A year ago today....

A year ago today...It was the 14th January, 2010 that i was told i had four months to live! Wow!! I still remember that day, the drive home from the hospital with Mum. Not saying a word and not being able to even register what we'd been told. The next few days going into automatic overdrive trying to displace all the emotion so that i could deal with dying and family travelling from New Zealand to say goodbye...any ones worst nightmare.  It has been a year that has flown by but when i look into the year so much happened. I look back at the rough times, especially the physical pain of those adrenal glands bleeding to say the least and i look back on the emotional pain and what a roller coaster ride it's been. Mostly though i look back at every extra day I've had. Every extra laugh, extra hug and extra conversation I've had with all my friends and family but mostly Mum and Joe. It's those moments that are priceless.



my beautiful tree until
the cats had their way

When Christmas was coming i didn't want to jinx it with the ten more sleeps, nine more sleeps etc like i would usually do but Joe and i did do everything else.  As usual his Santa list was put on the fridge at the end of October, with a No Change Policy by mid November. When he was little, like most kids, he would scour through the Argos catalogue and write me a list with the full description, catalogue number and price but depending what adverts he'd see on the t.v that day the list would be constantly changing. That was when we came up with the No Change Policy, otherwise Santa was in the bad books for not getting it right. Now that he's older it's not the Argos catalogue that gets scoured it's the Internet. I get a lovely printed Santa list now with images, web addresses, store names and prices. It's great but the money doesn't seem to go as far as it did when he was 7 or 8 years old. However, with the unavoidable "is this my last Christmas" voice in my head, i did go over board with the spending but hey, you can't take it with you!





That cheeky smile melts my
heart every time

Another old Christmas tradition we had when he was younger was catching the train to London Christmas Eve for the most painful experience of my life...2 hours in Hamleys Toy Store!! Up and down those escalators, in and out of different departments, toys in the basket, toys out of the basket, people pushing and shoving and ankle biters screaming everywhere...arhhhh!! Now however it's a movie and a restaurant of his choice. So this year it was The Little Fockers followed by the most lush meal at Wagamama with a belly aching laugh watching Joe try to use chopsticks. We'd never been there before and it was a-ma-zing. I had the Teriyaki Beef and couldn't stop saying mmmmmmm, until Joe told me to be quiet cause it was embarrassing. I didn't even realise i was saying it. It was a fantastic day, as usual, bonding with my boy.

Of course i was an expert



Anyway, back to not wanting to jinx Christmas...we made it! We didn't make any extra fuss or treat it like my last Christmas, we just ate too much and laughed lots and that's how it should be.

That brings us to January 14th, 2011. One year on and I'm still here and i will still be here for many years to come. I don't want to blow my own trumpet but it doesn't matter what situation you're faced with, you must face it head on. Don't bury your head under the rug, don't sit in the chair 'waiting for God', just face it and carry on as usual. The strength will come, trust me. Even if you're fortunate enough to have no health issues, remember to take in the people around you. The old cliche of count your blessings. It really is corny i know but when you're on the other side of the fence everything matters and everyone is worth it. A friend of mine has just had a tattoo on her foot that to me sums it all up and I'm going to copy her and have the same...

Love, Laugh, Live