I CANNOT tell you how awful I feel or look but more importantly how angry I am…no, make that helplessly furious.

Since getting home almost a month ago the promised help arrives every other day; the nurses every morning and apart from one glitch with the ambulance, in hospital treatment is running smoothly.

Or almost. As of last time I am invisible to my doctor who has not visited once nor provided any repeat prescriptions and I’m down to about a week’s worth of the many I take daily.

The nurses can do no more than keep asking him to see me and he always says tomorrow but it never comes, neither do the other doctors in their new health centre who all seem to take their holidays at the same time.

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At the best of times my doctor overbooks and it is not uncommon for patients to wait up to three hours to see him. Of course there’s never an apology – it is simply proof of his poularity as he sees it.

Meanwhile he has been seen passing by my house to visit neighbouring patients but never me.

The praise I’ve heaped on the French system starts to look a little sick now in more ways than one but I remind myself it is the doctor not the system.

His poor surgery manager gets it in the neck from everybody as she tries to help but his arrogance is such I suspect he doesn’t care and simply passes her out to the front line to take the flack.

It is also not simple to change doctors in rural areas plus he also controls the three main ones.

They say he’s the best doctor in the area but I dispute that. It takes more than clinical expertise to earn that title. It takes empathy but above all compassion and I have yet to see either of those attributes from him. He knows I’m alone, obviously at times very frightened; a foreigner whose French deserts her when most needed and yet still he doesn’t come.

In desperation I have asked my formidable daughter-in-law to demand a conversation with him. English, she grew up in Monaco, had the best education and speaks flawless accent-less French. She will appeal to the undoubted snob in him while flaying him alive. That is if he deigns to come to the phone.

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Meanwhile, my son Pierce, also used to controlling and managing situations, grows increasingly frustrated and impotent with the whole affair; unable to whisk me back to England; unable to fly to my side.

And still unwilling to see the different woman his mother has become…too nervous to risk the journey back yet too frightened to continue here alone.

How strength fails us when we need it most. A stupid thing to say of course, for we never anticipate it will, thank God, for then we’d spend our whole life living as I am now – fearful, weak, trembling. And that’s no way to live, or die.

Pierce says he has found a solution but at 8pm tonight I was already too tired and drug-irritable to listen and for once he agreed to talk when I’m ready. Poor soul – he’s doing his best through his own fears and for once I’m finding it hard to help him. I must try harder; after all I’m still the mother and that’s my job until the end.

More and more I think of my own mother – see her clearly, head thrown back and that laughter. Laughter was always part of our lives and stories, great stories. I hope I leave some equally good memories for Pierce and he’ll tell them to his girls and so on and on we go.

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Sorry, maybe I’m being a bit morbid – last night wasn’t good, but I’m trying to face the truth and yet still be positive. It’s hard.

In fact it’s bloody impossible most times. Those are the times I need someone to laugh with. Those are the times never to be alone. Those are the times I need my mother.