Even after all this time?

 Hello,

Anyone still reading this? Probably not, but it lets me put down some thoughts from time to time whenever the subject of cancer crops up.

I lost my mum in June 2024 to a combination of COPD and lung cancer. Her lungs were basically buggered from years of smoking, and the addition of lung cancer just after she hit her 80s just didn't give her a chance, her lungs were done, the cancer never got to full fury, but what lung capacity she had, it grabbed from her.

I didn't write about it at the time, it hurt a bit too much, but I wanted to put a few thoughts down and also detail some of the outcomes of that.

I sat with her in her hospice care as she slipped away. She wasn't comfortable, as people often say, but she wasn't in terrible pain so her meds were mostly to calm her down a bit. She just got tired and faded away in a bed she wasn't able to escape from due to growing weakness. There were a few bouts of hallucinations and confusion/paranoia, but mostly she was angry and grumpy and fed up and scared. 

I can't shake the feeling even now that basically she died of malnutrition and dehydration, hospice care isn't about prolonging the life, just managing the process of dying, so there was no intervention like drips and feeding tubes when she started to lose her appetite and unable to hold a glass.. Even when we put it in kiddy cups with straws. No amount of persuasion could convince her to have another teaspoon of scramble egg... she was done with eating.

She was tough though, she was expected to last a week or 2, when admitted, but lasted far longer...I ferried over from Netherlands to England to take turns with my brother Colin and spent as much time with her as I could in shifts, sitting or sleeping next to her bed. 

She confounded the docs, by making it to her 83rd birthday, finally passing away a few weeks later, as I had left the room for a few minutes to make myself a coffee.... I came back in, sat down and realized she wasn't sleeping, she had gone... I honestly think she was waiting for me to leave the room so she could go... 

Losing a parent is hard, especially my favorite one, I never was close to my dad, who also died of cancer...Prostate in his case...some years before in his 70s. We were estranged for years, not really due to any great animosity or incident, we just didn't really get on with each other and didn't go out of our way to meet up. When I moved away from Scotland, the chances to meet up vanished and I wasn't especially troubled by that. I can probably write a book about what was wrong with my relationship with him, but who'd read it?

Mum though, I had kept in touch with all my adult life, she moved to England when I did, and was always around through good and many bad times... An independent resourceful women, but also kinda unlucky in her choice of men, eventually giving up on them as a waste of time. 

But she was the paramount grumpy old lady I hope one day that I can be half as grumpy. I miss her very much.

The time I spent with her as we went from chuckling conversations, to deep talks about life and dying, then long quiet times, gave me a lot of time to consider and think about the future. 

My wife and I had a fair idea of what we were going to do when we retire but that was 7 years away at least, maybe more if he wanted to keep the house and pay the mortgage.

I'll cut to the chase, at 60, and losing mum, I finally realised, finally, why did it take that long? That life is unpredictable and short. If we use genetics as any kind of marker, I might live as long as mum, so I had 20 years left. I had cancer once, and a few kinda risky illnesses and one disagreement with a car as I walked out onto its road, in my past.. But at anytime life can be over.. 

I started to work out the maths, how much was our house worth, even with the 200K left on the mortgage, 500-600K? hmmm there's some equity... is it enough? More maths, and yes, though it depends where? Spain, Greece, Portugal? not really... We needed to look further. Thailand, my wife Jirawan is from Thailand and we visited a few times and I liked it, but she had left  12 years before, did she want to go back?

I spoke with Jirawan, and she was a bit reluctant, not so much about Thailand itself, but timing, leaving before we'd put a full pension together was a risk, and I wouldn't be able to work in Thailand...But at 67 I get UK pension, about a 3rd Dutch State pension and 17years worth of company pension... which in total, is actually quite a lot...but only at 67

I showed her the numbers, and she agreed it could be done and that we'd live well if we could get a good price for the house and also all the stuff we'd have to sell to allow us to travel.. We started our plans.

So... the point of the "Even after all this time"... In Dec 2025, We moved to Thailand, sold the house, sold all our goods (including most of my prized guitars) and landed in Chiang Mai.. 

Thailand is lovely, really, but... I needed health insurance... there's a very good public system here, which I am allowed to use but have to pay for, and tbh its quite affordable as long as its not for anything massive, like emergency surgery, transplants or....hospice care.. which can be pricey..
So I sought out private health insurance... and managed to find a few options... all but one, refused to cover me for cancer, any type...luckily one did but.. no squamous cell carcinoma, which is the cancer I had... even after 16 years this month, its a pre-existing condition and they won't cover it.

Even after all this time....the cancer still fights back.... 

And as much as it helps people who want to cling to every minute, I am never going to go into hospice care... if my life is going to end.. I'll take steps while I am able..

In the meantime, its time to enjoy the next 20 years, try to make it 30 and enjoy living.