If I haven’t noticed the time, the end of an afternoon is heralded by evensong, a chorus of birds at the end of the day. It is a mesmerising time; the beauty of the golden rays of early winter’s setting sun together with the tuneful clarity of the song thrush.
Perched high above the valley on a commanding tree-top he cocks his 
head up and sings his praises with an attitude of gratitude for all the day has given him. Others join in up the valley, adding to the inspiring chorus of praise in the half light of dusk.
I am full of admiration for these creatures that are so obviously thankful for natures’ abundance. I feel it strikes a chord with me for each day now is so clearly a bonus as my body battles to survive the onslaught of the secondary tumours.
Shah and Heidi are watching closely; I only have to move, gather the cap, coat, head light and it is obvious to them we are off up the valley. There is sweet anticipation in their minds, one an energetic, 40kgs pure white Samoyed with an unlikely companion, a fragile and aging little Fox Terrier.
Sweet anticipation is the essence of hope, rather like the carrot of hope I have just been given. I have just heard from a clinical trials team on a phase one drug test who say they may be able to fit me into their programme in about eight to twelve weeks. That seems a long way off now my muscles are aching from depleted nutrition. But it is something else to be positive about. Although phase one is the first time tested on humans, there is sufficient evidence to show this new drug has the ability to shrink advanced metastasised melanomas, like mine. The programme involves numerous hour and a half trips to
Shah is getting impatient, daylight is fading and he snorts as he stretches, giving me an evil eye
as I thread my boot laces. I grab the ski pole used as a walking stick and slide the gate catch. Like a bolt of white lightning, he’s off across the adjoining paddock towards the reserve. Heidi is much more sedate and lingers to sniff every tuft.
For me the start of the two kilometre walk is now very slow as I push to get my legs moving. It really is a shuffle for the first half a kilometre. Yet miraculously I continue to suffer little or no pain. It’s not that I don’t get pain; last night a brief swelling in the bowel made me grab the Nurofen. And every three weeks or so another tumour pushes its way through muscle in its fight for space and causes me plenty of ‘jip’. But the pain is temporary at present, at most only lasting two to three weeks, then its gone, as the muscle relinquishes and the two settle in together. Overall, however, I have no need for anything more than a couple of Panadol, mixed with the occasional Nurofen.
Minimal pain is the only benefit of having secondary melanoma; the tumours develop no pain in the way that bone cancer usually does. And the miracle is that the toxins released by the tumours, the cause of liver disease and numerous other nasties, have not brought on the anticipated pain of disease or infection.
But it is certain in my mind that the tumours are feeding off muscle and the heart and lungs struggle to get my legs moving quick enough. I push with the ski pole on the gentle gradient and notice my breath is already condensing as the cold air drops into the valley. Shah tries to kerb his enthusiasm and occasionally looks around from a distance to check I’m keeping up.
Sometimes I now wonder just how long I have left. Not that it matters because, in my heart, I have had all the guidance I need to know at some stage I will be heading Home. Home from where my spirit first came as I took my first breath. Like all of humanity, foremost a spiritual being, I had chosen to come to this world for a human experience.
This world is the school of love, if you don’t attend classes and do your homework here you open yourself to the constant demands of fear and ravages of setbacks and hard knocks, like my cancer. Thank God it only manifested itself in these tumours after I had learnt the power of prayer for peace of mind and a true understanding of my journey through the death process.
But how would you know this school stuff when you are simply living to enjoy the worldly experience? Simple, you wouldn’t! But it is all there, I just needed leading to it when I was ready, but I wasn’t ready until I had tried, failed and was willing to open my mind and heart to the underlying teachings of the bible, from a man centuries ahead of his time and an intellect that left others in his wake. Everything Jesus has taught and later channelled in 'The Course in Miracles'* has been fundamental to my growth in the last decade, and yet for decades earlier I was doing no more than paying homage without walking the talk. I am so grateful to have been taken gently by the hand and to have my own ego, my own experiential “I know best” thought process challenged.
Shah has only one thought process going on and it is connected to his sense of smell. Suddenly his curled woolly tail stands up as he bolts through the neighbouring orchard. There is a movement and a little squeal of alarm and a tree shakes as I hear the sounds of curved and sharpened claws ripping at tree bark for traction away from the marauding Samoyed. Shah lets out a harassing
yelp, a mixed call of excitement and the frustration that his quarry slipped away from him. The opossum is safe, for the moment.
Like the opossum, I have so much to think about, up a tree with no where else to go except the heavens above! The yapping tumours have put me in this tight spot. Now, tuning into my body, I am weighing up every moment, every twinge to assess just what is going on. It’s really not surprising my brain starts to fade if there is too much happening around me; I am already processing how I feel from every waking moment, assessing whether I have it in me to overcome whichever symptom rears its ugly head next.
Ten days ago it was bowel congestion; no, that is not necessarily constipation, because I have tumours growing throughout the abdomen restricting normal bodily functions, and at least one in the wall of the bowel steadily constricting what I want to get rid of. Last night I was stretched out on the carpet as Margaret tried to assess the tightness of the stomach and what we were dealing with. All I knew was that I was so full I could no longer digest food in a normal timeframe. At 5am this morning I woke with an intense desire and ten minutes later felt a great relief; I could now focus on the next most pressing need.
So it is from one day to the next, emphasising one lesson I have learnt, to live strictly in the moment. Just as the dogs have to really; they never know from one night to the next whether I will be up to settling my dinner with a good stroll.
Although one thing is consistent, and that is I am getting slower and slower moving around and struggle to summon energy for the simplest tasks. Time seems to race by, but the reality is that I am so slow that I fail to notice time slipping by any longer. It takes real focus if there is an outing in the diary; like going in to work today, by the time I was ready I needed another sleep and crashed on the bed for an hour.
But nothing is allowed to sleep out here; with Shah racing ahead again, his instincts for a chase heightened by the last encounter, he completely ignores the horrendous noise behind us. Something between a hyena and a strangled cat could surely be the only monster capable of such a noise. It’s a guttural laughing bark which you fully expect to be followed by the animal spitting. It sent a shiver up my spine the first time I heard it in the dark, but opossum hunters would be well used to the unusual threat as you leave the furry pest up a tree, but which in realty highlights their presence for anyone with a weapon.
Shah is only interested in the next one, hopefully on the ground. And by this time little Heidi has got a taste of the excitement and is forcing her aging joints into action.
They love it, and the walk is good for me too. Even more remarkable is that I am still able to do it. Another prayer, another day, one step at a time.
To highlight the return journey a ‘morepork’ swoops into the darkened branches above me. The little owl has the characteristic big eyes and schoolboy appearance of the bigger owls, but a distinctive call that early pig hunters around the camp fire quickly translated to a polite request for more tender pork. I have no doubt the translation was aided by some serious consumption of a local brew to give the birds call more definition!
Another owl joins in across the valley as I first glimse the lights of home. We left by evensong, now this is a fitting chorus to herald our return to the comforts prepared by my darling Margaret.
APPENDIX:
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