Life Via a Line

How is it almost 2019 already? The year has gone by pretty quickly.   It is easy to take seconds, minutes and even hours for granted.  Time is on our side for the majority of the time... Until it's not.  I have remained focused this year on my treatment, the next round, the next lock and clean, the next Kings appointment.  This year we have spent time doing things as a family - My wife, My dog and me.   I have worked hard at work and I am glad that I no longer crave approval from everyone.   I have always been extremely competitive (my golf and karate before hand) and a deadline ticker.   Since changing my job in December 2017, I feel more at peace and I have time to have treatment and rest and more importantly we have time as a family.  I am naturally able to knuckle down and get on,  so I start early to have some quiet time to get through some difficult bits and pieces so I can concentrate. When ...

Since having my line inserted around 16 months ago, I have tried to live differently.  I am trying to be real and authentic.  I am trying to just be me.   I know how I am.  I am actually an introvert, I am emotional and vulnerable and I hide behind a mask of bravado and jokes.  Only on Friday evening, at our Work Christmas Meal, I was trying to explain who I really am.  I am learning daily to accept and understand that my truth is the only truth that matters.   Over the past 6 months I have learnt that you cannot have a healthy future built on a base of lies, denial, games and fabrications.   Hardly anyone comes from a picture book childhood that exists in Enid Blyton books.  I was taught to live according to my parents system.  I really do not need to go into details but growing up I thought everything was ideal and fine.  I believe that most children growing up are lost, they do not know who they are until they ...

Christmas Eve is often like New Year a time of reflection.   I have thought about a lot today.  We have started a new chapter in our life and have recently moved house to a small village and we spent the first night last night in our new home.   The latter part of this year, my relationship with my parents broke down, We have not received a Christmas card even though I have had to listen to extended family members recently attempt to explain that my parents are trying.   Words currently cannot convey what I need them too and are simply not enough to explain my thoughts and feelings over the past 9 years.  I have witnessed things that have truly broken my heart.  Some of the experiences I have gone through have made me grow up, I could honestly say prior to becoming ill I was naive but I see the world in a different way now.   I have learned to be more loving, happy and compassionate. The words gratitude and appreciation b...

One day everything seems great, I am not saying perfect but let's say things are ticking along at a steady pace, maybe even to plan.  Then a curve ball...  It isn't fair.  I don't deserve it.  I didn't see this coming.  I didn't plan for this.  Inside so many pent up feelings and frustrations that actually you don't even know what to do first, or if you are like me, whether I actually want to do anything at all. I often feel it is easier to sit around and moan and feel bad, often look for people to blame and complain to, rehashing what I could have done to make things happen differently. Often I think of what I would have done if only I saw this coming, then of course the classic - what other people should have done to help me! These all add to misery and do not help with moving forward.  I have dealt with a multitude of shit the last 9 years and it's actually like working through grief, please do not message me to tell me it's nothing like it, ...

I was born in February 1979, I come from a different time, a time spent playing outside on my BMX, reading Enid Blyton and The Folk of The Faraway Tree, I rarely ever watched TV or saw a magazine,  I remember as a child that skipping along to the bank clutching some money from a birthday to open an account was normal.  I remember cassette tapes, my first job was aged 14 in a small community pharmacy, I remember leaving University to work full time in Our Price and believing I was living the dream sorting the Top 10 VHS Chart on a Friday.  I learnt the value of money from a young age, I understood money was a finite entity.  I learnt to not spend beyond my means and to save up for things I wanted.  I am approaching 40 (February 9th 2019), life is different, this isn't just because I am older.  I live in an age of affluenza and disposable income, an age of credit and not having so save for something. Everything feels replaceable, immediately. Adverti...

I have not posted since September.  I have had a tough, up and down couple of months. My plasma routine has changed from 3 sessions every fourth week to 2 sessions every other week.  I have started insulin (I am 6 days in now and tomorrow will alter the dose).  I have seen a new consultant at Kings a neuro-immunologist, while my consultant celebrates her 50th in New Zealand.  I've spoken with a number of people recently at hospital and on the phone at work who are doing something that is just okay with their lives but who  really  want to be doing something else.  I spoke to a young nurse last week who feels an urgency to break free and go for it.  What are they searching for?? What actually is 'it'? As humans it is in our nature to move in a forward direction, towards greater expression.  When we are standing still we seem to begin to question ourselves, wondering what we’re doing with our lives—and what we’re wait...