When I was finally diagnosed with incurable PCa I first told my two children. They had known the cancer diagnosis but we had been hopeful after a CT Scan that it would be on the cureable side. This was abruptly ended when the bone scan revealed bone mets in a number of places. My daughter, naturally upset, confused, angry, came up from London that same evening. The following day I was due to take my son to a wedding reception. I suggested to my daughter that we find a restaurant near to the reception and enjoy a relaxed meal and chat. This was the first visit to a little place in Humberside, Barton upon Humber. We had a lovely meal, shared emerging thoughts about the future, cried, and began the process of getting our collective head around what faced us. I said that night we should return here once a year to mark the passage of time, not knowing how many I could achieve as the prognosis had been 18months to 2 years.
Last night the three of us returned to Barton for the fifth time, celebrating four years survival, enjoying probably our best meal ever and still here, still battling, still living. It also marked the end of the worst couple of weeks I have experienced, the tumour flare, now definitively in remission, just normal aches, pains and tiredness. I hope I can build up my resilience once again.
So four years on and still counting. I have said before I am not under any illusions that this will last forever. I know my circles are decreasing and I know too what Bazza calls the uncertain certainty of the end game will arrive one day. But each year I have a dinner date to remind me I am still going strong and as long as we can we will book our annual dinner, always around Valentines, always in Barton, always at Elio's, to mark the passage of time, the accumulated memories of another year. I am glad of two things here, the restaurant remains open (it is a most inconvenient journey of about one hour from home but it's just fate) and it serves good food, fancy revisiting a place where the food was poor! Appropriately valentines as I am with the two loves of my life, my two children!
Have a good day everyone!