On January 11th, I’ll coil the 57th turn around my ferrite core, but my broken health has unfortunately taken a wrong track and my cancer is again growing and expanding inside me, having started to invade my duodenum and pancreas. This is giving me bad pains which I’m trying to avoid with different drugs and limitted success.
Cancer is a dreadful, smart, evil bug and the treatment I had been following since the end of July with great success is not working anymore, so it’s been cancelled. I will start a chemo treatment on January 4th instead and I really hope this will be able to stop my current pains ( ) although this can’t cure my cancer with the rare BRAF mutation. This chemo will hopefully give me a few more weeks/months only. We’ll see…
Let’s be realistic, having cancer in the pancreas is usually very bad and the fatal outcome often arrives within few months, so I’m sorry to tell you that, although I very much hope not, this might well be my very last SOTA birthday celebration.
As many of you will remember, I recently adopted the formula of celebrating my birthday by activating the SOTA with reference number equal to my age. So I did my 55th on EA2/NV-055 and my 56th on EA2/NV-056, but it turns out that there’s not an EA2/NV-057, so I’ve had to look around my region to find a suitable not too distant #057.
I looked to the East in the region of Huesca (EA2/HU) and found that EA2/HU-057 is a 2670m a.s.l. mountain, which is in the Pyrenees and fully covered in snow and ice at this time of the year, so it’s a too difficult one for me at the moment.
I looked to the West in the region of Gipuzkoa and found that EA2/SS-057 is an easy 2 pointer, not far from my QTH involving a reasonable walk of nearly 5 Km and a vertical gain of slightly under 400m. I’ve found a GPS track at Wikiloc and I’m sure this will be my 57th birthday celebration. I’ve never activated this summit and I’ve never activated a summit in EA2/SS region, so I’ll be very pleased with ticking these 2 boxes during my birthday celebration.
The exact day of the activation will be decided depending on how I’m feeling in those days and of course, the WX. I’ll keep you all informed.
I really hope you’ll provide huge, fun pileups and a I’ll get back home with a big, big activator log full of QSOs, S2S and DX too.
A life well lived, Guru. That’s what everyone aspires to. Happy almost birthday, and I hope other climbers go with you on the 11th, including a cupcake with candle on top. If your following birthday finds you activating the big hill in the sky, I’ll send you a signal report of 599+ …Best 73.
Thank you for this update on your health. I’ll be looking for you on this upcoming activation and hopefully others, and will be praying for comfort and ease of your pain as you enter this next phase. Thank you for all our past SOTA contacts; let’s add a few more!
We will ALL meet on THE Summit one day. Until then, may the blessings of heaven rest upon you. And we will always listen for the faint DX call of EA2IF.
I’m so sorry Guru. However, I strongly hope that next year in this period you will be looking for an EAx / 058 reference.
All the best for 2022 Fabio, IK2LEY
I was notified a day earlier by Guru about his health. I haven’t replied to that mail because I could not think of anything to say or how to say it. So I’m going to steal other people’s words because I am at a loss.
I’m with Paul in wishing you many more birthday activations.
Oh my Guru. I hate to hear that you are sick. I just prayed that the treatments will be more helpful than you expect. We are all thinking of you and pulling for you. God be near you my friend.
Scott kw4jm
Thank you, Guru, for sharing the state of your health with us. We appreciate that.
We’re all rooting for you and hoping for the absolute best outcome from your next treatment regime.
I’m beaming some super healing RF from my summit to yours, OM!
Thomas
K4SWL
So sorry to hear this, Guru. Keep setting those targets and remember you have the whole SOTA family cheering you on.
You have kept encouraging me to persevere with (re)learning my CW and after a rather failed attempt this summer I promised you that I would keep trying and will work you from a summit in CW. Well thats now my no.1 target for 2022
I am so sorry to hear your news Guru. You have fought the cancer strongly and I am sure will keep fighting it. I am lost in admiration for your determination to do the 57th. I know if it can be done you will do it.
73
John
My thoughts and prayers are with you Guru. Always a pleasure to hear you on the air and read your thoughtful/insightful posts here. Keep up the fight. Be listening for you.
) although this can’t cure my cancer with the rare BRAF mutation. This chemo will hopefully give me a few more weeks/months only. We’ll see…
