, no matter where you are located.

And they are definitely way over the top. Take toilet rolls for example - a basic requirement in most westernised countries, but I sometimes wonder why they bother even advertising this product at all, when it is considered that we will buy them whether they are advertised or not. But not only are they advertised, over and over and over, they use all kinds of mind tricks to make us buy a particular brand. Andrex is a classic. They use a cute little puppy as their main theme and make out that the whole ‘wiping the anal passage’ experience is something we all should look forward to in our daily routine. Now, maybe I am a bit strange and miss the point here, but to me, the clean up operation after secretion is not the highlight of my day. And I certainly do not think of cute little puppies at any point during the process. In my opinion, advertisers would be far better focussing on the particular biodegrable qualities of their toilet paper and how it is made from recycled products, rather than trying to push some stupid idea that a puppy pulling toilet paper around the world is a good reason to buy.

And what about this whole shaving and toothbrush/toothpaste advertising concept? It’s crazy. You have everything from fighter jet pilots to astronauts, raving on about such things as Mach 3 and G-Force just to make us buy a razor! And the handles of these products seem to be the main focus more often than not. What’s that all about then? They try to mislead us into believing that they spend millions on designing these elaborate, sophisticated, high-tech handles in laboratories with hundreds of employees in ultra-white coats working around the clock, just so we can shave and brush our teeth more easily. Get a grip people [pun intended]. These are just everyday items that do not need wads of cash to be invented. Hell, I could probably sit down for one hour myself and come up with 100 designs for each - and they would work. Really!

The thing is with all of this, it makes me really think about why it is exactly that I buy one brand of product over another. For instance, if I am in the mood for a bowl of cornflakes, I will always buy Kelloggs and no other brand. Is this because I have been brainwashed by advertising though, or simply because experience has taught me that any other brand just does not taste quite as good [in my opinion]? I would have to say the latter in this instance, because I have tried others and do not prefer them over Kelloggs. Likewise, we bought a new car recently, a Citroen C4, [you know - the one where they use the transformer, dancing car as the advertising gimmick] and as much I think it is a great advertisement in terms of entertainment, it had absolutely no impact on our decision to buy this car. Let’s face it, there are too many other considerations when buying a car to be caught up in the advertising hype as well.

However, there are other times, and other products, where I think I am influenced by the advertising techniques. When shopping, I do go for the popular brands in many instances and this is solely because of the advertising, because of the fact they are a recognised name and I associate with them because the advertising has made me aware of their existence.

So, what to do about it? Nothing really! Except, just be more aware that advertising can easily mislead us if we let it’s ‘power’ lead us astray.

Don’t believe me? Watch this video below…

Big mistake it seems! Again, because of all the problems we are going through right now, I decided to pay by monthly instalments and therefore, have the money at hand for more important things, like looking after Anja and making sure she has everything she needs/wants. So, all the forms were filled in and a direct debit authority signed. I then forgot about it and got on with life. Simple. That is, until the date came where the money [a 2-month payment of $120.00] was to be taken automatically from my bank account. And here the fun began.

Instead of taking out the 2-month instalment, they decided to take the whole yearly payment [close to £500.00]. So, obviously a phone call was in order. Meanwhile, another quick check of my bank account to make sure I had all the details correct and another shock was waiting for me. Not only had they taken out a year’s payment but now another full year payment as well. So, instead of the anticipated £120.00 direct debit, I was hit with close to £980.00 being withdrawn. Now maybe to some people this is peanuts, but to me, it is enough to hurt. I am just really lucky that I have access to a healthy overdraft which covered this amount.

To cut a long story short, it has taken me the best part of two weeks to get my money returned to me. After several [as in lots] of phone calls, and having to deal with the first line of defense - the low paid telephone droids who all say exactly the same thing as they read from their prompt sheets time after time, I finally decided my patient approach was not working. So, I mentioned the Office of Fair Trading and this automatically shifts you up a notch and you become a Level Two complaint. This says a lot about a company in my opinion, that they actually have different levels of complaint.

And I have to mention something here that really annoys me when dealing with any company like this - the way they all refer to other departments as ‘them’ and ‘they’. Passing the buck. The way I see it, whoever you are talking to on the phone is the representative of that company and the royal ‘we’ should come into play.

So after two weeks, my money is now safely back in my account. But the issue is bigger than this. How do we, as mere customers, fight against this kind of behaviour? Some desk clerk makes a blunder like this and our whole lives can be affected. It can have huge ramifications. Even in my case, this money needed to be elsewhere and it is two weeks late for them now as well. So bank charges come into play as well, let alone credit ratings and bank security issues.

They promised to send me an apology letter and even some flowers. Surprise, surprise - neither have arrived.

How would you deal with this? And how can we stop it from happening again? Changing companies is not necessarily the answer, because they are all as bad as one another. Does anyone have a solution or as customers, are we just too small in this world now to have any means of fighting back?

Update: Sorry about all the typos in the original [I should check my posts more thoroughly] - fixed now.

Anyway, I received an apology letter this week and some flowers too, on Saturday.  That was nice, not a whole lot of point, but at least they tried and it is appreciated.

And then on Friday afternoon - another person from Accounts phoned and wanted the money back again! I couldn’t believe it, but then they explained - they had refunded the money to me 4 times! I felt like saying, ‘no, you cannot have my bank details again’ , but just couldn’t be bothered after the whole thing had finally finished.

And amazingly, they had their money back out of my account again by the following morning. To think, it only took them over two weeks to do the same for me.