Why I haven’t blogged for two months …

Here we are, mid-October, and my last blog post was nearly eight weeks ago. We’ve had a fairly torrid couple of months. Partly caused by our house renovations – while the planned improvements went reasonably well, they revealed heretofore hidden (and expensive!) necessary further repairs. Added to these, we had a major leak when plumbing failed, and floods in the garage caused by the very heavy rains we had a month ago. So we will have tradesmen in the house for a while yet.

But the main reason why we haven’t been biking, has been the state of John’s health. In early September, he suffered a major event affecting his facial nerve. He was admitted to hospital with excruciating pain – ten times worse than a kidney stone, he said afterwards. A Bell’s Palsy was suspected, but tests have since shown that there is renewed growth of his brain tumour. While the pain has now eased, he is left with (hopefully temporary) paralysis of the right side of his face. Further medical appointments in the next little while will decide what, if anything, is to be done.

With regard to biking, the facial paralysis means that his right eye won’t close properly, resulting in potential damage to the eye if it is allowed to dry out. Wind and the rush of air to the eye by moving along on a bike, even on a calm day, means he has to take precautions to protect the eye. So if you see him biking along looking like a pirate with his eyepatch, you’ll know that’s John.

I’m pleased to report that he’s improving, and that in the past week, we’ve been on a couple of rides. It was so good to be back on the bikes again!