Update

Well, the PET scan has come and gone. I have talked with all of the important players here and in Vancouver. The Spring sun is starting to warm us and what more could I ask for?!

In summary, I have had another mixed response to treatment late last year. Some of the newer tumours have disappeared completely, including the one which was causing me spine problems. It's nice to be rid of that monster! The bulk of tumours seems stable and less aggressive. Two tumours continue to grow and one of them has doubled in size since the previous scan. Of course, on good days, I assume it is still reacting to the treatment and it may relax a bit soon!

It looks like there is not really any further treatment available in BC at the moment. I have asked for a referral to a surgeon to consider excising all seen disease and that appointment should happen fairly quickly. I have spent a great deal of time recently looking for appropriate clinical trials of new medications and there are certainly some interesting ones coming up. Very few of them reach Western Canada alas. Until the protocols are finalized, we don't know who will be included and who will be excluded though. I had just tracked down a perfectly suitable clinical trial in Seattle, so close by, only to hear today from the recruiting doctor that it is now closed. When I asked if that information could be made available to people like me so that we are not wasting precious time, I was told that closing the trial is a long process!  There I left it.

And so, here I am, feeling very positive and calm most of the time and the good weather is starting to show. I am really looking forward to a beautiful Spring! 

Time to head for home

Well, I have had five weeks of joy in New Zealand followed by 4 weeks of exploration in Indonesia and the Philippines. I must head home now for an update on my cancer journey. I must appear at the Cancer Agency in Vancouver on March 11 for a PET scan. I have been so lucky to be able to enjoy this time away from illness. In a way, it has seemed like a reliving of my entire adult life in a few weeks. I simply am in love with travelling, other cultures and the beauty of the world. Who knows what the journey ahead will be like. I have family and friends to accompany me no matter what lies ahead. It will be ok. Peace and love to all.

On a bangka in the Philippines:

Diving

Ah, the pleasures of the underwater world! What a fabulous time I have had enjoying the reefs, the beautiful corals and the incredible array of tropical fish.

The highlight has of course to be a dive amid many whale sharks in Oslob, on the south-east coast of Cebu Island. The adventure started with a very early start at 4.30 AM and a long drive to the dive site. At 7 am I got into a little boat, headed out into the water, and then backflipped into the warm embrace of the ocean! I immediately became aware of many giants around me. The whale shark is the largest extant fish and can attain a length of 12 metres and a weight of more than 20 metric tons! As I stayed motionless on the sand, 9 metres below the surface, the gentle giants glided over and around me many times. Because the water is not cold, I was able to stay as long as my air lasted, a full 56 minutes, a record for me! The brine in the water attracted many other fish too but it was hard to take eyes off the whale sharks!

In my other dives, I loved seeing ornate and thin pipefish for the first time. They are bizarre creatures! Also, a juvenile sweetlips was particularly attractive! There is a bright yellow trunkfish that I would love to have brought home too! On my final dive yesterday I swam with shoals of millions and millions of sardines, so numerous that they cast a dark cloud over the reef making it difficult to see anything else.  If you like sardines, it is probably fine to continue eating them! I don't think they are in imminent danger of running out anytime soon.

Here is a picture of the little boats called bangkas that are used for transporting people around the islands. The diving groups all use them too.

The people

I have been delighted to meet so many people in the cities and the countryside. It would be hard to find a friendlier, happier, helpful group of people anywhere on the planet. Travelling arrangements are very easy and there is just no fuss or chaos. The ports and airports are beautifully organized. No one seems to have any interest in hassling you. Those who sell souvenirs on the beaches accept a polite "no thank you" and do not persist. It feels safe everywhere I have gone.

It is clear that it is tough to make a living here. People work very hard when they can find work. Despite the constant heat, the struggle to provide for family is energetically pursued. There is much evidence of new building everywhere. The devastating double blow of a 7.2 earthquake in October and Typhoon Hainan in November are being put behind them. We did see the serious damage done to the old Spanish colonial churches in Bohol yesterday. But life has always been like this and there are 100 000 000 people here who must find a way forward.

Oldest church in Bohol, the poster shows what it was like before October 2013

Bohol

For the past few days I have been on Panglao Island, just off the south coast of Bohol. I stayed in a beautiful hotel right on the ocean. The room looks out across a white sand beach to the reef and beyond. The weather has been perfect.

The highlight was a diving trip to Ballicasag Island, a tiny island six kilometres off the coast of Bohol, surrounded by a perfect reef. I did two 50 minute dives with a break in between of 45 minutes for recovery and safety. It really was a blissful experience. I was able to settle into comfortable diving right away, thanks to much training and help from my brother- and sister-in-law in Bonaire on previous holidays. If you are not comfortable and don't have sufficient skills, diving can be a miserable experience! I had a dive master with me and there were no other divers! There were literally millions of fish around us, some of them following us in a cloud hoping for stirred up tidbits, some, like the delightful clownfish guarding their anemones, and others just darting around looking for their food.

Many of the coral formations were new and fascinating to me and, although the fish families are of course similar, and I could group fish into families, the colour variations are nothing short of dazzling! Sometimes when I am underwater, I imagine that a demented artist has gone before me and painted the fish in bizarre bright colours and fantastical patterns. I saw more than 30 green turtles and several of them were busy grazing so it was possible to see the chewing and spitting!  A special moment for me was when the dive master pointed out a male and female thin ghost pipefish. Pipefish and sea horses are related and form a very small family and are extremely difficult to spot because of their camouflage talent. These ghost pipefish looked exactly like two pieces of seaweed! They are monogamous and the female is the larger of the two. They hang in the water long face pointing down!

Today, I sail back to Cebu Island and travel to Moalboal, another diving paradise on the southwest coast of the island.

View of Ballicasag Island: