You probably don’t know but there is a special day coming up, that I look forward to every year. It’s a day of huge excitement, of suspense and of probable blood letting (dependant on what happens).

On this day people come together to spend time in a group, often with older people, and the infirm, who might not see many more winter’s, so it’s important to concentrate on the now.
Hours will pass, which may feel longer, and we will see at least one person we haven’t seen for a while year, and perhaps could have waited for even longer to see.

I am, of course, talking about my annual blood test. A key date in everyone’s diary. It’s a special date where I get told if I’ve been good or bad (ok ok, I may be stretching it here, I’ll quit whilst I’m behind). Basically I’ll see a doctor, tell them I’m not dead yet, and get a blood test or five.

This year my appointment is pretty close to Christmas, so I won’t get the results until Jan. Luckily I’m feeling pretty sanguine about it, as I am getting used to a steady increase in white cells. It may surprise me and I may jump up unexpectedly (they do say you have to look after yourself, get good sleep… Avery!!) But if not I’ll just file it on my graph and move on.

If it is the same I’ll still have a good eight or ten years until treatment is needed, a good place to be. I’ve become reconciled to this over the years, and four and a half years on I guess it is normal for me to be aware of this longish term event. I’m sure when it gets closer (and I feel worse) it’ll become more difficult, but for now I feel ok, and I dont have any persistent b symptoms (excluding a sore spleen last week, but I think that was pushing Grace in the snow, it still hurts a bit and I’ll mention it to then, but nowhere near as bad as when I was running).

Life has been interesting in the last few weeks since I posted, and Avery is being pretty good. It’s actually Grace who has been keeping me up, but only every second or third night, so I can kind of cope with it.  Our extension is being built, business is good, and we are getting used to having two small children. (It’s not twice as hard as one, but it is more constant).

So all in all I shouldn’t complain. People have it a lot worse. I want to take a moment to think of all the people losing loved ones around now and how crap their Christmas will be, or who have worse conditions than I do, and have to live with that over Christmas. Really I’ve been very lucky, and thank my stars that my condition is not worse. We all have things we have to live with, and in this case I hope I live with it a long time. Some people are not so lucky and my thoughts are with them over this time, Christmas can be very depressing indeed. All I am having tomorrow is some blood taken,  the results won’t be back for weeks and I have a Christmas party in the afternoon. It’s not so bad for me, and I think it’s important to remember that there are always people worse off (a Christmas moral no less, what happened to you Marcus)!

So thank you all for reading this, and many of my other posts. I wish you all a good Christmas and a very merry blood test day tomorrow. Many happy results and a merry Yuletide, or however you want to say it :).