It's no wonder that it's been four months since I've updated this web page. An amazing, and in some ways scarifying, four months, that I wouldn't wish on anyone. David, whom I've been engaged to for almost ten years now, had been suffering stray aches and pains for about a year ...   oh well, muscular, we thought. What else can we expect at our advancing years? But eventually got to point of having it checked out more closely ...  A real case of opening floodgates. Soon we were immersed in batteries of tests, Xrays, scans, biopsies, blood tests, CAT scans, PET scans, and a swift move from GP, to muscular/skeletal specialist, to oncologists and finally to the haemotologist, who pronounced the dread 'C' word. Turns out that David has Stage 4 non-Hodgkins Lymphoma (a resurfacing of an old seemingly cured bout of lymphoma about fifteen years ago) which has now wrought a long-awaited vengeance and come back as secondary bone cancer!

Where all this is leading, we don't know. Prognosis uncertain, but now he's into the chemotherapy merry-go-round (more round than merry, I might add) for at least six cycles of 21 days each. Within each three week period, a first few days after being hooked up on a drip in the Cancer Centre while they (his words) 'pump me full of poison,' a few days when he feels OK and then it hits and the next stretch is totally wretched. Finally, for the third week, he feels normal, and then it all starts again with the next cycle.

Immediate implications for our plans were inevitable. Cancelled the planned trips to Canberra and Brisbane for family holidays, and have put our bookings for next year's eight weeks in Germany on hold. Maybe. Maybe not. The advice was not to cancel until we see what impact the chemo is having, but it's all looking very uncertain. David, being David, stays positive and hopeful, and now, having lost all hair, wears a variety of Irish caps, French berets, and beanies and looks quite dashing. Again, to quote: "All I need is a baguette, a bicycle and a string bag of onions for the authentic Gallic look."

Meanwhile, of course,  I write. Always my preferred coping mechanism. So there is a extensive collection of poems that enable me to make a sort of accommodation with our new way of life and expectations. While I haven't circulated any of these, I've been pleased to have some international acceptance of various other short stories, in places as far afield as Malaysia and USA's Idaho, the last of these in a literary journal with a wonderfully quirky title, The Potato Soup Journal'. Great also to have been short-listed for the prestigious ACU Poetry Prize, even though I didn't make it to the $10,000 first prize  (sigh ...) but it did lead to publication in their book, Solace. Also short-listed for the Short Story Prize in the WAM Festival competition. Also have had several poems published in journals like Studio and Polestar, and others accepted in three forthcoming publications. It all compensates for the 'Thank you, enjoyed this, but not suitable for our ....' messages that also come my way. Often.

So what happens next in our lives is very unclear. We soldier on, trusting and praying that all will be well, that the next scans will show a significant reduction in the tumours, and that somehow we'll still be able to fulfill all the plans made for 2020, including my cherished invitation to the opening of the Passion Play in Oberammergau, as an Australian press representative, and time with all the people we were intending to visit. Who knows?