Christmas 2020  The strangest Christmas of all

 

Dear friends and family, 

 

This has been a year like no other, unless you survived 1918 and have lived to 102! If you are reading this, like me, you have almost made it  through a global pandemic. Hang in there! Two million have not made it through and those are only the ones who got counted. So, I am even more glad than ever before to be alive and to watch the first vaccines arrive at our airports just in time for Christmas.

 

Merry Christmas especially to all of the scientists who have scrambled to do 10 years’ work in 10 months. I hope they can all have a beautiful and celebratory Christmas with close family.

 

And families will spend a lot of time together this Christmas!  Where I live, we can only be with immediate family, so I will be on my own, a first. It will be perfect. More gregarious Christmases will return and be cause for great joy.

 

In many ways, it has been a year that has been a long time coming. We have been taking good luck for granted.  Peace and prosperity are not a given. We have to work hard for both. Widespread world peace for 75 years has been an extraordinary interlude. Imagine enjoying all of it! How lucky can one get!

 

And this is really what is uppermost in my mind. We are a fairly simple species. Together we have imagined an amazing world and then created it all around us. But the greatest work of all, nature itself, has been abuilding for a lot longer than homo sapiens. It will remain after us even though we seem hellbent on destroying the exquisite balance that has allowed so many organisms to coexist. 

 

Below, you will see what brings me the greatest joy this Christmas - a new life, hope for the future, just like Christmas 2000 years ago.  Welcome Rory Rhys Laurel Deacon!

 

Here’s wishing everyone I know, and those I don’t, a peaceful Christmastide and a promise of good health and happiness in the New Year.  With love, Nigel

 

 

Summer 2020

 It is a long time since I put pen to paper. I was having the time of my life and a global pandemic swept in!  Although I have been alive for a long time, I have not seen a global pandemic before. How extraordinary that a tiny virus can sweep all around the world like lightning, penetrate the remotest of places  and bring everyday life to a halt. As we watch it play out, we can see the shift as the virus, which emerged in prosperous societies, moves into disadvantaged groups who do not have the protection of sophisticated medical systems and adequate social protection. A virus has no consciousness and cannot be kind, but we can. I spend most of my time now figuring out what it means to be kind in this new world. It is not so easy. 

 

One way that I have been able to continue to be kind is to keep working at building support for people who, out of the blue, get diagnosed with ocular melanoma. I continue to be extraordinarily well and strong, but that is not the normal journey.  Ocumel Canada, from modest beginnings in January 2019, has gone from strength to strength. We now have a private Facebook group of more than 70  Canadian patients. My original dream was that I could find maybe 10 people! Every week we attract new members, mostly through word of mouth. We are about to publish the first report ever on ocular melanoma services across Canada. We are just starting to organize a global symposium on ocular melanoma that will bring experts and patients from all corners of the  world together. For me, that is what kindness looks like at the moment.

If you would like to lend a hand, I am starting an annual fundraising campaign so that we can continue and expand our advocacy. All contributions go the helping patients. There are no overheads. My time and creativity are free!

Sending peace and love to all,  Nigel

https://saveyourskin.akaraisin.com/ui/moveformelanoma2020/participant/5218425?Lang=en-CA