onion ring

Rick stein sure makes a fine onion ring

pasty

forget walking on the moon and splitting the atom, in the history of human achievement I pissed on them. For today, dear friends, I ate a pasty. Thank you.

profound

Actor Timothy Spall said on telly last night that after he was diagnosed with leukaemia a few years ago he found it easy to be profound. Now that he is fully recovered he can't be arsed!

I identify totally with this sentiment.

In my darkest hours profundities dripped from my virtual pen like honey from a bee (?) Now I am well on the road to recovery all that tree hugging nonsense that I blogged, quite genuinely, a couple of months ago, seems like a load of old tosh. This is is a sure sign that I am back to my 50 year old righteous and grumpy self. Hurrah!

With this in mind I have decided that after my 6 weekly visit to my consultant a week on Monday, I will draw a veil over this blog and hopefully come up with a few conclusions and try and force some final profoundness out.

Watch this space blogettes.*

*see the post'apology', for a follow up to this post.

card

Keeley's aunties, Jacky & Angie, have sent me a card pretty much every week this year. Small gestures like this are a consistent reminder to me of how lucky I am to have such fantastic family around me. This is today's card.

Alongside the support from my family I have received amazing support from friends and even total strangers. My great friend Sarah has constantly supported me through my ups and downs and her positivity  has been such a big help. I also received a message this morning from a friend of Karl's, Jeannie, who I have never even met, but who had followed my blog. Her words were so thoughtful and kind and put a big smile on my face.

A few words, a card, a phone call, a text, 

simple gestures that mean a great deal.

bath

this morning I had a proper deep bath, without Keeley having to help me in and out, for the first time since February! Glorious. I should say that I have showered in the meantime, but not without having to tape over my feeding tube. Simple pleasures.

plea

watched the stand up to Cancer show on telly last night. Brought home how lucky we have been. There is always someone worse off is a bit of a throw away comment, but I have seen first hand this year that, no matter how bad things were for me, when you see kids suffering and succumbing to the terrible disease, I have been very, very fortunate.

From what I have learned, and what was said last night, the thing standing between us and a cure for all cancers is time and money. With this in mind I think we all owe it to ourselves to give a few quid to Macmillan or Cancer Research and do our bit.

I have first hand evidence that this works. When dad passed away 22 years ago from non Hodgkins Lymphoma, it was untreatable. Now, thanks to stem cell treatment funded and developed thanks to Cancer Research, the condition is eminently treatable.

I started giving £10 a month to Cancer Research back then which in the big picture is absolutely nothing and a small enough amount for me not to 

miss it. I've certainly had my money's worth out of it this year. Whether it's through guilt, grief or the kindness of our hearts, a couple of quid a month is nothing to most of us but added together could make such a big difference.

cancerresearchuk.org

list

as a demonstration of how positive I am that all of the bad stuff is now behind us, I am going to wind this blog up over the next few days. Hopefully this will help to make a full stop on the last few months and a good starting point for the next chapter.

Here we go then. This year has been a series of firsts and landmarks for me. Here are a few:

• I have been bald

• I spent a night (11 of them) in hospital 

• I had a tonsil out

• I had 76 injections

• I wrote a blog

• I cried a lot

• I didn't eat anything for 4 months

• I realised how lucky I am to have a fantastic wife, fantastic children, fantastic family and fantastic friends

• I was depressed

• I had an operation (3) 

• I had a feeding tube

• I watched a lot of telly

• I missed the school run for the first time in 10 years

• I went in an ambulance

• I was treated in a&e

• I feinted a few times

• I had chemotherapy

• I had 18 blood tests

• I had 30 radiotherapy sessions in 44 days

• I wore jogging bottoms in public

• I didn't do much (any) work

• I missed consecutive Stoke home games for the first time since 1979

• I wore slippers

more soon.