long time no see!

It's been a while since I blogged and some people started thinking that maybe it was all over. Well it isn't. Things have been moving and changing and I have spent the last three months or so running between Israel, Geneva, Houston and home. I am currently on a severely delayed flight to Tel Aviv, only 5 days after landing back in the UK.

So, where are we? The surgery in May went by the book and the.doctors were dead pleased. Then, a couple of months later, my father's markers shot up and a tumour in his liver was confirmed. He also has growths in his lungs, but we are not supposed to worry about that.

So, oddly, he has pancreatic cancer but not in his pancreas. He.is getting various types of chemotherapy and his markers have since dropped massively, which is good, but our only hope at the moment is for the tumour to shrink enough to ablate it.

In the meanwhile, we are pleased that my father has made it to 15 months since diagnosis, although that means nothing without effective treatment. He has gotten weaker, he gets very tired and is often confused. This is not a problem for me most of the time, but other people find this very difficult. In many ways, he is not the man he was, although in other ways he is even more the man he was. Overall, though, it feels like the slog is long and we just have to bear it.

In about October, I realised that if I wanted to spend time with my parents (and my mother REALLY needs support) I would have to make some changes in my life. I could not be counted on to take responsibility for anything, so I gave up my remaining commitments. I can't get a job, because I would not be around for long enough to start it. So I have been volunteering a lot and am considering some distance learning. But yes, my life is interrupted. I do not resent my family for it, but it would be nice to end the hiatus. But for now, I will do this. Let's see how it goes.

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