I wish I was a fisherman, tumbling on the seas

The observant among you may well have noticed that today is the 10th anniversary of my diagnosis day. Woo and indeed hoo.

The fact that I am still around ten years later is nothing short of incredible and is testament to just how lucky a person I am. To be born in a time when (and where) such medical miracles are possible leaves me feeling incredibly blessed. Of course I wish I hadn't had to endure all that has gone on in the last decade but the fact that I am still around to muse on those events is something to be celebrated without thinking too much about the bad things.

Cancer patients are often told to look to the 5 year point of their Cancer being undetectable as being the point where they are cured. When I got to that point I was living in Aberdeen and getting on brilliantly both in terms of the research I was doing and in my personal life. It was, by some distance, the happiest I had been since my diagnosis. When the 5th anniversary of my bone marrow transplant came around I sent an email round all my friends to thank them for every bit of help they had given me (and that I hoped I would never get to return the privilege). I also said that I hoped from that point onwards I could start putting the Cancer years behind me and start looking forward to a life without that shadow being cast over it.

Another 5 years later and I can look back on that time very fondly but also knowing that I was deluding myself. I was finding that hills around town were becoming more difficult as time went on and looking back now I can see a regular, steady decline in my lung function. I suppose I didn't want to acknowledge that it would come to a point where something needed to be done about it. I was already annoyed about the limits my scarred and battered lungs had placed on my life and didn't want to think about more limits arising so I just ignored it.

Even though there was this fairly steady decline in my lungs it was something I could still cope with. That was until fungal pneumonia came along and triggered my immune system into damaging them beyond repair.