Voyaging in new waters

I have not blogged for a while as I have been going through an unexpected medical issue which I have been dealing with over the last couple of months.  .My family and many of my friends are now aware of the new challenges that I will be facing in continuing to live my life as I want to in countries far from New Zealand, this blog is an update about that.   

After only a few weeks of arriving in Bangladesh with my husband for an adventure in a very different part of the world I discovered that I had a tumour on my brain.    I was very fit and well and the expectation was that it was benign.   I sought treatment in an amazing hospital in Bangkok after having a short holiday on a beautiful island in Thailand.  During the operation the surgeon found that the tumour was malignant melanoma and since then others were discovered elsewhere in my body it was not a good prognosis for me.   This was not the news that my family or friends expected or wanted to get. 

However, my own reaction to the news was not negative, it has not distressed or upset me at all and I have so far avoided any signs of a grief cycle,  I am in a very positive head space and am getting on with doing what I want to do while I still can.  My life is great and I feel fulfilled by the things that I have done in my work and leisure and where my family are at in their lives.  I have been living life to the full and I often feel great joy for how lucky I am to be where I am at the time.   Bangladesh is everything I thought it would be (good and bad) and so much more, .  My husband was loving the work he was doing there and we both were enjoying getting to know some more wonderful friends, how can you not get pleasure out of every day.    

We returned to NZ in the expectation we could easily and quickly enter the public health system to access expert, frank advice about prognosis and options.   My Dr was wonderful and tried to expedite this quickly for me so that I could make some choices about my future. As weeks started to go by waiting we were really disappointed that we heard nothing and were still waiting and reluctantly went private and got immediate appointments with the best oncologists for me here.  I got what I needed to know in two one hour appointments and I have now completed radiation treatment to manage the tumour that remained in my brain.   Other treatment options were not going to enable me to have the quality of life that I want or deliver any results that would be of any significant benefit and so in one weeks time I am excited to be flying out of NZ again to holiday in Italy with my two sons and then we will be returning to Dhaka in February to continue what we started there.  

I can't wait to get back there and to return to some sort of normalcy after the weeks of waiting here to finish treatment. I am not going to talk about illness in my blogs but wanted to let people that I know and love what is happening with me and to thank everyone who has been so incredibly loving, generous and supportive to both me and my husband during this time.  It has been another amazing adventure in learning about how amazing people are and how important authentic conversations are in bringing people closer together.  We have used this time to travel around the north island of NZ again and experience the great beauty of this country.  If anyone wants an amazing weekend with friends in Auckland go to Waiheke Island and rent a house with a view and eat and drink some fabulous food  Visit the volcanic cones in Auckland and eat fish and chips in a cafe by the sea - magic!!! ...

For those that are nervous about what to say to me, you can say whatever you need or want to say, but you don't have to say a thing as I am in a very good space and I am intending to do what one of my Doctors called 'courageously ignoring...'   I am not focussing on illness I am focusing on living life to the full as usual, but I am happy to talk about anything with you if you want to.

Merry Christmas to whoever reads this, we will be enjoying an Italian Christmas in Positano. 

From now on I will continue with my travel blogs.