My blogs of late have all been about houses, or running or general updates. It’s only right that they reflect what I am doing and its easy, and also nice, to forget the core reason for this blog and the name for the site.

The reason this blog exists is because I have cancer. I wouldn’t have started it otherwise and it has often been a great way to get off my chest how I am feeling. It allows me to tell you, my friends, family and readers, how things are going.

As time has passed its been easier to forget about my condition. With a year and a half gone by its easy to get fooled into thinking everything is ok. I mean I live like I normally would, day to day I work, I play my computer, I write, I read. I’m basically the same as before. Its interesting being in this place, because at times you do forget, you do stop thinking about it and instead find yourself grumbling over small things, things that don’t matter. You end up thinking about the mundane, oh my train was late, rather than the big picture.

This is because the big picture is an exhausting place to be. To think about mortality, life, the purpose of everything, all of the time, will wear you out. it did for the first six months of my condition and its tough to be concentrating on how to live when living has become a much less sure thing, a well lit road suddenly shunted into a country lane with no lights.

Somehow you have to strike the balance, make sure you do live in the moment, whilst realising that planning for retirement is probably an unnecessary move. I find myself putting things off that I still want to achieve. I also find myself trying to find things to do. An evening in doing nothing feels like a wasted opportunity. Ultimately though procrastination is far too easy to fall into, because its easy to do, the house needs work, or I need to do something else.

Time is not immutable though, and this is something I need to remember more often, but not as often as for the first six months of my watch and wait. It’s a fine balance. How do you own something like this without it owning you.

I’ve had a few splenic issues of late. A bit of pain and some blood in my stool. It’s not glamorous. No one wants to share that sort of thing, and I wanted to brush it under the carpet, but you can’t. I can’t. I started this blog to record what happens, and that means everything, even things I don’t want to talk about or share day to day.

Having been passing blood for a week or so, I am off to see Barts again tomorrow, to see the walk in centre. Chances are its nothing, maybe I pulled something in my gut, rather than one of my organs is giving up the ghost or something sharp went through me. This really irritates me as my next appointment is in 7 months, and I feel like I have to go back there early.

The problem is that it’s at times like this I get angry. That’s the other secret of it all. You can feel sad, resigned, try to come to terms with it, but you never want to acknowledge the anger. It’s not a constant thing, sometimes it flares and you rail at the world. Why me, why did this happen to me? it’s not fair. But the world is not fair. life is not fair and you can only make the best of the cards you have. No one ever admits to that anger because its tough. Its horrible. It doesn’t make you feel good. in fact you end up feeling selfish. Why do I have a right to be angry? There are plenty of people who are in far worse situations than me. People who get given three month to lives. People who lose family, friends. There is always someone worse off than me in my comfortable house which I own, running my own company in the first world.

So that anger, that jaw clenching fury at the monumental harshness of it, is something that you can’t release because you realise that its not fair, really your anger is not justified either. I have had a year and a half of no treatment, I am one of the lucky ones. I occasionally have physical symptoms, I occasionally dwell on it. Well boo hoo, so what. Just get on with things you baby, just remember how lucky you are.

Mostly that works. Mostly you can focus on the sunrise, see the trees, marvel at the realities of life, the goo food. Think about the abstract of what comes afterwards, muse in a theological, or philosophical bent.

Sometimes that doesn’t cut it though. Sometimes you want to scream, and its only the realisation that it won’t change anything that stops you. That anger can be good too. if its channelled it can lead you to great things, to succeed. But it comes from a bad place. and you must never forget its there, because it isn’t going anywhere, it’s just waiting for you to get sick again, so you can shout once more at the cosmos in a great anger that has no fulfilment, no resolution.

That’s one side of being ill that I haven’t explored yet, and people who are worse off than me can probably tell you more about it. I can only write what I feel and how these things affect me. Sometimes I want to lie. Sometimes maybe I should lie, because it will make thing easier for my readers and for myself, people won’t ask me about it. it won’t be in the public domain. It’s there though and if I want to be an honest wordsmith I have to write it.

So yeah I was a little angry tonight, confronted once again by my own mortality, when I had managed to compartmentalise it for a month or two. That’s how these things work though. Sometimes you have to embrace the anger. Sometimes it drives you, but it’s not often that acceptable to get your angry out with people. So with Jo out tonight I think I’m going to play a computer game now and kill some things….