Tag Archives: end of year

Putting one foot in front of the other (That’s a wrap!)

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“Reflect, Recharge, Rebuild—Here’s to 2025!”

Country garden with cat

Country garden with cat

Apologies for not being too active on here this year. Life, as they say, has gotten in the way. The house and garden have kept me busy, and I’ve been working hard on multiple DIY and car projects. The workshop and car bits are still tying me up and as I write this I am in the process of rewiring one of the lawn tractors after blowing the other one up (non profesional, but suspected diagnosis… it was running and then it wasn’t!).

It’s been a strange end of the year. The rest of my family are down under visiting my Sister in Australia and my Father in Law has just left to go home again. We had an early Christmas in November that my parents hosted, which felt very out of place. We had another Christmas meal yesterday and my wife did a cracking job at catering. I helped with the washing up – promise!

It’s nearly 5 years since I was diagnosed with cancer. We had a Chinese on Christmas Eve and my fortune cookie read “Bad things are behind you” or words to that effect. Coincidence or not, the big C did change my outlook on life. It’s very easy just to coast along, and then BAM! Some bad news like that drops on you and suddenly, both mentally and phsically, the rest of your life is impacted whether you like it or not.  You coast along as you don’t think it’s going to happen to you.

I find it very, very difficult to just do “nothing” and always feel like something needs doing. Mostly because it does (house and car lists are VERY long), but relaxing for me is difficult.

I guess the message here is don’t take your health for granted. Don’t waste your time. Get out and do something productive. Find a new hobby. Spend time with your friends and family. Get a dog or a cat now, not next year. Start writing a diary, I did. I don’t write in it every day but at least once a week and try and write a few lines. It’s quite therapeutic.

Enough of that sombre message… with everything else said I do wish everyone a very happy and healthy 2025! I’ll try and update a little more in the New Year!

 

End of year wrap!

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I can’t believe another year has flown by… it always seems to surprise me. Most of this year was consumed with my parent’s house-move. They’ve moved to Norfolk after 30+ years of living in Shillington, Herts. That was also my childhood home so it was a little strange knowing that I wouldn’t be going back there for Christmas. Nevertheless, the new home is rather lovely and not disappointing at all. There’s more room, and garages that can be used for cars rather than storage, so that is something I can aspire to have in the future too!

Christmas time this year was a much happier time for me. I think I am finally returning to “normal” following two years of life-changing events and mental as well as physical recovery of both.

I would highly recommend anyone who has been impacted by any terrible events in their life to seek out some unbiased counselling. I used The Wellbeing Therapy Centre who have locations around the country.  I spent a year focusing heavily on my physcical wellbeing and recovery but then rushed back into work and every-day life. With hindsight I would have (should have) taken a period of time to “reset” before going into things gung-ho!

The next thing I can suggest from experience is to find a new job if you’re unhappy. A lot of people say that a job is only a job, but when you’re spending 40 hrs a week on that job, it’s a little bit more than that. If you’re not happy, brush up your CV, and get on the job boards. Don’t let your mental health suffer as a result.

I’ve been in a new job now for over 10 months and it was hands down the best decision I’ve made in the last few years. I’m still working from home, and I wouldn’t change that for the world now. I have time to do my exercises before starting work daily and have more time to appreciate how lucky I am to be here and still writing this post.

I got my work to add to their employee rewards site, the option to donate to the Bone Cancer Research Trust, and I try and chuck some money that way as often as I can.

One of the other big achievements for me on a personal level this year was getting reacquainted with an old friend. We hadn’t seen each other in around 5 years and got back in touch at the start of the year. Good friends are hard to find so it’s worth keeping the ones you have close.

Wishing everyone the best for 2023!

2021… again!

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I thought I’d name my traditional end of year wrap-up blog post something slightly different. It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster year for me. After everything that happened last year (see Cancer, Chemo and Corona) life has taken a new meaning. It’s taught me that we take everything for granted. Waking up every day and feeling well is a blessing, when so many people have it worse off. I’ve been trying to sieze the moment and do as much as I can. The word “bored” doesn’t exist because I’m always trying to do something. I’ve ticked off a number of odd job things that I’ve had on various lists for years. Sometimes you just have to get up and hustle.

The experiences of what happened to me last yeast were quite frankly the scariest thing I’ve ever had to deal with, and I don’t think anyone will quite understand unless they have had to go through something similar. I have so much to thank the NHS for, and which is why anyone who disagrees with getting a vaccine annoys me immensley. The costs of my hospital treatments last year anywhere where “free” health care isn’t provided quite possibly runs into the tens of thousands. I just did a quick Google search for “knee replacement cost” (just one of the many components of my surgery) and the first result came back as £10k, and that’s only scratching the surface. My surgery was 7hrs long with a number of top surgeons at the RNOH in Stanmore. I was in hospital for 2 weeks before being sent home. Then the next phase was nearly 8 months of Chemotherapy with 3 week in patient stays at Leicester Royal Infirmary. Plus monthly physio calls and checkups. You get where I’m going here. I’m so very grateful for living in this country and having this wonderful health service.

I probably should have seen a counciler sooner, to help me deal with the aftermath of spending a whole year out and the mental onslaught of dealing with being told I had Cancer, and then fighting that for a whole year whilst isolating and not being able to have visitors to the hospital. I’ve been keeping busy by throwing myself back into work (not that I’ve been thanked for it once) but no one has kept an eye on me and with the workload building up and up I’ve had to take it into my own hands and take some time off to deal with the stress and reset a little.

Mental health is as important as phsyical health. Last year you could physically see that I hadn’t been well. This year I’m looking fine but mental health has taken a rollocking having to deal with everything and realistically probably masking the issue a little by keeping myself so busy.

Take care of yourselves and one another. Keep an eye out on your friends. No one is invincible.

My Wife Anna and my close friends and family have kept me going through all of this.

At this stage I’m a little fed up of things repeating themselves like Groundhog Day. Let’s hope 2022 is an improvement and we see this Coronavirus off in a timely fashion. 🙂