Just to start off I want to say I have had bad news about my health. I have Splenic Marginal Zone Lymphoma, a non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This is a cancer of the lymphs and is non curable but has a generally good prognosis in term of long term survival. I have posted a number of blog posts in chronological order about the journey from a routine blood test to knowing what I have and what it has taken to get there. I will continue to use this blog as a vehicle for my thoughts and analysis of it and what impact it has. There are currently 7 posts, so feel free to read back through them and find out more.

I have taken the decision to blog about this not to get attention for myself but for several other reasons. The main one is that there are millions of other people out there who have or will develop health conditions and if I can only help one of them who is going through something similar to myself then this has been absolutely worthwhile. Some Conditions have a lot of information about them available, others are relatively rare with only a handful of papers. Mine falls into the latter. I have only just discovered I have it and having looked online there is little or nothing about it. I wanted to change that. I also wanted to show how the diagnosis process feels to someone with no medical knowledge as you go through it step by step.

The other reasons to write this are that 1) I like to write, I have written a few unpublished books and enjoy being creative. 2) This will be a method I have for coping with what I have. I would imagine I will write about all sorts of things in my posts, but initially I will concentrate on where I am at with diagnosis and how you find out you are ill.

If this causes any of my friends or family distress, I can only apologise. Please remember the reason I am doing this and help me with my journey. Fingers crossed it will be a long blog with not much happening in it. That in itself would be a real win.