Update 13 - 24th May, 2012

Just before embarking on a swim with a pod of about 50 spinner dolphins off the coast of Mauritius - as one does!!

My apologies for the break in communications.  Emma finished her treatment at the end of February and then she had a month to recover before we set off for Mauritius for 2 weeks.  We were then in Tunbridge Wells for Easter with Emma's parents and then almost immediately off to Edinburgh to surprise my Mum for her 70th birthday.

Mum's 50th (!) in Edinburgh

Easter break in Tunbridge Wells with Granny and Papa

We had a wonderful and amazing holiday in Mauritius.  Emma's health was good and we all ate and drank far too much under the all inclusive unwritten rules of gluttony!! We then enjoyed a lovely Easter in   Tunbridge Wells (where the all inclusive rules appeared to rear their ugly head again) followed by our sneaky weekend trip to Auld Reekie (Edinburgh for the 'furriners') to celebrate Mum's birthday.

We are now back and have got our noses back to the grindstone.  In total disarray at the moment as we are having our kitchen gutted and remodelled.  We are camping in the playroom at the moment which is very glamorous.  I think the low point was when we had a metre wide and metre deep gap under our back door and had to do the washing up kneeling at the bath.  Unfortunately the guy we bought the house from was at best totally incompetent or at worst a crook.  We are having to add foundations, re-wire the place, new gas main, strengthen the roof etc etc.  NIGHTMARE!!  How ever we are getting there slowly and have great builders.

On the health front we have mixed news to be honest.  Emma's oesophagus is looking good post her January / February chemo and radio therapy which is fantastic news.  However, they have found a couple of very small spots on her lungs that have shown some slow activity since the last scan.  Clearly these need to be nipped in the bud and so Emma is currently going through the usual barrage of tests and scans mainly done by Porsche 911 driving Sean, whilst they decide what is the best course of action.   We see Emma's original oncologist (Gazza!) next week, but the most likely course of action seems to be another bout of chemo.  They just need to be careful with Emma's bone marrow because of the cumulative effects of chemo.  So we are at the waiting stage at the moment and I will update the blog as soon as we know more.  Once again sorry for being so slow to update this (VIV!!) and I will do better going forward.

Love to all and God Bless.

Andrew

PS - Elisabeth W - we saw you in the back of Scottish Field in your glad rags - your life must finally be complete!!