Archives: Introduction

As the old proverb tells us:

Every great journey begins with a single step…

Today, my great journey to summit the 3 highest peaks in the UK within 24 hours began with the single, simple step of inducting myself at the gym.

I’ve been lucky enough to be sponsored by Topnotch Healthclubs with a gym membership and, if you’ll pardon the pun, top-notch training advice and personalised programmes to get me ship-shape and walking-fashioned in time for the challenge in June.

This blog, in what must been its umpteenth iteration ((having followed pre- and post-transplant journey and a short “trial” stint at university)), will become home to OLI’S 3 PEAKS – the online diary of my build-up, training, highs and lows of my bid to raise awareness of organ donation by attempting a frankly very silly challenge for someone with a) a total lack of any kind of physical fitness and b) a very low tolerance for pain or discomfort.

Here, as they say, goes nothing….

Today marks the first day of my return to day-to-day life blogging. Back when I was ill and immediately after my transplant, I spent about 2 years documenting almost every day of my life ((The archive for this blog, as you will see, has been migrated onto this one, so the entirety of my blogging life is collected in one place)) . Back then the intention was to give me something to focus on beyond the long wait for transplant, or for what would happen if I didn’t get one in time.

I’ve lapsed off the personal blogging over the last 12 months, but have decided to return to it as I’ve slowly felt myself losing that little bit of perspective that the blog gave me on my life and how things were going.

I also hope by writing a daily journal on my activities, it may spur me to be even more dedicated to getting work done and achieving my goals, rather than losing myself in Facebook and Twitter when I’m supposed to be being productive.

Here’s a new year, a new chapter and a hugely successful 2011.

PS – I don’t actually expect anyone to find this site either interesting or of use, but I felt I needed to write a little intro post on here to explain why this blog’s so dull. The real action is over at olilewington.co.uk

Blogs. There’s millions of ’em. The world has blogs coming out of it’s ears. The world has blogs coming out of pretty much every orifice. So why am I adding to the over-crowded madness and what’s this all about?

I’m here for me, mostly, but I’m also here in the vain hope that someone, somewhere, someday may find some useful knowledge or comfort in the words that will follow and the journey I’m embarking on.

18 months ago, in June 2005, I elected to go onto the active transplant list for a double-lung transplant. I have Cystic Fibrosis and over the course of a few years I had slowly declined to the point where my specialist team at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford arrived at the conclusion that I was now eligible for transplant.

I say “eligible” because transplant is a very odd thing: to be considered for the list you need to walk a very fine line between being ill enough to warrant a) taking the chance of a new life away from someone else on the waiting list and b) taking the risk that such a massive surgical procedure places on your already frail body, but at the same time being well enough that, complications aside, your body will have enough in reserve to withstand the rigours of surgery.

Since I went on the list in the middle of last year, my health has been stable and I’ve been relatively well. With CF, things are all relative.

In September this year, however, things took a turn for the worse and I’m now facing a countdown to the end of a race which is going to end on one of two sides of a coin. Only 50% of people who go on the transplant list actually receive the organs they require to go on and live a full and happy life. The other 50% die while they wait.

Throughout my life coping with the ups and downs of CF – and believe you me they are myriad – I’ve learnt one thing above all others. If you don’t laugh, you cry. Hence the title of this blog.

Whatever happens over the coming months and years, wherever my health takes me and whatever else life throws at me, this blog will be here not only to document the process, but also to remind me when the going gets to its very toughest, that the world is really a very funny place and you have to keep on smiling, because the other options are too dark to think of.

My intention in this blog is to chart my day-to-day progress, both physically and mentally, as I race the clock towards it’s ultimate conclusion – one way or the other.

I’m not (quite) vain enough to think that I’m going to change the world with a little diary-cum-biography-cum-progress report, but as with all things that I do, both for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust and in my life in general, if it makes a difference to just one person and helps them get through a tough time, helps them realise they are not alone or just shows them that life’s not always so bad after all, then it will be worth it.

Whatever you do in life, always have courage in your convictions – throw yourself into it with all your energy and strive every day to be the best that you can be. You truly never know what’s around the corner and regrets in life are the hardest thing to deal with when you face a ticking clock.