This is a very overdue blog update from me. I have left the updates to John and must say
that I’ve been pretty impressed with him for keeping everyone up-to-date, which
I hadn’t expected.
I’m not going to apologise for saying that we have had a
bugger of a year – almost off the bugger scale.
October last year we were given John’s cancer diagnosis, followed by the
devastating news in November that the cancer is advanced and
life-limiting. Chemotherapy followed from
January to May which became debilitating as the sessions progressed, and then
the months of rebuilding strength and stamina levels which we perhaps weren’t
prepared for. John’s return to work was
more taxing and challenging than we had anticipated. John’s mum had heart surgery in April, which
went well, but she was taken ill and died suddenly in July from liver
cancer. We then cleared the family home in Canterbury
and it is now on the market. John’s
issues at work became more difficult, and as he said in his recent blog, he has
now left and is contemplating what he’d like to do to amuse himself in the
future.
John continues to have 3-monthly oncologist monitoring
appointments. He has had a few aches,
pains and general niggles recently, and we had convinced ourselves that we
would be faced with bad news at today’s appointment. This is very out of character for us as we
are usually positive and optimistic. The
relief we felt when we were told that his PSA level had actually fallen marginally
was difficult to describe. We had
probably put too much pressure on ourselves as we have a holiday booked and had
convinced ourselves that we’d need to cancel if the PSA level had shot up and
urgent treatment was required (stupid, in hindsight).
We have always been happy and content to spend time at home
when not at work, but with the events of the last year we have felt the need to
get away for (even if we say it ourselves) a well-deserved holiday. So tomorrow
we are off to the Maldives where we last visited 27 years ago for our
honeymoon. We intend to do very little
other than chill-out, read, swim, eat, and possibly partake in the odd
cocktail. Right – packing awaits!!
Honeymooners 27 years ago……
