Storyline: Thinking in Autumn Colours
From the horse’s mouth
In 2017, I was 63 years old, enjoying life both at home and at work. In fact, I was enjoying my work more than any time in my almost 40-year career. Other than a minor heart condition that I had developed in 2009, I was pretty healthy. Diana & I were beginning to explore more of the world as we prepared to move – in a couple of years – into the next phase of our lives: retirement. As a matter of fact, Diana had already retired a year or so earlier which made some extended travels possible.
One evening, we again discussed our future plans over dinner, and Diana talked about her research and the plans she was making for us to travel around the world, taking train trips where possible, immersing ourselves in different cultures, geographies and cuisines. It suddenly came to me: “why don’t I retire now?” We already had financial plans that indicated we could manage it if we were careful, Diana was ready and itching to go, I was in a position to terminate my contract, and we could be off.
“Besides”, I somewhat glibly thought, “we never know what may happen in the future. Let’s do it while we can”. After very little more discussion, the plan was set. And we were off to the races. Of course, it wasn’t quite that easy; it took a while to disentangle myself from work, but we did start to travel to new places, and confirmed that we enjoyed it.
Fast forward to 2020. Three weeks in Morocco ended just as a strange new virus began to appear in the news. Diana planned and booked most of a 5-week trip to Europe. Not exactly exotic, but it was time to visit old friends and some places that we had never visited. It was also time for our annual physical examinations and off we went to see the doctor. I was called back in a few days later and told that I had leukemia. A bit of a punch in the gut, but the doctor told me that it was most likely a slow-progressing chronic condition with a 20-year survival rate of about 64%. “Hell”, I thought, “I’ll be in my mid-80s if I end up on the right side of that statistic. I’ll probably die of something else before then anyway”.
Now, Covid-19 took over and I had to go through some more tests under the supervision of a hematologist/oncologist who soon confirmed that I had Chronic Lymphocitic Lymphoma (CLL)…a type that accounts for around 80% of chronic lymphomas, confirming my family doctor’s thoughts. The bad news: being chronic, there’s no cure. The good news, it’s often years before patients suffer any symptoms, and when symptoms do appear, there are lots of treatments that control the disease. I was to just go ahead and continue life as normal until I needed treatment. Biannual follow ups with the hematologist would determine the growth and speed of growth of CLL cells in my blood. But any treatment would still be symptom-based. Of course, there’s lots more to it than that, but in essence, that’s what I was looking at.
Diana and I talked about this, and agreed that, as much as possible, we’d just ignore it and get on with travelling. Except we were now locked down due to Covid-19. Diana had to expend at least three times the effort to secure refunds for the Europe trip bookings than she had making them in the first place, and due to her hard work, we ended up only about $300 out of pocket.
I was immunosuppressed due to the CLL, and from a health perspective, we are pretty conservative anyway, so going out except to shop for necessities, and for walks around the neighbourhood was out of the question. We even started using grocery delivery services. Covid had thrown everyone for a loop.
Later in the summer, doors to the outside world started to reopen and opportunities to travel locally began to open up. But being concerned about potentially exposing ourselves (and me in particular) to this potentially deadly virus, we weren’t comfortable even going on hikes an hour or so away. “What about washrooms?”, we thought. “How often would they be cleaned? What if the person before us had contaminated them?” OK, we were paranoid and we still are, only more so given recent events that I’ll get to.
One day, Diana, strategist & planner that she is, said, “you know we’ve been looking at camper vans for years now and have put off getting one until we find international travel more onerous than enjoyable. Well, it looks like it’ll be years before we may be able to safely fly again. Maybe we should consider getting one and doing our cross-Canada travel now rather than later.” The story of how we ended up buying Doranya is written elsewhere in the blog, but by mid-September we were proud owners of our home on wheels and planning lots of itineraries for the late fall and following spring. By this time, too there were reports that Covid vaccines were being developed much sooner than originally forecast, and the future for our land-based travel looked bright.
Of course, what followed was more lock-downs and short-lived attempts to lift them. Apart from a couple of trips to visit my sister, a five-hour drive away, where we stayed physically distanced and slept in the van, Doranya remained parked in our driveway.
Winter finally gave way to spring, and once again we hoped for some respite from lock down. Once again restrictions were lifted and we managed a two-night road trip that just whet our appetites to get on the road.
(We actually managed a few trips in Eastern Ontario, between home and Ottawa, and one in Southern Ontario in between lockdowns – D)
Summer came before we could see an easing in restrictions, and after an almost constant, rolling update of an itinerary that would have us on the road for as long as possible while still getting home before snowfall, we thought we were ready. Well, Diana was ready, but apparently, I was not.
Interprovincial travel restrictions were lifted, and we were ready to go. We decided to leave the following week. I had a medical appointment on the Saturday morning before departure, after which I went home and began to feel very fatigued. I also developed some quite severe abdominal pain and a mild. Hmm, symptoms of Covid? But how could I have contracted it? The virulent delta variant was not yet common. Anyway, I went to bed, following health guidelines to stay home unless symptoms got worse. Well, they didn’t get better. Diana and Diliana, our daughter, both urged me to go to Emergency but I held out for a couple of days, then went to
the local Covid assessment centre which was only open on weekdays.
Unsurprisingly, the doctor told me that he didn’t suspect Covid and said it sounded like a gall bladder problem and I should get myself to Emergency as soon as possible. A week later I was home, minus most of one gangrenous gall bladder and plus one drain tube to collect any secretions from the part they had to leave. I remember joking at the time that I was now a collector of medical conditions.
Another month went by before the drain was removed and I was cleared to travel. To say that Diana and I were desperate to get on the road would be a major understatement. Our hoped-for three- or four-month road trip to and around the east coast would now be compressed to two months. And that only if the weather held.
On August 15, 2021, off we went, fridge and freezer full, clothing for all seasons and light of heart.
Well, our plans were foiled again. And by what appeared to be a new medical condition to add to my collection. And here (finally) is where this story begins… in the next post…
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