If it's not brain damage then it means that the cancer is still there, squeezing her brain and ultimately sure to trigger new seizures. If that happens it means two things:another course of mania inducing steroids and that the radio-therapy has done NOTHING. And, in fact, it could mean another thing too; that Kelly refuses further treatment because she was right all along and that her quality of life would have been much better without all the "treatments" she's received over the last 18 months. She would not have been harrowed, her soul destroyed, her mind scrambled and she could have enjoyed her life without encountering the failings of the world: the mendacity of the law, the inequality,cruelty and institutionalised ineptitude of of British health care and my own failure as husband, lover, protector and human being. I had hoped she would never find out. But a crisis has no secrets.

Nothing

There seems to be no level of care between nothing and strapped howling to a ward bed in Haringay. There is a good case for saying that there is no real mental care available, nothing, at least, until you blow up and then there's a ward bed and a ton of after the fact drugs; a chemical cosh to calm you down. And then you're off out there again until the next time you cant face it any more. Kelly is a blisteringly intelligent woman with a strong interest in social issues and a lot of savvy friends and a large and motivated family behind her. If she has been ignored, if she has had no treatment, if she has nothing then what happens to most people with mental illness. What chance do they have?

This is how mental health treatment doesnt work: Kelly is in the throes of an unusual manic episode or rather a classic breakdown triggered by recent, awful events but also by the effects of the steroids she has been taking to avoid seizure. This is a known side effect even in people with no known history of mental illness.

Her three options are: do nothing, spend time in a respite home (effectively the same as doing nothing but in a different room) or I could have her sectioned on a ward with the seriously distressed. She hasnt seen a psychologist or been prescribed any drugs.

There is nothing: she's not mad enough.