-
- I have not said
all this before maybe now is the time. I was diagnosed with breast
cancer in 2002 I had surgery in dec 2002 the following year 2003 I
done the chemotherathy and radiotherapy. I then returned to work as
a staff nurse in my local community hospital then in march 2004 I
was really poorly after a few weeks I was admitted to the local
general hospital and had most of my bowel removed with a diagnosis
of bowel cancer , I said to my husband o well we beat it before so
lets do it again!. I am a practising catholic and my religion is
very dear to me but I felt and was very ill I did not have the
energy to pray which bothered me a great deal.I did not realise
quite how ill I was. My daughter bought me a cd player and my
husband brought me in my bocelli cds. I spent hours literally
listening to sacred arias which my man was praying for me and i just
listened bocelli did it for me I listened and prayed with every aria
and it felt so good I knew my god was with me and it felt so good.
God has been very good to me I have been to the last three concertys
in lagatico to see the man who prayed and gave me so much comfort
I love him very much and would like to say Thank You so much to him
I go into a diffrent world whilst listening to him he has been sent
by god .
-
- by Christine
- I thought you
might be intrested in a postscript to what Christine
has already told you, or more to the point what she didn't tell
you, if you like this is my story, you see my wife is a
very modest person and left out a lot of the story.
-
- As my
wife has already said it all started in 2002 when she was first
diagnosed with Breast Cancer her first reaction to being dianosd
with cancer was the comment "why me" after
sevaral minutes of deep thought she said again "why me, but
why shoulnt it be me". As she said after many months
of treatment she returned to her job of being a nurse looking
after many patients who were termily ill with cancer.
-
- And as she
said after returning to nurseing she was admitted
to hospital only to be diagnosed with Bowel Cancer this
second dianoseis came as what I can only describe as compleate
bombshell to me when I was told by the surgeon who had operated
on Christine, his next few words will stay with me for ever
"Your wife is very seriouly ill, we do not expect her to
suvior the operation because she is so weak, and before
we opreated we were not sure she would be able to sivor the
opration the next twenty four hours will be absoutly crutial because
she is so weak"
-
- Well she did
manage to pull through and as she so often says
to me "I did with the strength of God and Anrea Bocelli - they
were both by my bedside" from that moment on Andrea
became became a very influental person to both our lives,
in fact I often think Andrea is the third person in our
marrige!
-
- In some ways
this next part of my story becomes so relevent to the first
part of this story, Christmas Day 2007 my wife
had to work the early shift at her hospital, and for the first
time in nearly forty years of marrige we were spending Christmas
day on our own. We would not normaly have the TV on because the
rest of the family would be at home, however because we were on
our own I looked to see what was on the TV that evening - one
programe stood out straight away, BBC Andrea Bocelli life story,
we were absoutly thrilled so that evening we sat down with great
exciment to watch this programe. At the end of the Andrea
life story we both said what a wonderful story, for me it
was the concert in Andrea home village of Ljatico, but
where was this magical Theroto of silence, where was
Ljatico, I turned to my wife and said " I dont know how but
I promise you we will be at the next Andrea Bocelli concert
in 2008.
-
- With that I
immeadelty started serching for information on the Internet
after a few hours of serching I managed to find your
wonderful website www.bocelli.de and
signed up Christine as a member, I then found Fourone
ticket agency and sent them e-mail asking how we could
obtain tickets for Andrea next concert I was so thrilled to
have managed to find out all of this information within a few
hours of watching Andreas life story.
-
- Within the
next few weeks we received a reply from fourone saying that they
would add us to their list and notefiy us when the tickets would
be available, from then on it was a matter of keeping a look out
for information from you. You can probly inmange how excited we
was when we received an e-mail from fourone to say we could now send
for tickets. And when the tickets arrived we were
compleatly blown I thought to myself this is the first stage of over
"Mission Acomplished" the next problem was where
would would we stay, how would we get to the concert, luckly we
have a good freind called Maria who speaks Itaylain who has
a holiday home in ligourio about two hours drive from
Ljatico so we asked if she would like to come with us to the
concert she immeadelty jumped at the chance to be able to see
Andrea live.
-
- Fast
foward to July 2008 we flew into Pisa I rented a
car and we all drove down to Lecria where we were staying
for a few days, on the sunday morning of the concert I was
so nervious that some thing would go wrong would the - car
break down , would we get lost and arrive to late, so I made
sure I would give myself enough time, as it was there were
no problems we arrived in Ljatico at around 12 -30 in the
afternoon found somewhere to park the car and wandered into
the square found the little cantina and sat ourselves down orded
our wine and food and spent the whole afternoon talking to the
local folk and enjoying talking to the diffrent people who were
arriving from various countries the around the world I well
remembering siiting there thinking is this true but also
remebering mission still nor accomplished. then eventual came
the time to start to walk down to Thero silenze we
arranged for Christine to be transported down to the concert
using the wonderful Medjorie people who were so kind and helpful.
Haveing jioned Christine we found our seats and waited for
the big moment to arrive for the concert to begin again thinking
am I dreaming this are we actualy here! my thoughts wnt
back to chrismas 2007 and wacthing Andrea life story I had to
pinch myself to see if it could be possible true, but it was,
because when Andrea walked onto the stage I turned to
Christine and said here's your main man by this time Christine
was crying I asked what was wrong she replied nothing I just so
happy to be able to see Andrea I then said I told you
we would come and hear and hear Andrea sing in the Threato
of silence I sat back and said to myself mission accomplished!
we have thank God managed to attend every concert since and what
wonderful memories we now have of these concerts particularly
this year again we arrived early and spent the day in Ljatico
and what a day it turned out to be! I was told that Andrea
would be coming to the square to meet Gina Lobbridge I went and
told Christine that Andrea was comeing to the square she would
not beleive me but I purswaded her to walk to the square and
sure enough Andrea arrived with that Christine started to cry
one of edley loacl ladies asked Christine why are you crying are
you unhappy Christine replied I'm not I'm so happy I never
thought I would get so close to Andrea! however it got even
better for Christine Andrea walked past where Christine was
standing and she managed to touch his shoulder I think
there are no words to descibe her joy that she had actualy
managed to touch Andrea and has luck has it I manged to take
a photograpth of this great moment this photograph is now beside
her bed and she wakes up evey morning to see this photo.
-
- We realy do
hope there will be more Andrea concerts at the Therto
and One of our next great ambitions is to see and hear
Andrea sing in Assis just like he did last Chrismas when I
look back at the last three years I think what a wonderful
period in our lives the opportunity to visit the beatufil
country of Italy and to meet the wonderfull people of Italy and
what joys Andrea brought to Christine and to think it all
started with Christine listning to Andrea Scraed Arias in her
hour of need and watching Andrea Bocelli life story.
-
- Thank you
Renate for all of the good work that you do we both realy look
forward to the updates that you send us and to all of the
comments that get posted by Andrea fans God bless.
- by Tony
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