Plans change.

You’re probably wondering why I have a picture of the inside of the Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute (The Peter Mac) on a blog post titled “Plans change”. Let me tell you why…………

I had plans. BIG plans. Seven weeks overseas visiting Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Austria and Greece. I have had to adjust these plans a little bit.

According to Encyclopedia Google the quote “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” is the modern translation of “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.” from Scottish poet Robert Burns’ “To a Mouse.” I always thought it was written by John Steinbeck, but he only pinched a teeny bit of it to use as the title of his famous novel ‘Of Mice and Men’.

Cancer will make you change your plans. My dad has cancer. Lung cancer. He was diagnosed about 2 months ago. This is not his first cancer. It started with the melanomas. Then there was the squamous cell carcinoma on the left side of his neck a few years ago. Every visit to the Peter Mac had the family on edge. What was going to be cut off today? What else had they found?

The relentlessness of a post-cruise bout of pneumonia led to the doctors taking a lung x-ray which revealed the cancerous tumour on the left lung and subsequent testing led to the discovery of the bonus little tumours on the right lung.

Last week things got life-threateningly scary for dad. We were at the pointy end of things and the point was pressing into him pretty hard.

Packing a suitcase and boarding a plane that was going to take me thousands of miles away from my dad and my mum was NOT an option. I knew where I had to be and on a plane to Dublin was not it.

So I changed my plans. A postponement. Nothing a few phone calls and emails couldn’t sort out.

Unbelievably my dad was discharged from the Peter Mac today, a week after we were gathered around his bedside trying to bring him comfort in what we honestly thought were going to be his last hours. The team at the Peter Mac had only one option available and they gambled on it. The gamble paid dividends. But I don’t think they took into account the stubborn nature of my dad. He wasn’t ready to go yet. You don’t fuck with my dad.

He had better keep this fighting spirit going. The new flight is booked for the 31st.