GENESIS

4 Resurrection

Throughout the autumn of 2020, like everyone else, I concentrated on coping with the covid restrictions, on and off as they went. The weekly shop at our local supermarket was very well organised by Sainsbury’s and the local staff. Wow! A weekly outing. How lucky I was. I quickly stocked up on fresh reading material and love walking so life was not arduous.

We had managed a visit to our elder son in Petersfield under covid rules and then Christmas came and went. My bookshelf filled up with some fantastic books. I can thoroughly recommend “Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life” by Alex Christofi the best of them all. The review that led me to the book said, “…it is no mean feat to boil Dostoevsky’s epic life down to 256 pulse-thumping pages. ….,but it is the great love that Christofi feels for his subject that makes this such a moving book.”

Reading took my mind off of my cancer until I had to prepare for radiotherapy which is not a “fun” event by any means, but one that is a case of “grin and bear it”. A complete schedule arrived itemising treatment from 13th January until 24th March; first I had to attend hospital for “fiducial markers” to be implanted; on 26th January for treatment preparation and a final CT scan before 28 consecutive weekdays of Radio-Beam therapy ending on 24th March.

The weekend before the radiotherapy began I was composing myself for what was to come when a large oversize A4 envelope dropped on to my doormat. When I opened it I discovered that it contained two contracts from Austen Macauley to publish my book; one to sign and return, the other to retain. What a wonderful treat for me to sweeten the drawn-out bitter pill of treatment to come, and this did my morale no end of good.

The conclusion was even better because on 10th May at 11.20am I received a telephone consultation call from my marvellous lady consultant oncologist. The post-radiotherapy tests suggested that there was no measurable evidence of the cancer and that she anticipated that after a further 14-26 months of hormone therapy and monitoring they hoped to be able to declare an end to my cancer.

Now, whilst recovering from the radiotherapy, I had the perfect activity to motivate me and, after being linked to my Austin Macauley editor, proceeded with his help to hone the book into a manuscript fit for publication.

On 31st August 2021 “The Depths of France” was finally published. What a year it had been!

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