Mum

My comments, in my last entry, saying that I had no fears about my mum's physical well-being, may have been premature.

She has just returned home, having spent the last three days in hospital. She was admitted after I became concerned that her breathing was more laboured than usual. I feared that it might get worse and her GP, who came out an emergency call, concurred. This was on top of the dryness of her scalp turning into something very nasty and leading to her having to stop taking the anti-cancer drug, at least for the time being.

Antibiotics seem to have improved things a little but the next few weeks will determine whether the breathing difficulty was due to a treatable infection or a permanent change in her condition. There is also, obviously, a concern that the cancer could start to spread further, now that she is no longer taking the drug. We are currently exploring additional care, to allow her to remain in her home, which is what she wants to do. Hopefully, this will be just until she returns to normal but we are all, including my mum, conscious that it could be longer term.

Right now, I am remaining optimistic and assuming that our journey will go ahead in May and June, hoping that she will either recover, or be sufficiently independent to enable us to go with a clear conscious. If the change in her situation is more permanent then we will be facing changes that will affect much more than our journey. A key check point will be a week on Friday when she is scheduled for her next appointment at the lung cancer clinic.

All of this prompted me, the night before last, to contemplate a future without her. I have done so before but, restlessly laying in bed, realised that I have always distracted myself with practical things. For the first time, I found myself imagining a future without someone who has loved me unconditionally for fifty years. It is almost exactly twenty-one years since my dad died. Before that, we had what I assume to be a typical son and mother relationship – or perhaps I should saw son and Jewish mother relationship. The difference between a pit-bull terrier and a Jewish mother, goes the old joke, is that the pit-bull eventually lets go. Since my dad died, as an only son and only really close family, I have gotten to know her very well. It is difficult, and scary, to imagine her not being there.

My biggest concern

One of our challenges, both before and during our journey, will be managing my mum. She will be seventy-nine this year, lives on her own, and I am the only person really close to her. I visit once per week, staying overnight, and telephone every day. When I am away, I still telephone every day but it is usual for her to tell me that she has missed me when I return. I guess there must be something about knowing that loving support is only thirty minutes away.

Telling her that we will be away for two months is made more difficult, at the moment, because her morale is under attack from the side-effects of the drug she is taking to fight lung cancer. The beneficial effect of drug has been such that I no fears about her physical well-being while we are away and luckily her mind is still as sharp as a tack. I am, however, concerned whether I will, from a distance, be able to help her to maintain the positive frame of mind which she has had for so long but that has lapsed more frequently in recent times.

But maintaining her morale during the journey is actually a lesser concern that over the months preceding, as fear of what might happen is so often worse that what does. There is no question that she will, once she knows, be keen for us to do the journey. But she is, she will readily admit, a worrier, who has been known to keep herself awake at night fretting about: if's, but's and maybe's. I fear that she will cope less well with the anticipation of us being away for two months than she will when we are gone and we are, together, dealing with the reality.

To avoid the anticipation problem, we had resolved to delay telling her until much closer to the start of our journey. But as our planning has picked up steam and we are publicising our journey to our friends, it seems only fair to tell her sooner rather than later and, frankly, avoid treating her like a child. We are about to go away for week and plan to tell her when she returns.

As I said earlier, I know she will be very supportive of our endeavour but will obviously have mixed feelings. I know it will be tough for her but this journey is something that has become very important to me and, to be brutal, the timing with respect to my mum's health can only get worse rather than better.

Challenges

Yes, we would like to raise a lot of money for Medecins Sans Frontiers because we think they are a really worthwhile charity. We would be thrilled if lots of people would donate a penny or cent for every kilometre we have walked or maybe 10p per kilometre if you are feeling flush!

Gary and I will donate 50 Euros every time we are given a free bed to stay overnight on our walk. You can help by having a look at our route. If you know anybody who lives close, perhaps you could contact them and put them in touch with us.

For an extra donation we invite you to be creative and set us challenges to complete on our walk - we will consider anything as long as Gary keeps his clothes on!! The larger the donation, the more we will consider.

Another way to raise money could be through a company who wants to promote their product across Europe. If you can think of any, let us know. We are open to having our clothes and rucksack merchandised, road test a new product or any other reasonable scheme somebody comes up with. There must be a marketing manager out there who is interested. Put them in touch with us please.

House sitters

I am very happy to say that we now have secured house (and garden and fish) sitters for the period we are away. Jenny and Curtis come highly recommended and I really hope they will enjoy their time here.

Of course the length of our route has changed again - thankfully it went down. So at present we are talking round about 1200 km a little over 800 miles and you can have a look at it here . I am sure experienced walkers have a very organised and much more scientific approach to preparing for a long distance walk . But it is quite fun to make it up as we go along (an approach which probably suits me more than Gary!) it makes it more ours somehow.

Do you know what I am looking forward to most? To post the exact distance when we have completed the walk and are back home. That is how I am motivating myself as well as through the response we are getting from everybody we tell about our plans. It is really uplifting to have so much positiveness and support. Thank you guys you are going to keep us going on rainy days up steep hills.