Reality Check

Last Sunday I 'went down' as they say in football circles with what can only be described as a particular nasty and virulent stomach bug. Without going into the ins and outs, I felt like John Hurt in Alien but without the little monster popping out of my stomach and running amok around the house. Anyway come Monday morning and I didn't feel much better but I didn't want to 'throw a sickie' for two reasons, firstly I knew that because of staff/manager holidays I needed to be in the office and secondly I had an eleven o'clock appointment.

Now the appointment could have been changed except that the client in question is one I have known for the best part of twenty years, they are a couple who always give me a couple of presents at Christmas and for them to want to see me at all, without the meeting being post-accounts production, was unusual. I know the word 'nice' doesn't really mean anything but they are the most unassuming couple you could wish to meet. The wife has been in nursing all her life, is a sister at Poole General and once, very memorably, said, "If that Virginia Bottomley comes to my ward I'll offer to give her a dry shave!" The husband is an electrician by the trade. Their business has provided them with a reasonable income over the years and for the past ten years or so he has worked as and when he wanted to really.

Anyway they turn up for the meeting early, and in typical British fashion apologise, and we sit down in the board room. "How can I help?" I ask. They then proceed to tell me that Ted has cancer, he begins chemotherapy in two days (today as it happens) and the specialist has given him the 'usual' spiel about 'it might not prolong your life, but we won't know if we don't try'

I didn't know what to say, this is the third time this has happened to me with a client in the past year - I posted about another client telling me exactly the same thing last October. They then told me how in the past two years they had enjoyed three wonderful holidays abroad and that they now resigned themselves to being in God's hands. The last two clients to tell me they had been diagnosed with cancer are both fine and look as healthy as anyone I know, I know that it is a dangerous thing to mix business and pleasure but I hope that it really is success for the third time for this couple.