The pain has gone.  I can still feel the nasty tumour playing but it almost tickles me now.  Inviting scratches rather than yelps.  The speed at which afatinib and now osimertinib have removed pain and improved mobility is amazing.

Now I just need somebody to invent a similar drug that works for decades rather than months.  For now, I’ll just get on with it.

Yesterday I spent time with Chris.  The first opportunity in five weeks.  His twentieth birthday weekend.  No football so I transported him to shops to spend his birthday money.  Leather jacket, football shirt and weekend bag among the things added to his FIFA purchase on the day.

I still see him as younger.  No longer a teen.  It’s a shock to the system.  I drop him off at his digs in Liverpool and his flat mates, or rather people in his student house who don’t actually life there, were preparing a roast meal and suggested we join them.  It proved to be a tasty experience with the culture of a nice glass of wine too.  The Young Ones this ain’t!

I then headed under the Mersey Tunnel and down the Wirral before crossing the Welsh border and moving on to Anglesey.  My right leg behaved itself and I didn’t need a stop.  Arriving at my sister’s holiday home in the dark I set to work on heating the hot tub, to discover she’d already arranged for the man on the site to do it for me.

I emptied my three days food into the fridge, made a cup of tea, attended to my Bell’s palsy eye with night time tape and went to sleep.

My plan for a couple of days is rest.  Minimal interaction with the outside world, blogs an exception.  Sit in the hot tub and ponder my situation,  the possibility of having to miss Australia and just take a break from it all.

I feel tired.  The pain, the uncertainty around the drug change, over 3,000 miles travelled in the American South West, everything.  It’s likely the next few months will be easier than the last few weeks.  These few days away from it are the start of me refreshing myself.

While knowing I’ve probably only got months before the next battle against this nasty disease hits.

Thinking About the Opportunities