A new dawn

This is my 1500th blip, at last.  It's taken 6 years and four months, and at current rates of blipping, the next 1500 might take at least 15 years!  It's been 8 months from the last blipversary, and that was just 40 blips.

There is a reason for that which I have hinted at before and have confided to a few here.  I've had a year when my energy levels have been very low, and I have had pernicious infections that required bucket loads of antibiotics and led the medics in wrong directions. Eventually an observant radiographer looking at my kidneys noticed that my spleen was enlarged, and this set in train another series of investigations that on 4 October finally provided an answer.  I have a rare form of leukaemia.

Our initial response was strangely one of relief, we had somehow expected something worse.  And now that I know much more about this form of the disease, I know that I am truly fortunate.  It's chronic, not acute, it isn't going to kill me in weeks or months, it should respond well to treatment, and though it isn't curable, I have a very good chance of enjoying long periods of remission.  Getting this is better than winning the lottery, only 200 people in the UK are diagnosed with it each year.  We nature conservationists prize rarity.

I'm not viewing this as a life and death struggle between me and the cancer in my bones.  I'm not beating myself up wondering why has this happened to me.  I've led a charmed and healthy life and I'm not eaten up with regrets.

I'm viewing the diagnosis as a new dawn, it's an opportunity that will take my life in new and unexpected directions.  How many of us after all are the conscious architects of our place in life?  Our lives are shaped and directed by events beyond our control, some good, some not so good.  Things happen to us that we don't expect or plan for.  The knack is to harness those events to take us on new adventures, to go with them positively and optimistically.

The mother of a very good friend was given a diagnosis and prognosis infinitely worse than mine.  She says now, 7 years on, that it has given her life much greater clarity and purpose.  And five weeks on from my own diagnosis, I am already blissfully aware of that.  We blippers aspire to take daily photographs, and as a result we see more around us, we live more in the moment than many others do.  The diagnosis for me has merely accentuated that.  So, there was a deeper thrill than usual a few weeks ago when walking up the Knott in the morning with Gus, I heard the unmistakeable gentle tseeping contact calls of the first redwings of the winter as they gorged themselves on yew berries.

I've said to others here I don't want this journal to become an illness blog.  It's happened, I'm dealing with it.  There are good and unexpected times and adventures ahead.  I'm embracing it, not fighting it.  I'm not going to dwell on it here.

Tomorrow will also bring a new dawn for our friends in the US that could ripple outwards across the world.  Let's hope for the best result for all our sakes.

Thank you to everyone who looks at this journal, and particularly to those people who so often generously leave comments and scatter stars and hearts - without you there would be no Arnside & Beyond.