Helsinki or What Might Have Been

About this time last year I was slowly coming to terms with the fact that I mightn't be going to Worldcon - the annual World Science Fiction convention - in Helsinki in 2017. There was still a faint possibility so I was getting stuff organised like making sure Pisces had renewed his passport and working out the complicated logistics of travelling. For those of us with disabilities travel is more complicated than for the able bodied. There's working out how to break flights so that your back doesn't seize up completely - it was going to involve several days with breaks in what admittedly are some lovely places but that in turn adds cost, sorting out medication and trying to find accommodation within close walking distance of the venue at a price I could afford.

Truth was I was already half-hearted about this. Pisces' illness had taken up so much time that I was finding it hard to focus on something as far away as August 2017. I had quite literally lost count of the number of scans, pathology tests and specialists' visits he had had - I had gone to all these with him so you can imagine how many hours had accumulated - and that's not even mentioning all the hospital admissions and, of course, on top of that was the endless worry. What if he doesn't get better. What if... What if...

Still by September he was starting to improve. I wasn't making any definite plans but there did seem to be a chance we'd make it to Helsinki. I wasn't prepared to actually risk making bookings but things were looking up. If he continued to improve by the New Year maybe...

Then disaster struck in November when I ended up in hospital. It was serious but something that I should have recovered from very quickly but that wasn't what happened. I was almost a complete invalid for the next seven months, only leaving the house to go to the doctor. I'm over the worst of that now but I'm still not well enough to consider travelling and truth be told, neither is Pisces.

So no Worldcon for me this year. Will I consider next year? Maybe but we'll just have to see how things go.