has a silver lining.
It's over five months since I wrote the last post on this blog and today is the first time since I wrote it that I have re-read it in full. I don't think that I appreciated at the time just how much I would miss New Zealand and my life there. In fact from the moment I arrived back in Scotland the idea of not going back was banished from my mind. I think that I must have been having a severe dose of reality when I wrote the post and that my optimistic me was on hold for a short while. In fact I think that until last week I was actually sub-consciously more concerned about my cancer than I've been since 2010 and, perhaps, since I was diagnosed in 1998.
Today's reality is that I shall not be returning at the end of this month as I usually do and, indeed, it may well be that I shall not return this summer (New Zealand's summer that is). But then again I may. For many reasons it seems unlikely that I shall be able to resume my Godwit existence but I'm more optimistic now about a return to my other spiritual home.
My cancer treatment has been under close review since I returned and a couple of weeks ago I had a complete set of scans which confirmed that no prostatic cancer tumours have developed in my abdomen or chest. So the situation is that my blood count is increasing rapidly but is still low enough for hormone treatment to be delayed for a while in order to achieve maximum benefit. Apparently that is because I am quite fit and the treatment has not had an adverse effect on me in the past. So it looks like taking any decisions about returning to NZ for the time being are still on hold.
However who knows what will happen in a few months and I am now back in an optimistic enough frame of mind to believe that I shall be seeing The Family again in their own setting and that I shall again play croquet on the hallowed Marewa lawns: perhaps not this summer but certainly the following one.
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