A Season in Saudi Arabia

After a truly miserable 2024 - a year of multiple surgeries, thousands of coffee enemas and fresh juices, various consultations, no travel, and frequently wondering if I even had a future - I was determined to make 2025 a whole lot better. Unsurprisingly, I decided to prioritise family travel and booked several flights in late 2024 to give us all something to look forward to. In order to mimic our old Saudi life, where everything felt limitless and abundant, I chose a return to the Arab world, to the underrated North African destination Tunisia, as our first destination of 2025.  The airport of departure - Gatwick - used to be a place I dreaded going to, much preferring the convenience of Norwich or Stansted, but my mind was now in a very different place. I felt a surge of gratitude and privilege just being alive and well and strolling through Gatwick onto an EasyJet flight to Enfidha. Funnily enough, I hadn’t even checked exactly where the airport was in Tunisia at the time of bo...

In the midst of a now typically heated argument with my mother about whether God had abandoned us, I shouted I need a job now! You see, I couldn’t wait any longer. McDonald’s was killing me physically and mentally a little more each day, but we needed the money too much for me to just quit. We’d already suffered catastrophic financial losses in the wake of the super typhoon, endured a total loss of peace from the merciless Chinese developing a five-star palace in front of our Siargao home and I’d personally experienced the horror of multiple melanomas. All these terrible things had already shaken my faith to the very core. Now, just day to day living in England was becoming too much to handle. That’s why I had shouted. I wondered if God might finally listen to the desperate cry of a broken person and actually do something good about it.  Amazingly, within days of the argument, I received a call from a local guesthouse. I had applied for at least 25 local jobs in the wake of the ter...

As autumn approached, I realised I'd need additional employment alongside my surf shop duties to get us through another year. You see, the surf school more or less closes down every November and the surf shop only remains open at the weekends for a few hours each day (sometimes closing early if it rains) until it closes between Christmas and Easter.  Anyway, late summer I passed the interview at Cromer McDonalds and scheduled my first shift for late September. From the very beginning, I found everything incredibly hard. Instead of training you to be a master of one or two processes, they move you around the floor like a yoyo. I started on burgers but soon got moved to fried chicken, drinks, sorting orders, fries and washing up. I was crap at pretty much everything and working alongside teenagers who laughed their way through every shift. And while they didn't take it that seriously, they were far, far faster than me!  One evening, a guy ordering on the drive through called me ...

Following our move to Cromer, life had settled down into a familiar routine. I continued my work at the town's only surf school (now just a short walk rather than an arduous 4-mile cycle ride up and down a hill away) and my wife's work was now even closer. While my son's life was definitely lonelier (he no longer had his five cousins to play with), he had his own loft space and privacy and everything was a whole lot calmer and quieter than living with my brother in the Strand. Gerson Therapy routines continued too, which was a whole lot easier in our own space without worrying about the constant whir of the juicer or the availability of a toilet to expel the contents of yet another coffee enema. Back in early 2024, in the midst of discovering two new primary invasive melanomas, I had sent my blood to Greece for analysis as part of my consultations with my Gerson practitioner. RGCC in Greece confirmed a 3.2 result in March 2024, which basically indicated a certain level of c...

As I mentioned in one of my previous blogs , it became apparent in early 2024 that we couldn't stay at my brother's place forever. He'd given us a year following my Whatsapp message plea from the Philippines. It hadn't been an easy time for anyone. I'd had my face carved up, hadn't got over all our other losses psychologically speaking, and was trying desperately to heal the Gerson way, but they had their lives to get on with and the small rent we paid them didn't remotely compensate for the imposition of a family in the heart of their home. While they had originally given us a deadline of September 13th to leave, we luckily found alternative accommodation sooner. It was a tiny loft space behind a bungalow situated two miles away in the heart of Cromer for 100 pounds a month more than we were paying at my brothers. It had looked more likely we wouldn't be able stay on the coast and be forced to move back to my mother's house in land, but when this af...

They began in February - headaches - which never seemed to stop. I've never suffered from them before, so I knew something was wrong. The problem with melanoma is any little innocuous symptom you might have - let alone constant headaches - could indicate something very serious. Headaches are a symptom of around 50% of those who experience disease progression in the brain. I spent a lot of time online researching any articles which might help establish whether my headaches were melanoma or something else. The most disturbing article I read was about chronic headaches being experienced by a cohort of breast cancer survivors. For those whose headaches went on longer than 9 weeks, 51% were later diagnosed with brain mets. Of course, the article was about breast cancer, but melanoma loves the brain even more than breast cancer, so when the headaches wouldn't quit after three months, I became utterly convinced I was gonna die soon! Of course, I had to jump through a few hoops to prov...

Something positive finally happened and, ironically, it was connected with Saudi Arabia. Completely out of the blue, the British guy in charge of the newly formed Saudi surf team invited Raf and I to join him and the entire Saudi team at Bristol’s Wave - an outdoor wave pool with pretty good waves - and onto Newquay for a surf competition. All our expenses were to be paid and I’d get a little extra for doing some social media reels. While I knew I couldn’t continue my nutritional therapy, I decided to accept the offer but only for Bristol (which meant only two nights away from the juicing and enema routine).  On a sunny day in the middle of May, Raf and I boarded trains in Cromer and Norwich, crossed London, jumped onto a fast train to Bristol, before checking into a lovely hotel on the outskirts of the city. The Saudis arrived much later than us, so our first afternoon was alone in the mall, where Raf devoured a beef burger and I picked up a bargain beanie for £4 (never one to was...

My world has fallen apart many times since leaving Saudi in July 2021. Typhoons, Chinese construction near your dream home and skin cancer tends to do that. Inevitably, after each set back, I wondered why - why me? why us? why now? Unsurprisingly, I almost felt like we (or I) were under some sort of curse . However, nothing could have prepared me for what God had lined up next. I can tell you the exact moment when my world began to fall apart again: I had spotted a tiny 1mm black spot on my chin in the mirror at work and thought it was just a blotch of ink, so I tried to rub it off but it was a stubborn mark and wasn’t going anywhere. In a sudden state of panic, I kept on rubbing until I caused my skin to bleed a little. I knew this mark wasn’t supposed to be there. And that meant it might be melanoma again.  A few weeks later, in mid-December 2023, I was assured by a private dermatologist in Norwich that the lesion looked totally normal. But I’ve heard that all before. The next da...

When the busy summer season ended, I was offered a lot more work than I expected in the first couple of months of the autumn. While it meant bringing the Gerson juices to work, the extra money was more than welcomed with an expensive two years of nutritional therapy in front of me.  Alongside the work, God delivered some truly magical days of solid northeast swell groomed by offshores. They were surprisingly powerful and the water was warm enough to be sans gloves and boots for now.  I guess I felt like everything was going as well as possible in October and November: both my wife and I had work; my son Raf had company every day when his cousins came home from school; and the surf was about as good as it gets for Norfolk.  Sure, the Gerson therapy was tough and super time consuming, but I was managing okay especially with my wife’s efforts in the kitchen. Most of all, I felt pretty good, sometimes really good, and that meant a lot to me. But it’s worth mentioning that fea...

When I was first diagnosed with nodular melanoma nine months ago, I immediately saw it as a death sentence. From the very beginning, I had googled obsessively and developed symptoms I’d read about soon after: everything from painful or possibly swollen lymph nodes to new irregular black patches on my skin. Of course, I knew some or all of these symptoms might be psychosomatic or benign, but I utterly convinced myself I was already either stage 3 (nodal involvement) or stage 4 (distant skin metastasis) and likely to die soon. A month later, a melanoma surgeon in Davao took a large swathe of skin away from my shoulder and biopsied two other black patches and a lump (all confirmed as benign) and told me I was only stage 2A and everything would probably be okay - 95% sure he said - and I should just stay out of the sun (or use loads of sunscreen) and hope for the best. Out of extreme caution, he recommended a PET scan but nothing else (he was unable to do a sentinel node lymph biopsy). I ...

While summer itself was a bit of a blur, there were definitely a few stand out moments. Within a few weeks in England, I quickly realised I had changed beyond all recognition - more fearful, more resentful and a little bit angry. I guess melanoma does that. So my standout moments weren’t exactly good ones. I spent much of July praying about whether to go ahead with the additional surgery recommended by the Spire melanoma surgeon. My mum’s advice about seeking God and him always replying when we need an answer just didn’t play out for me. Sadly, all I heard was deafening silence. Therefore, in August, I conformed with the medical establishment’s advice and had more skin was taken away for the princely sum of £750. The result came back 42 days later clear of any malignant cells. I guess God felt the private hospital needed the money more than I did.  In addition to private skin surgery, I’d tried to get back in the NHS system by re-registering with the local surgery and repeatedly as...

Before leaving the Philippines, I’d contacted my brother via WhatsApp and asked him to “give us a year” at his home. I’d carefully explained what had happened to us and the danger of melanoma. After some time, he said his wife had agreed “in principle” for us to stay one year, but it was likely they’d need a break from us during the year and suggested we move to my mother’s house later in the year. Overall, it was clear they wanted to offer us the exceptional help we needed, but it might unravel at any time given the general pressure of their family life.  On July 1, 2023, we arrived at their house in the back of a van driven by our old friend Tom, who had picked us up at the airport and was visiting us all in Norfolk for the first time in years. While he and his family got quickly reacquainted with my brother and his family, I unpacked our belongings in the room we’d been allotted. Inside the room, I immediately felt the gravity of the situation in front of me: I was surrounded by...

Two years ago, my family and I left the Saudi Kingdom behind right in the middle of the Covid-pandemic. It was a highly-charged, truly epic departure, where we felt the presence of God himself as he worked a series of miracles to lift us out of Arabia against the odds and bring us back to our family house on Siargao Island, Philippines. Final deliverance itself was sweet enough, but once back on the isla we were able to build our dream house  (using funds saved from my second Saudi season), surf every day and look forward to a five-year residency on an island we truly loved. Far from the mask-wearing and app-showing conformity of pandemic Saudi, life suddenly felt free again and the freedom was sweeter than the ripest date in the world.  Quite frankly, the idea of returning to KSA for a third time was the furthest thing on my mind in those heady days. Indeed, I had written off ever seeing Saudi again for the rest of my days. Yet today, unexpectedly writing this blog from Engl...

It might seem like our final deliverance was easy and I'm somehow exaggerating the barriers which lied in our path in the days before exit. But I don't think I'm exaggerating them at all. In reality, we were hit with two completely unexpected blockages: my final exit visa wouldn't issue and Saudi banned all flights (including our flight from Dammam to Dubai, connecting to Cebu) to the UAE. In a country like Saudi Arabia, one challenge might be enough to scupper all your plans, but having two really made it feel like we had a large mountain to move away. As soon as HR confirmed they couldn't issue my final exit visa and had no solutions of their own apart from my wife and son leaving immediately, I felt very, very anxious about the prospect of a lengthy delay to us reaching the Philippines. It's not like I could just fly them to UAE because that would mean being red listed for Philippine entry. Therefore, I suggested they issue me a standard re-entry visa to enab...