cancer fundraising
Looking back on 2022 in what I hope will be a positive manner. The news once again this year has been full of just the most depressing stories, so my recap won’t touch on any of that…
I am making sure that appreciate the little things that can make life so wonderful at times. I need look no further than Prince. He has 7 slipped discs and was given a life expectancy of 2 months to 2 years. That was over 5 years ago
I have been back on the Sertraline for just over a week now and there’s no doubt that I am returning back closer to being and feeling like the person I was just a couple of months ago. Thankfully, I started to feel the benefits of the anti-depressants within a couple of days and I’m already feeling much more balanced and the highs and lows have plateaued out.
I feel like I’ve been quite restless recently and have perhaps been feeling a little all over the place. I think coming off the Sertraline has been a little more challenging than I thought it would be. Perhaps I am feeling impatient with myself and my own progress at the moment. My anxiety has returned albeit not at the same levels it has been, but enough to start affecting me. With that in mind I’ve taken the decision to go back onto Sertraline. I am thinking of perhaps asking to try a different anti-depressant, but for the time being I’m on Sertraline. Hopefully I will begin to feel more balanced again and back to where I was 6-8 weeks ago.
Avert your gaze from the public water pump in Sonning-on-Thames, and look at the stony wall instead. This is the scene where, 25 years ago in December 1997, I got out of a moving taxi and fell into this wall breaking my nose, and smashing the cap on one of my front teeth, and basically knocking myself out. I ended up in hospital, and it could have been a whole lot worse if my friend Paul Way hadn’t spotted me lying unconscious on this pavement in the early hours in sub zero temperatures. He called an ambulance and I spent a long and painful night in hospital and once I began to sober felt pretty dismal not to mention ashamed of myself…
My first trip to the Northcoat Music Centre in Abingdon last night to see the Carol Hodge Band. It’s a terrific little venue and well within striking distance of my home in Reading. Carol is a wonderful singer songwriter and in recent times, after 25 years of performing, has taken the plunge into making this her full-time career. She will soon be releasing her 5th album, and has put together the Carol Hodge Band to go out on the road.
Today marks 10 years of my fundraising. I would never have guessed when my Beating Bowel Cancer book was published on this day in 2012 that 10 years on I would still be here pushing the fundraising as hard as ever and receiving the continued phenomenal support from the most amazing supporters, who more importantly have become my friends x The impact this has had on my own life cannot be understated – it really has been life-changing.
2009 was a year to forget. On my birthday on February 21st, I got a phone call from Mum saying that Dad had fallen over and we had to take him to hospital. He had suffered a mini stroke. Although he recovered well from this, it had left him more tired and when pneumonia and then sepsis struck a few months later he had nothing left in the tank to fight it.
Over the course of the last ten years there have been the inevitable highs and lows as far as the fundraising goes, although many more highs thankfully. If one project during that time can illustrate pretty everything that was going on inside my head then it was the writing of The Record, my third and most recent book, which was published on June 21st, 2019.
Poodolph the reindeer is raising awareness about bowel cancer this Christmas, and all profits raised from sales are being donated to Bowel Cancer UK.
