The week is eerily normal. There are no results from the bone scan as Kathy wants to see us both in clinic on Friday - without Rose. We know there are secondary tumours on the lungs and the bone scan is to see if Rose's cancer has spread anywhere else. The outlook is already poor but with multiple secondaries it would be appalling. I try not to think. Instead I go on a school trip with Rose to Sydenham high street mapping the area and interviewing shoppers. It is raining and cold but my little group of girls are great and they distract me all afternoon. Rose loves it that I'm there and we have fun.
A boy called Henry Fraser from Dulwich College - a sixth-former and one of the first XV - has had a terrible swimming accident and has been paralysed from the neck down. Dulwich College has thrown itself behind supporting his family in the appalling fallout from this accident. Every day there is another initiative - fundraising events from the boys, a charity rugby match among the staff, an auction of promises, everyone desperate to help and determined to raise a huge sum of money to help them. I feel so proud of the school and I cry for Henry Fraser because today I can't cry for Rose any more. We have been on the receiving end in a tiny way of this kind of support from Dulwich and I love that in a school of nearly 2000 boys every single one matters this much to them. Maybe I just like big institutions. Which is good because when all this is over I'll probably end up in one.
