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.