Mac and I moved to our bungalow in 1982 and Mac died in January 1995. We had our last near fatal holiday together in Majorca in 1985 when Mac had a major heart attack which meant a three week period of hospitalisation in a Private Clinic in Palma.

In Spain once a patient comes out of Intensive care the relatives have to take over the nursing care and even though I was in a wheelchair I was no exception. I was given a bed in his private room but no nutrition for myself. I had to get a taxi to a local store and buy provisions for us both as Mac did not like Spanish food. There were several English people admitted to the clinic during the time we were there and I still receive Christmas Cards from three of them 25 years later. We all developed a strong bond by supporting each other while stranded in another country.

Quite understandably this was Mac’s last foreign holiday although he was quite willing for me to have a break with a friend as long as I arranged his care whilst I was away.

The six months preceding Mac’s death was a very traumatic and time-consuming period of our married life and but for the support of our local Crossroads Team I doubt whether I would have coped. Trying to change oxygen cylinders from a wheelchair is not something I would recommend but it was a regular necessity day or night or as necessary as there were long periods when his breathing was extremely laboured with his lungs needing assistance.

This part of his illness was attributed to the fact that he was a heavy smoker when we first met getting through as many as sixty cigarettes a day. I now see the harm that cigarette smoking does to people near to me and I am eternally thankful that I have never had the need or desire to join them in this occupation.

On January 25^th 1995 Mac had to be taken into hospital with chronic heart lung and liver failure but I knew when he left our marital home in the ambulance he would not be back. I visited him that evening but had a phone call at fifteen minutes past midnight on January 26^th to say he had died. Of course I was saddened but confess to feeling some relief that his suffering was over and I could now concentrate on coping with my disability without having to be constantly responsible twenty four seven for another seriously ill person in my household and having very little other support.