Last Tuesday evening, I unexpectedly travelled to Holland to be with mum for a few days. In the last few weeks, she has had a few bouts of bad abdominal pain and vomiting. The first time, her blood sugars also went way too high, causing us all some anxiety, but they stabilised and we thought that it was just one of those things. But last weekend the same thing happened and wouldn't get any better, and by Tuesday I just wanted to be in Holland so I could be there for her. You just feel so powerless being so far away, and the fear that she might be ill again with cancer, never leaves me.
It seems though that things have calmed down again, she feels better physically and mentally. At the moment, it does look like these episodes are being caused by a hernia in her abdomen, which can be rectified quite easily by a simple operation. She has an appointment next Thursday with the surgeon who performed the operation 2 years ago and we will know more when we've seen him. I came back to (a very white Britain) on Friday night, and will travel back to Holland again on Wednesday evening so we can go to the hospital together. I haven't booked the return journey yet, but will wait to see what the surgeon has to say on Thursday.

Holland was absolutely beautiful, it was very cold, much colder than Britain, no snow but hazy sunshine most days, and I couldn't stop taking photographs. Below are my two favourites.

Fingers crossed that Thursday brings good news...