I arrived in St Ives on the 31st May 2024 for my usual two month break in the UK from my home in South Africa. I primarily choose these two months to get away from the South African winter and enjoy the summer months of June and July in beautiful Cornwall. The start of my stay was dull and wet with a permanent grey sky hanging in gloom with not a chink of blue that I could look forward to as I stared longingly out of the flats 1st floor ancient sash windows. My great love is to walk in shorts barefooted through the cool Atlantic water of St Ives beaches, Porthminster, the harbour, Bamaluz, Porthgwidden and Porthmeor, but mizzle, drizzly weather wasn’t to my liking, even tennis was out! so I concentrated on reading, writing and relaxing. I attended a Doctor’s appointment for an annual check-up which they like to do on people over a certain age. A nurse did this on the Doctors behalf and as I was about to leave the Doctors room I suddenly asked her to look at a small cold sore which wasn’t clearing up properly on my lip. She immediately paged my new young Doctor who, she told me, had specialised in dermatology. He arrived and it didn’t take him a second look with his magic torch to be concerned it might well be a SCC (squamous cell carcinoma). He was going to send me to a specialist in Truro. I was put on ‘fast forward’ and from there everything was centred upon getting my lip...