Yebo everyone and I hope you are keeping well.

We had a great Christmas and New Year in between power cuts and the heat. Jay’s parents were down from Zimbabwe to join us for Christmas and we discovered the beauty and majesty of 30 Seconds, a board game that is more than guaranteed to either start a debate, argument, hysterical laughter or in my father-in-laws’ case, total speech paralysis. We also were playing pretty much in the dark using head torches which didn’t add to the cutting edge aspect of the game.

My sister-in-law Gaylynn also visited which was great and returned to the UK looking brown as a berry as it had been ridiculously sunny. She also managed to be in Botswana just in time for Maya the puppy to get stung in the face by some creature or eat some noxious mushroom so we had major drama with a hyperventilating dog that looked like Mike Tyson had given her a few right handers. Some antihistamine and lots of water sorted it out eventually but it was pretty stressful.

Otherwise I have been doing the usual stuff - trying to organise chemotherapy and get it shipped over to Bots or brought by someone, which can be interesting. Thankfully I found a use for Facebook and the bush telegraph works pretty well. Because the NHS no longer has any “Duty of Care” in my case I now have to source my own drugs. This means hitting the internet and buying drugs from websites that are registered in weird and wonderful places like Fiji....

I managed to get the first part of the Chemotherapy (PCV) administered here in Gaborone. We all sit in a room as the solitary oncologist does his thing, administering Chemotherapy to about 6 people. It all works fine, except the anti-nausea drip is usually given to me and then I wait for 2 or 3 hours before I am given the Vincristine drip. So it makes the anti-nausea drug a little pointless, especially when the woman next to you is eating a pizza....ah well thankfully I am not someone who throws up easily. And to add insult to insult to injury you get charged the equivalent of £6 for a bloody cotton swab so the whole process costs a fortune.

The other two drugs I sort out myself. Anyway because I am a cheapskate I decided to save £200 and buy the 10mg version of Lomustine, so instead of the 40mg version which means taking 5 capsules, I ended up taking 20 capsules one after the other. These bad boys make you feel nice and sick so I sat at my computer and read about the diamond mining industry Zimbabwe on the Internet as I reckoned I might as well give myself a good reason to feel nauseous. I felt like a cowboy downing shots of whisky, except it wasn’t nearly as fun.

Needless to say I have now found a website that sells the drugs in the right quantities, but I am still waiting for them to be shipped to the UK so I have missed my six-week Chemotherapy appointment already. To be honest, I hate taking Chemotherapy so I am not getting too stressed out about it. I have now embraced the Alternative medicine route and have been getting 50,000mg Intravenous Vitamin C drips, eating apricot kernels and have been sent some Cordyceps and Reishi Mushroom spores from my cousin Katie in the UK. Below is my daily diet.

I figure that I might as well try whatever is out there and everyone seems to be full of ideas, so if you have any suggestions of alternative medicines or therapies etc, keep ‘em coming. As long as this doesn’t include paying a Tele-evangelist who promises to cure me by accepting payment via Visa, then I am receptive to most ideas.

My body is still falling apart and I have wounds that just will not heal at all, which is frustrating and my darling wife spends an hour each day dressing wounds on my feet. She has become a wound specialist by default, and slowly but surely we are getting on top of the situation. We have been lucky in that Bex, my Occupational Therapist from Stanmore in the UK has been incredible and sent out everything we need in terms of dressings. My hair is also starting to fall out so hopefully a few industrial size doses of vitamin C will get if growing again.

Talking of hair removal I read that some members of the Amish community in Pennsylvania have victims of attacks in involving cutting off hair that have been perpetrated by, wait for it, The Mullet Brothers. I nearly fell off my chair laughing at that one.

Several weeks after reading that little nugget I did fall out of my chair. We drove 10 hours from Gaborone to Mooi River where my aunt, Leigh and uncle, Kevin have a lovely farm. I also have an aunt, Claire who lives in the area as well as my grandmother who lives in Howick. My sister Kim was over from Australia so it was great to see her too. Anyway I managed to fall backwards, crack my head on the floor and adopt the Lotus Position. My uncle and I thought it was pretty funny, but Jay and everyone else nearly had a heart attack. As you can see I maintain a sense of dignity throughout what I have optimistically labelled my “stunt”. Others have simply have questioned my wheelchair technique or just called me a tool. You decide.

Jay is keeping well and has started swimming regularly to get fit. One of Grant and Siobhan’s friends has a 19m pool at his house which is great for training and means you can actually swim up and down and complete laps. Otherwise Jay is keeping well and we are both trying to make impossible decisions every day in terms of our future. Jay does worry me a bit with her continual (losing) battle against the wilder elements of Botswana. I am not talking about the snakes and scorpions, which thankfully we haven’t encountered, but the various moths, horse flies, mosquitoes and bugs that seem to have agreed at some point that it would be fun to fly at her. The battle continues.

Health wise, I haven’t had an MRI scan since August but then you have to ask yourself what the point of having one is. Firstly they are hugely expensive when you are paying for it yourself. Secondly, do you want to know the bad news? Apart from a massive hole in my foot I feel surprisingly okay given the prognosis in August.

Thank goodness I have such an amazing wife and family, who provide me with unequivocal support. Apart from a few weeks in total in South Africa, we have been at the Buckmaster’s since August which is pretty much six months of me in your house which must become difficult let’s face it. Luckily for them we have to leave Botswana for a little while and are heading down to Mooi River while we wait for our immigration status to get sorted out so they can get their house back for a while at least! 

I want to thank all of you who have helped us over the last six months, whether it is has been bringing out stuff from the UK, posting us supplies, providing us with accommodation for friends and relatives, baking us cakes, making me trousers, refusing payment for medical care....well the list continues. We both appreciate everything as it isn’t easy to be honest, but the last six months has restored my faith in humanity to some degree as some of the people who have helped us don’t know Jay or myself from a bar of soap.

Whilst ending on such a philosophical note I might as well utilise the feel good factor. Is there anyone travelling to Johannesburg in the next few weeks from London who is willing to bring over some supplies for us? Just thought I’d get that in there quickly.

If so please get hold of me on bruceallardyce@talk21.com or on Facebook. Take care.