keep shady. It's tough to synchronise when one of you is following the pattern the drugs take in his/her body and the the other is carrying on working. I do a ten hour day of pretty physical work, leaving before Jan wakens. When I get home she's usually just hitting a good period and I need a nap. By the time that's over and we've cooked our meal and eaten it Jan is ready for bed and I'm fully recovered. At week-ends we can synchronise better. Because of my long days I get a three day week-end. Plan was for one of the three to be the time to build up my private business but cancer has pushed that idea firmly onto the back burner. I'm wishing as hard as I can for your alpine adventure to be as great as you hope. The question of when to call for help is always a big one. Just before her emergency admission a couple of years back Jan woke up with awful pain (That'd be the bowel cancer finally getting beyond interrupting her digestive system into causing more violent symptoms). I rang the out-of-hours GP service and made myself go all professional (When I worked in mental health I sometimes had to arrange hospital admissions for patients). I can hear myself saying "She reports this pain as excruciating. She is a mother of three children so she's not unfamiliar with pain. I take her use of the word excruciating as a