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Dropped the kids off at school then went up to the Lister Hospital to have my bloods done ahead of next week's annual catch-up with my oncologist. I had my full body scan done a couple of weeks ago and I very much appreciate this regular check up to make sure nothing nasty has returned or if my body is concocting a new way to kill me. I am, I think only 15 months from getting the all clear and this service coming to an end, but am also delighted to have had nearly four more years of life, having thought I was months from the end when I got that phone call.
The burning desire to get as fit as possible to survive for my family (and partly myself) has cooled a little and things have been going well enough for me to occasionally let myself go (am just gearing up to knock off a bit of weight again, but it's largely creeped back on). I am once able to forget for vast swathes of time that I am mortal and life can stop at any time. So the scans and blood tests are a good reminder to try and keep it together so my blog can get as close to 20,000 entries as possible.
Coincidentally I was listening to Sir Chris Hoy's new autobiography about his own much more serious cancer as I waited. I can certainly count my blessings that I was so fortunate, but if you've read my book or seen my show you'll know I felt like that at the time. I have been pretty much the healthiest man in every hospital waiting room I've been in. Remarkably Chris also writes about the people who have had it harder than him. An uncle who was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp, friends who died suddenly without being able to say goodbye to their families. I think that's the way through. There will always be someone who has it worse than you. Well always except for one person, I suppose. I wonder how they get through it.
Chris is a remarkable man (in case you hadn't notice) both with his minor achievement of 6 Olympic golds and his resilience in the face of serious illness, but what I like about the book and why it's so effective is that he also really a very normal man. He loves his wife and his kids and his mates and is hit in the same anyone would be by the unexpected and unwelcome news of his cancer, though copes with everything that is being thrown at him (and it's not just cancer) with admirable positivity.
I was worried the book would be too much to bear. Chris has kids about the same age as my own and unsurprisingly for both of us, our kids were our main concern. Though I recognised the intense emotions of diagnosis and fear (and the account is emotional without being uncontrolled or mawkish), it didn't make me cry (I've just listened to the last chapter as I write this, which is a letter to his kids for the future, something I thought about a lot too, and that did bring tears to my eyes. But it's still measured and positive and loving). I saw the similarities of our experience, whilst acknowledging the vast differences in scale. But if Sir Chris Hoy can feel positive about this experience (whilst obviously wishing it wasn't happening) then I most certainly fucking can. Oh did you lose one of your used up bollocks, Rich? What a terrible thing to happen.
I am talking to Chris next week for the Book Club and his own podcast which I am very much looking forward to. It's a great book for anyone in a remotely similar position,
but worth reading before it happens to you too. Wise without being over-complicated and brilliantly judged. And it's also great on coping with changes in your work-life and how a champion as great as him copes with retirement and sporting glory days being in the past. How he copes with that is, as expected, admirable.
I got into the hospital at 9am and was surprised to see little to no queue in the bloods waiting room. I have sometimes spent an hour or more seated in here, but I got seen within ten minutes and remarkably was out of there in time to avoid having to pay for parking (the first 20 minutes is free) which is an achievement greater than six poxy gold medals. My day was my own now and obviously I was going to grasp it and live ever second to full. So I watched the documentary about the man who thought he'd found Lord Lucan - which is an extraordinary piece about being driven by obsession and how you react when you run out of road, but equally you can understand why they thought they'd found him, even if the guy they'd got was clearly over half a foot too small. I
t's worth watching, even if ultimately it's about something else other than Lord Lucan 
