Momentum

the big push...
Originally uploaded by hb19.

Well sheer momentum carries us toward London and the embassy in search of new visas. We jump on a plane tomorrow and head for london in search of two small pieces of paper that will allow me to change my job and us to continue to live in the states for another year or two at least (at which point we'll have been here WAY too long ) and will have to head for the hills, new pastures and the distant horizon.

The last week has been a frustrating one with lawyers visibly making it up as they went along, travel agents booking everything but travel, work piling on the pressure for me to do more and more, fly more and more and resist less and less

But we're here - with arms full of documentation and hearts full of optimism, now helpless against the current of the process and hoping for the soft landing we've been promised.

Easter Dog

Mutton-009
Originally uploaded by betsyweber.

Why have I not dressed my dog as a chicken for easter? I mean it's an easy and obvious thing to do and I'm not one to miss either the easy or the obvious.

Heading to see family in the UK this week and (time, passport, funds and Visas allowing) heading from there on over to Belgium to see even more family - this time Judith's.

Being back in the hometown is always a little odd - you do the old haunts and then realise that, well you've done the old haunts and you're still only a day into the trip. So this time I'm going to hire a car and go speeding off through the moors to places where I can shoot some decent (and indecent judith and weather permitting) pictures and reaquaint myself with Bronte country and the very hills that bore Compo as he hurtled hilariously downhill on a homemade contraption. They do a marvellous afternoon tea in 'Last Of The Summer Wine' territory - much better than the tourist trap that is 'Heartbeat Country'

Okay this is in danger of becoming whimsical... I'm off for aerobic pilates on a rebounder and a reformer; how very German.

Madness

CIMG0279
Originally uploaded by kingjen.

Spent the day going back and forth with lawyers who seemed to be making things up as they went along. First Judith had top come with me to London, then she didn't, then she needed her own appointment, then she needed to share mine, then she needed a new passport, then she didn't, then I was a snarling, pissed-off dog of a man, then I wasn't.

It's been a horrible, horrible, horrible day and I promise to explain all next week when this is behind me and I have the freedom to talk about all that's going on.

Other than that things are good. We have heat and hot water again - though it's 16c outside even now (weird for November here); Jude should be landing as I write (she was in Calgary the past couple of days) and the world is generally a mild and mellow place - barring the madness of two women who seem intent on driving me to (more drink)

So nothing to really express other than my frustration and fervent hope that soon, very soon, all of this will be behind us.

One year on

This blog has now been up and running for a year - and as I stall heading for work in a bid to get on a less crowded train I'm acutely aware that at this precise moment a year ago my doctor was ushering me into a small, private and quite well furnished room to tell me that I had lymphoma. He told me that I was in for a miserable six months - regardless of which kind of lymphoma the biopsies threw up.

Of course I didn't know how miserable but my view of cancer treatment had been shaped by chick flicks and brave sporting tales and so I was expecting vomitting, weight loss, sudden dashes to the hospital, grave faces and ultimately the buying of hats and searching for that dark tie neccessitated by funerals.

Looking back on the year it wasn't nearly as bad as I'd suspected and the people around me had feared. The literature - and there's lots of it - lists all of the most dire consequences of each and every drug. The people you see in the waiting room as you get ready to be stuck for blood for the 100th time look frail and tired and afraid.

Friends fall into three groups - those who look past the cancer and insist you come for lunch, those who embrace the cancer and insist on advising you what you should be eating for lunch (usually preceeded with 'I read this article') and those who retreat to e-mail and wish you well from a safe distance.

But the weird thing is that life goes on. You're still curious as to whether that catty girl will finally get the slap she's been needing on America's Top Model. You're still anxious to see that the project you've been working on for months goes through without a hitch. You're still irritated and amused by the same things (the closest I came to dying was with laughter - at a Home Video show which aired a clip of an elderly French woman falling repeatedly into some shrubbery - had it not been for Judith's quick intervention I would have suffocated)

And I guess that that's the only message I have for anyone today coming out of a doctor's waiting room with the word lymphoma, Hodgkins or Non-Hodkins attached to them. Get yourself a doctor that you can trust, get yourself the best treatment available (I had R-CHOP Velcade) and then get on with living life - because really that's all there is.

A year today

For Digger
Originally uploaded by honey3bun.

It's a year today since I had the scan that first told me that I had cancer.

A year since getting home and finding a message from the doctor that I should call straight away.

And a year since I sat on this chair, at this computer trying to figure out exactly what I had ahead of an 8am appointment the next morning.

My biggest problem today is that the heating went out in the apartment (a man is coming at 10am) and that I need a catsitter for thanksgiving (I need to be in London for a Visa thing)

The odds of my being here were slim Slimmer even than my odds of still being here next year - but to date all is good and I'm doing fine.

I get to see Judith moving into the next stage of her life (she left at 5.30am this morning for the last of a bunch of interviews in various Universities)

I get to go to the gym (!)

And of course I get to curl up on the sofa with my wife, a glass of wine, some veggie chips and the final weeks of all of our favorite TV shows knowing that, really, the key to happiness is found at home.

It's odd being a year on from last November. And from those first two months of tests, more tests and constant uncertainty. It's odd making plans for the future. It's odd thinking that I'm still writing this bloody thing 9 months after my 'dead by' date passed.

But here I am.

Time I think for a rousing chorus of "I'm Still Here" - the Shirley McClaine version I think