Dear Jeremy Hunt (again)

Further to my letter of 11th January 2016, I am writing to you once again to ask you to reconsider your political (and apparently, personal) stance on junior doctors and the NHS. 

Last year before the election, my friend Z and I discussed politicians and the way they were being vilified in the press. She believes that politicians, in the main are good people who try to make the best decisions they can for their constituents and that the press' treatment of them was very unkind. As you may deduce, she is a kind and gracious lady. Me? Not so much, but I am trying to be a reasonable human being when I write this. After all, you catch more wasps with honey than vinegar.

I wonder if you truly understand what it is to be afraid for someone you love?

Your wife, when you broke your leg, attempted to move heaven and earth to get you sorted. When she couldn't, she took to the press in a damning indictment of the service you received. The fact that she was trying to get help from the wrong institution is neither here nor there really. This is old news anyway.

The point is, she should understand where I'm coming from right now. 

You see, the news regarding my beloved, is terrible. The very lovely oncologist told us what the other consultants were unable or unwilling to say. Next Tuesday, Dave begins his chemotherapy; and frankly, the treatment regime is brutal. If he can endure it, we hope it will give us time. I said I would eat the turkey he cooks for me on Christmas Day...and let me tell you, turkey and I are not fond of each other. I promise you if Dave puts that plate of food down in front of me on Christmas Day this year, I will eat every bite of turkey joyfully and with deep gratitude.

I wonder if you wake up in the middle of night to watch your wife breathe or when you touch her hand, she curls her fingers round yours and kisses them without waking?

The afternoon appointment we had a couple of weeks ago was pretty much the last in the clinic. Dave and I sat waiting for the results of the PET-CT scan in the large, empty waiting room. However, we were not alone. Our phones' volumes were turned right off, but they both vibrated like sex toys, all the messages of love and hope from friends and family, on Facebook, from blogs; locally and from around the world. The waiting room would not have held all of the people who sat with us. 

You politicians seem to thrive on ramming home the point the world is a dangerous place and the most dangerous of all people is The Stranger. In my experience, The Stranger is the most kind. Hospitals are filled with strangers. Some of whom we will get to know well, some of whom we will never see again. 

I wonder if you have ever cared for someone? Not as in 'liked a person', I mean cared as in feeding them, washing their face, keeping them company as they tell you the same story, they told you yesterday.

My father after a lifetime of smoking, succumbed to lung cancer six years ago. I was lucky enough to be with him in the last two months of his life and the experience of caring for him changed me. Caring for a stranger, wanting the best outcome you can provide for someone who you know little about, is one of the highest callings a human being can answer. To do so and incur great financial debt, to work long and hard hours, to know it could cost intimate relationships...how much more sacrifice do you expect?

You may argue that your job entails that you make hard decisions and there are consequences. 

Dave and I are now in the hands of your hard decisions and I need you to make better ones. I need the Strangers who will be looking after us, to be fit and well, to be strong so that they are focussed completely on buying us more time together. A couple of weeks ago, I gave Dave his birthday present (his birthday is in June), I didn't even know if we'd have that. We are acting on the assumption I will need to go out and get him another present for his actual birthday, but I'm still desperately afraid that we won't even have that.

Stop picking fights with the people who are trying to look after us. Please. Help them, so they can help us.