Archives: Firsts

What an awesome day today has been – one of the best since my transplant.

Today I achieved something I’d never have thought I could achieve and done something I never thought I’d see myself doing even before my transplant.

We had my Godson up for the day with his mum and dad at my ‘rents and another family of really close friends with two kids as well and we all traipsed across Willen lake to the high-rope course on the far side of the sports lake.

This thing is pretty epic – a collection of fairly challenging obstacles suspended around 20 feet above the ground on the first level, with an upper level twice that height.  All harnessed and hard-hatted up, we set off around the first level.

The interesting thing about the course is that it’s not really possible to get down once you’ve started, so by way of a tester they put the most intimidating obstacles first, so if you really, really don’t like it, you can turn back.  I must confess, halfway through traversing the 10′ wide section of climbing wall with the world’s tiniest footholds, I seriously considered it.

I’m glad I didn’t though, as the rest of the course was pure joy.  I only struggled at one point, which was a section which required excellent balance (not something I’m renowned for) and good upper-body strength (something which has yet to grace my new body).  With that out of the way, the rest of the course was *relatively* easy.

I was disappointed that the lower level required so much physical exertion that I didn’t have anything left in the tank to attempt the higher, more challenging level this time around, but it gives me a great incentive to build my strength and stamina back up and conquer it next time.

The final step of the course is a 50’ rope drop from a tower in the centre of the courses.  Hooked onto a decelerating wire, you step off a platform for a few moments of free-fall before the rope goes taught and the drum begins to slow you down, depositing you on your feet/butt at the bottom a couple of seconds later at a manageable speed.

Before my op, healthy or not, I wouldn’t not have dreamed of doing something like that in a million years.  To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what possessed me to to it today, but I did.  I stood at the top, harnessed up and clipped on and wondered out loud what I was doing there before serenely stepping off the platform and dropping to the floor in a matter of seconds.  On the way down it was the most horrible thing I’ve ever done, but as soon as I hit the floor I wanted to go again.

Doing a course like that really rammed home once again the astonishing difference these new lungs have made to my life.  Even after completing it, I still had enough energy to go back to Mum and Dad’s and play in the garden with everyone, as we got through games of Butthead, Scatch and footie.  It’s an amazing feeling to finally be able to run around and play in the garden with people again.

I always said before my op that Transplant is a bit of a gamble – there’s no way of knowing how long it’s going to last for and what your quality of life is going to be like, but I said I’d be happy if all I got was an extra six months and the opportunity to play football with my Godsons again.  This weekend, as I ran and missed yet another perfectly weighted cross just wide of the far post, it occurred to me that I’ve now hit both of those milestones.  Everything I wanted before my transplant, I’ve got – I couldn’t be more blessed and feel more happy and content with my life than I do right now.

Transplant is amazing. Full stop.

This weekend has been manic and really, really tiring, but wonderful at the same time.

I woke up Saturday with the pains in my chest not abating in the slightest.  I’ve still got a stock of Tramadol which I often take for pain in my scar overnight but haven’t used during the daytime for a good few months now.  I’ve been forced back onto them by the pains in my chest again, which is a real drag as it means I can’t drive when I’m on them.

Still, I downed a couple of Tramadol in the morning when we woke up and then stayed in bed for most of the morning while K did kiddie-prep for the arrival of our two nieces in the afternoon.  A while ago we agreed to have them over for the night, Liv being 3, JJ 11, as their ‘rents had plans.  The plans fell through but we figured we’d have them over anyway as we love spending time with them and Liv especially was so excited about it.

I honestly thought we’d have to cancel when I woke in the morning, such was the pain in my chest I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much to occupy them, but K was adamant she could do it herself if the worst came to the worst.

So they rocked up with their mum and little bro around 3pm, then stayed solo later when they headed off home.  The first thing we did was make some little wooden spoon people, which was great fun, although I didn’t actually get a spoon of my own, since there were only 3.  I was relegated to being Liv’s glue-operator, at her beck and call for blobbing when she needed it.

After dinner, we (well, K and the kids) made some cakes, which they threw in the oven to cook while we got the littl’un ready for bed and read her a story.  Once K had rescued the ever-so-slightly over-cooked cakes from the oven, we sat down and played a board game with JJ, before discovering Liv sitting up in bed unable to sleep.

Eventually, after another story and a bit of a grizzle/cry for her mum, we managed to get her off to sleep and we settled into a game of Scrabble with big sis, which was great fun, even though I lost to the always competitive K by 2 points.

It’s funny when I play board games because I’m really not a competitive person – I’m happy enough to play the game, not really bothered if I win or lose.  But if someone else who’s playing is competitive, it somehow turns me into a competitive monster.  I’m happy enough when everyone is chilled and happy playing a game, but if someone is really competitive, I just really, really want to beat them.  I’ve no idea why or where it comes from, but there you go.

Once we were done with Scrabble, JJ headed off to bed only to find little sis had managed to roll herself into a position with her head on one pillow and her feet on the other side of the bed on her sister’s pillow.  Having gently moved her back to her side, the light of her sister coming to bed woke Liv up and we proceeded into a round of very, very tearful calls for mummy.

Eventually, after a call home and a promise that mummy would come get her if she got some sleep (I hate lying to children, but it was a parentally-sanctioned lie, so I felt slightly better about it), Liv settled down and no sooner had she stopped crying than she passed out into slumber again.  Bushed from the day, K and I weren’t long behind, although my night’s sleep was pretty poor since my brain was tuned in to picking up even the slightest peep coming from the bedroom in case the littl’un woke up again.

As it was, we didn’t hear another peep out of either of them until they came into our room at 7.30 the next morning, pretty respectable as mornings go.  We all settled on the sofa bed in our PJs and watched the Incredibles while K, JJ and I slowly brought ourselves to consciousness and Liv ran around jumping all over us like a mini-loony.

Once we’d breakfasted and got dressed, we iced the cakes for their little bro’s birthday party then played a couple of rounds of Tiddlywinks (what an awesome game!) and made a birthday card, at which point it was about time to head home with them.  We took them back and were greeted by an incredibly happy, smiley little brother, who was delighted to have his sisters home to celebrate his 2nd birthday.  I’m not sure he entirely grasped the concept of a birthday, but he was enjoying it all the same.

We hung around for a couple of hours, playing with some of the new toys, reading some books and saying hey to the other family and friends who turned up throughout the start of the afternoon.  Unfortunately we couldn’t stay day because Nana has a bit of a chest infection, which I obviously need to steer clear of, so we had to split the afternoon in half for us to visit early on and Nana to come along after.

Instead, we headed over to my ‘rents to have a great Sunday roast with my mum’s two brothers, one of whom was over from Luxembourg with his wife, and my cousins.  My mum and her siblings are absolutely priceless entertainment value when they all get together and today was no exception.  It was one of the nicest, most raucous, most fun family lunches I’ve had in a really long time.

By the time we got home around 7 in the evening, K and I were shattered.  We have no idea how parents cope with kids 24/7 since we were completely run into the ground after just 24 hours.  We have a new found respect for our brothers and sisters now, since we clearly showed how weak and rubbish we are.  I’m just glad that, unlike K, I don’t have to go to work tomorrow so I can chill out and not worry about anything.

I can’t even begin to describe the emotional impact of the last week, especially the last few days.

After an enforced media blackout over the weekend, I was hoping to be blogging from Tuesday about my adventures down South, where I’d gone to take my Direct Access motorcycle training course, which was full of adventures, bumps and bruises (although luckily nothing worse than that).  Life got in the way, however, with the effort of keeping a bike on its wheels becoming too much for my recovering body and leaving me mostly too shattered to even think afterwards, let alone form coherent sentences.

But of course last week wasn’t really about the motorbike course, it was all about the run up to the Tresco Marathon and the event itself.

I’d love to go back and give you a day-by-day,  blow-by-blow account and maybe at some point I will, but right now, having got back from our travels at 4.30 this afternoon after an epic 27 hour journey (with a stop in London), it’s WAY more important that you guys know where your sponsorship money went.

That, people, was towards helping me push myself through the hell that was the last mile of the Tresco marathon, which I not only achieved, but in record time, too.

The marathon on Tresco is simply one of the most amazing experiences it’s possible to legally have in the world, without a doubt.  Author (and personal favourite of my Uncle) Bill Bryson was invited along one year and now he refuses to miss it even when, as with this year, the birth of a new grandchild is imminent, such is the level of warmth, friendliness, inspiration and all-round beauty, both human and natural.

It’s fair to say that the troup of 10 Marines from M Company, 42 Commando Royal Marines made quite a stir.  Standing out on the course (which runners have to complete a draining 7.5 laps of to achieve the full 26.2 mile distance), you could feel the excitement in the air every time they came into view, moving at pace, all in time, wearing 30lb back-packs and full kit.  Everyone there to cheer people on spent the day looking out first of all for their loved one, but then for the next time the Marines were coming round.

My brother, when he first put himself and the gang forward for the challenge, told the organisers they’d do it in 7 hours.  Chatting on the ferry on the way over to the island, he confided that he was hoping they’d get in under that.  Speaking to their Sergeant, he was determined they were going to break 6 hours.

As they rounded their last lap and past their well-manned rolling pitstop point for the last time, I started my walk back up the course and up the hill to meet them at the 25 mile marker on their next way round, glancing at my watch the check the time.  As I stood on top of the hill watching the turn for them to emerge, my stomach flipped and I realised just what it was I was undertaking.

The course organisers came flying round the corner on one of the islands ubiquitous golf karts, stopping in front of me to check who I was before announcing that I was runner number 140 and leaping out to pin my number on me – news to me as I didn’t realise I was to be a registered entrant in the event.  As he pinned me front and back, I stole a glance at my watch and realised something horrible: they were on course – at their pace – to break the 5.5 hour mark. 5hours 30minutes with 30lbs and jungle boots.  These guys were on another level (“machines” as the marathon’s instigator called them after trying to keep pace) the only thing standing in the way of them achieving a truly remarkable time was me.

Around September/October last year we – as a family – decided that we’d grace my Godfather and his family in Ipswich with our presence at Christmas. They did invite us, it must be pointed out, we didn’t just decide we were going to descend on them and then inform them of their newly arranged festive plans. We were all looking forward to it – Mum because it meant she didn’t have to cook, me because getting away anywhere was a bit of a treat at the time, epic as it was to shift all my kit from place to place, K was positively brimming at the prospect of swimming on Christmas day.

We all know how that turned out, of course (or if you’re that much in the dark, check out the blog entry for Tuesday 20 November to get abreast of my detour), much to everyone’s consternation, not least Mum’s as it meant she not only had to cook, but subsequently take me to hospital while hurling my insides up on Boxing Day, lucky lady.

I jest, of course, being as we were all delighted to have the world’s greatest Christmas present thanks to the generosity of one family and their amazing loved one who took the time to sign the ODR. That being said, my lovely “Auntie” Norma has not stopped chiding me since my op for abandoning them over Christmas.

As wonderful a Godson as I am and as much as they berated me, it’s taken me until the end of March to find the time to take out and go to see them all. Mostly, that’s down to the hospital visits being way too regular to get over to Ipswich and back across to Harefield and enjoy anything of a stay there. In the end, once the docs decided they were sick of the sight of me and told me to go away, I managed to phone Norma and let her know we would be imposing ourselves for the week this week.

Best laid plans and all that, the week turned into 3 days after I planned a CBT on the Monday, which was (as you may have read) snowed off and switched to Friday, meaning we’d need to return from the East on Thursday night for me to make the 8.30am start.

Still, 3 days is better than nothing at all and it was a wonderful opportunity not only to see them all for the first time post-op, but also to get some good gym work done in their fantastically appointed gym and swimming pool, which has recently been complimented with a gob-smacking spa complex to boot.

So after a mad morning of rushing around trying to get a prescription done last-minute (because I’m a womble and I forgot), we set off and headed down/across/up/whichever way Ipswich is and found our way there after only going wrong once (quite an achievement considering the tiny, twisty, back-country lane they live down) – and that was on the main road, too.

After chilling out a little, it wasn’t long before my Godfather, ex-Army man that he is, had me bashing the treadmill to show him what my new lungs could do. They held up admirably to the strain, I have to say, Graeme working me harder than I’ve ever worked on these lungs and although I felt like I was just about to be flung full-force backwards across the gym by a treadmill turning way too fast for my ever-weakening legs, there was actually an amazing sense of accomplishment afterwards.

It wouldn’t have been a visit to G&N’s without a quick dip and K had me in the pool no sooner had we finished in the gym, K proudly sporting her new swimming leggings and imploring me to teach her how to swim, completely over-looking the fact that the last time I’d been in a pool was quite possible over half a decade ago and the last time I’d had anything approaching a lesson I’d still been shy of single digits.

We swam all the same, and took advantage of the gorgeously relaxing rainfall shower in the spa before drying off and heading in for dinner.

Best part of the day, though: hands down the after-dinner retirement to the top floor cinema room, with drop down screen and Blu-Ray projector with U-shaped super-comfy sofa on which we settled with tea, cake and biscuits to watch Atonement, an amazing flick which is one of the few adaptations I’ve seen in recent time to do their literary counterpart justice. James McAvoy is remarkable and Keira Knightley very good, but it’s director Joe Wright’s grasp of the subtlety of emotion and deft handling of the varied viewpoints and tricky time-lapses which give he film its weight. Some of the choices on dialogue delivery weren’t my cup of tea, but I could acknowledge them as a strong stylistic choice and as such not something to do the man down for, nor was it anything which would spoil the film as a whole.

Suitably buoyed up by the happy-go-lucky flick* we all stumbled off the sofa in the direction of our beds, with another day of activity – not least another gym session – ahead of us.

*not an accurate reflection of the film. It’s more down-beat that something incredibly down-beat with strong undertones of “somber” and a slight edge of “depressing”. But still very good. And surprisingly warm.

Today was supposed to be spent with my legsa astride a throbbing machine, but sadly they don’t let you learn to ride motorbikes in the snow.

I woke up bright and early (and surprisingly alert) at 7am, cooked myself a nice, filiing fuelling breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast, then – having glanced outside and taken stock of the conditions (light snow, which wasn’t settling, and cold, dark skies) I stuck on a multitude of layers of clothing including nice warm thermals and set off for the CBT (Compulsory Basic Training) centre on the other side of town.

15 minutes later I pulled up to find the instructor warming the bikes up while sheltering in a large shipping container from the elements.  Seeing the bikes out gave me hope that he might have decided it was OK, but when I approached him it was fairly obvious that he’d already made up his mind about it all.  We had a quick chit chat and went over the weather situation and even though it wasn’t supposed to persist, he pointed out that any sort of snow technically disqualifies him from teaching, which means if the DSA were to turn up for a random inspection (a not-unlikely possibility), he’d have been in the doo-doo.

Sufficiently disappointed, I toddled myself back home and made with the productivity.  Knowing that I had a good 3 hours before her ladyship was likely to be roused, I set about ploughing through a whole stack of work that had been slowly piling up over the last couple of weeks, waiting for my attention when I finally stopped running around the country like a lunatic for half a day.

Satisfied with my morning’s work and with a finally awake K, we were joined by Dazz, who popped up to use our ‘net for some bits and bobs he wanted to do (mostly to do with adding photos to Facebook, I think).  After lunch had settled, K and I decided to be good little Easter bunnies and take ourselves off down the gym for an hour, me completing another mile on the treadmill, K doing circuit set of cardio and weights.

We got back and chilled for a bit before having to head over to my ‘rents to get our weeks’ washing done – having a kaput washing machine is starting to get ever so slightly annoying, now.  Luckily, this weeks’ laundry duty happened to coincide with my ‘rents getting back form their skiing holiday in Italy, which meant we had chance to catch up with them, peep out their photos from the week  and hear all their stories about the Fawlty Towers hotel they stayed in.

In the grand scheme of things it may not seem like much, but this holiday for my mum and dad marks almost as big a landmark as anything I’ve been up to of late.  For the last two-and-a-half years my parents have been as UK-bound as I have, having to remain accessible just in case that call finally came.  For two-and-a-half years they’ve had to put their usual holiday plans on hold and stop their preferred overseas holidays so that they can be around for me.  Last weeks’ trip to the Italian Alps, just by the Mont Blanc tunnel, is the first time they’ve been able to book, take and enjoy a holiday abroad for any extended period since I was listed back in 2005.

So it was great to hear of their adventures and even though it sounds like they got what they paid for in their bargain-basement last-minute hotel-and-flight deal, they really enjoyed themselves.  I can’t describe how happy it makes me to see my mum and dad finally able to do the things they want to do and to enjoy themselves without having to worry about me or what sort of state I’d be in when they got home.  I only spoke to them once while they were away, whereas in the past it would have required almost daily updates of how I was doing.  Transplant affects so many more lives than just mine and it feel amazing to be able to enjoy it from a whole new perspective.

After we’d got through all of our washing and I’d stolent the left-overs from the ‘rents roast lamb, we headed back home to find Dazz stranded in boredom at the flat.  Turns out when we left him, telling him to feel free to use the ‘net and that the keys were on the side in the kitchen for him to use to lock up then post through the lettter box, he’d not heard the latter part of the sentence, so had been sat in waiting for us to come back for close on 2 hours.  In the meantime he’d been joined by Cliff, who came to occupy him with a game of Simpsons Operation.  I’m not sure how interesting it is, though, because they both looked pretty bored when we got there.  Mind you, they had a whole WALL of DVDs to choose from, so I’ don’t have that much sympathy.

We sat down to cups of tea and K threw on Curse of the Were-Rabbit, while I jumped on my computer to write/update my CV in the vague thought that I might apply for a job I’d seen in the paper today.  I’d forgotten how long and dull CV writing is, getting through most of the film before I’d done with that and also caught up with the various bits of charity stuff which needed my attention before I ran away for a few days tomorrow.

By 11 I was finished and so was the flick, Dazz and Cliff had departed and K was in bed.  I hastily rushed through my ablutions before hitting the sack and vanishing into the world of sleep within minutes.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been up at 7am, done a full day’s work including a gym session and not had a nap.  Feels good, though.

Being exhaustedly tired didn’t seem to do much – if anything – for my ability to sleep as I once again lay awake until gone 3am.  Annoyingly, it was the kind of lack of sleep where you are so nicely chilled and relaxed that getting up is pretty out of the question, but somehow you can’t complete the transition from awake to asleep.  At least it was 3am tonight, not 7am like last night.

As promised, apart from waking for Tac at 10, I did manage to sleep myself through till midday, which was a lovely battery-recharger.

Many moons ago, soon after Emily got home from her transplant last year, she offered to pass on to me her smaller, more portable oxygen concentrator, which gave me the freedom to visit other people’s houses without worrying about when my O2 was going to run out – all I had to do was plug Claire in and I’d be sitting pretty for as long as I liked.  Since I’m now blessedly no longer in need of it, Em and I put our heads together and came up with a friend of ours who would benefit from Claire’s friendship and emailed her to see if she wanted her.

Since the initial email about 2 months has passed and I have forgotten no less than 3 times when I’ve seen Em to pass Claire on to her as Sam only lives about 15 minutes from her.  After my final act of stupidity last week when I was in London seeing Em and only about 15 minutes from Sam’s house myself, I decided that I couldn’t beat about the bush any longer or try to wait for or engineer meetings to hand stuff over and just bite the bullet and drive to South London (Sutton) and drop Claire off.

As it happens, there was almost no traffic at all on the roads yesterday, everyone travelling for Easter clearly having done so the day before or that morning.  So while everyone else in the country was playing happy or not-so-happy families, we trundled our way down the M1 and round the M25 through some of the craziest, mosy bizarre but brilliant weather I’ve ever seen.

We would go from bright sunshine to torrential rain through sleet, snow and hail all within the space of a few miles.  There was one amazing moment on the M25 when we were driving along in brilliant sun and ahead of us we could see what looked, totally honestly, like a piece of cloud had broken off and fallen down onto the road.  There was just a sheet of grey mist falling sideways across the carriageway and dumping itself onto the road in front of us.

Surprisingly, there were no crashes and no major hold-ups and the journey took precisely as long as the AA website told me it would, which I had thought pretty generous considering quite how far round the London-loop we were going.

On the way round, K spotted a signpost for Southampton, where my Dad’s family are from and near where his dad and sister still reside.  Once K had pointed it out and mentioned (in jest) that we could go, I got to thinking that I’d not seen any of my Aunt’s family since my op, apart from my eldest cousin who stopped in to the hospital the week after her mum had.  And from South London, it’s really not that far to their house.

So, once we’d dropped Claire safely at Sam’s to start a new life of independence-making (hopefully), we set off down towards the South coast to drop in and surprise my Aunt and her clan.

We eventually arrived (after a slightly longer journey than we anticipated…) around 6ish and everyone was duly surprised, luckily in a pleasant “great to see you” kind of way, not the usual “oh no, not them again” kind of way.

We stopped and stayed for a cuppa (or two) and my Uncle introduced me proudly to Jeeves, his pride-and-joy in the garage.  It’s an old… car that’s really very pretty and cool and as my cousin pointed out, means they can now play gangsters up and down their road properly, as they have the wheels to hang off with their Tommy guns and three-piece-suits with Trilbys.  Being that they live right out in the contryside not far from Winchester, there’s not a whole lot of people to gangster at, but I suppose they could always go rough up some sheep.

After persuading them that we really didn’t intend to impose ourselves on them for dinner and that they didn’t have to make it stretch (which they probably couldn’t have anyway, what with my appetite and three near six-foot teenager boys in the house), we headed off just before 8pm and rolled back up the A34 through Newbury and Oxford to MK, rocking up at home just before 9.30pm.

Having not been to the flicks for over a week, I couldn’t pass up the offer of catching The Cottage with Steve at 9.50, so I pretty much headed straight back out again, leaving K behind cooking fairy cakes as Easter presents for our little nieces and nephews tomorrow.

The Cottage is an absolutely hilarious horror-comedy with the always fantastic Andy Serkis (who made his name by not actually appearing on screen at all as the motion-capture performer for both Gollum in Lord of the Rings and Kong in King Kong – although he also played Lumpy the Cook in the latter) and Reece Shearsmith of League of Gentlemen Fame (not a show I’m a fan of, but he’s great in this).  Jennifer Ellison plays the kidnapee in what starts out as a fairly straight-forward ransom-thriller with deft comic touches, the quickly changes pace mid-way through and turns into the most hilarious stalk-and-slash horror movie I’ve seen in a long time.

As a Brit-flick, this was always destined to be compared to Shaun of the Dead, another comedy-horror which took the world by storm back in 2004, and it’s to its enormous credit that it actually stands up to the comparison.  It’s a very different film, not just in genre of horror, but in the way that while it manages to include pretty much all of the stalk-and-slash horror staples, it never directly references any specific film, whereas Shaun of the Dead was full of nods, quips and homages to the very best in Zombie horror.

There are some brilliantly nasty death scenes in The Cottage, but never have I laughed so hard at so many people’s unfortunate ends.  Makes you feel terrible at the time, but the sheer inventiveness with which they knock off one of the main characters is near-legendary.

It doesn’t pull its punches and it’s a pretty full-on gore fest at times, but if you like horror movies, especially the good, old-fashioned slasher pics with an iconic bad-guy, you’ll get a kick out of this.

I got home from it around midnight in time to catch the end of Devil Wears Prada, which K had settled into on the sofa – a slightly difference flick to my night’s other watching.  By the end, my eyes were closing and I dragged myself off to bed, where I get through a few pages of my book before conking out.

Without doubt this has been one of my best days post-transplant.  When I woke up, it felt like a real chore to be getting into the car and schlepping all the way down to Town and back, but when I took a second to realise how cool it was that I could actually even consider jumping in the car and heading South, it cheered me up.  Coupled with being able to exploit a random whim and scoot off to see a family with whom I share so many of my happiest memories and still having energy enough to go and catch a great film afterwards, I can’t imagine a better way of showing the fantastic difference a transplant makes to anyone’s life.

We wake pretty late – around 10, when my Tac-alarm goes off – and slowly grind to a start.  I didn’t sleep at all well, waking up pretty much every hour, so I’m feeling decidedly sluggish, although a quick shower kick starts me very nicely.

We head across to the house to see what we can help with.  K has been there ahead of me and is knee-deep in cakes, arranging a display of confectionery to make the least-sweet toothed person fancy a nibble.  All will be on sale throughout the after noon and, come 4 o’clock, all will have been sold and many eaten.  Not least by K.

I am put to work on various bits and pieces to do with the silent auction and raffle, both of which will be running throughout.  A silent auction, for the uninitiated, is an auction in the traditional sense, but instead of having an auctioneer at the front of the room reeling off the prices and bids, each lot is given a piece of paper on which you write your bid and then keep checking to see if anyone has out bid you.  The best thing about silent auctions is that they can run a lot longer than regular auctions without really winding people up – especially the people who aren’t interested in bidding, for whom a traditional auction is the worst kind of dull.

After almost an hour of beavering away on whatever I’m set-to by the awesomely organised and surpringsly-not-in-the-least-bossy Lucinda, CF-mum and helper-in-chief to Suzanne, the lady-of-the-house who appears to currently be engaged in doing absolutely everything all at once, I have to scurry off to make myself look presentable for the incoming hoards.  I feel somewhat ashamed that the elite team of ladies have been working away since goodness-knows-when (certainly before I was awake) and my little contribution adds up to little over an hour’s stuffing things in envelopes and putting things on tables.

Still, take myself away I do and smarten myself up.  I find K knee deep in hair-product getting her new ‘Do to behave (which it does, and beautifully), slip into my posh frock (wait a sec…) and head back over to the house to be there when the throng arrives.

To my immense surprise, said throng is almost perfectly on time.  I had this crowd pegged as the fashionably-late  sort, but not a bit of it.  On the dot the majority of them came steaming in through the gates (yes, they have gates…!) and parked up in the courtyard (which you’ll remember from yesterday), unloaded themselves, their friends and – occasionally – their babies, and headed up into the house.

Once they’d all settle into the food service (aha – captive audience…), Stephen kicked things off my introducing himself, the idea behind the marathon and the reasons he and the rest of the team were involved.  Then he introduced me (and I’ll forgive him the “brave” comment purely because it’s the only foot he put wrong the whole time I was there…) and I was left to fend for myself in front of 2 rooms full of 100+ ladies (I didn’t count because then I’d just have got all wound up about it).

When I speak in public, I tend to talk without notes.  I usually know how I’ll start and I like to plan something punchy to end on (although Stephen stole the “downhill” joke from me in his intro, so that was that scuppered), but the rest of it is left up to the mood of the room and the feel of the day.  What that mostly means is that I often talk for 10-15 minutes and finish off having absolutely no idea what I’ve just said.  You’ll have to talk to someone else who was there to find out if I was a) interesting or b) any good, but I was happy enough I hadn’t droned on for hours nor been too deathly dull, although one can never tell.

Managing to get myself some lunch afterwards, I got a few appreciative nods and comments from people, which was good, and the silent auction seemed to start to rattle along a bit after in-speech plugs from Stephen and I.  Unwinding from the talk and chatting to the guests, it was good to hear a number of people being educated for the first time about CF – although it’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone out there who’s not heard of it, the truth is it’s rarer than a lot of conditions.  The advantage of introducing it to people for the first time – especially at a fundraiser – is that they often want to do something immediately to help out.  When you combined the charitable urge with the enormous efforts the marathon team are putting in, I was hopeful we’d give the team a decent boost to their sponsorship coffers.

I can’t express my admiration for these guys enough.  Not only have they completed other marathons together, they are now working as a team to meet the challenge of the world’s highest marathon – a feet so insane and counter-intuitive that I simply can’t contemplate it.  And they’re doing it all – off their own backs – to raise money for the  CF Trust and help them pursue their gene-therapy trials in the search for effective treatment and – one day, maybe – a cure for this horrible disease that takes too many lives.

I’m one of the lucky ones who’s been given a second chance at life – a second crack of the whip.  There are still too many children and young adults who only get the briefest, quietest crack and who we lose every week.

Please, please, if you are as inspired by their efforts and their self-lessness as I am, if you are even remotely touched by their attitude and sense of adventure, if you have any concept just how hard a marathon is, let along one at the base of the world’s highest mountain, go to their Just Giving page and leave a donation – it doesn’t matter how small, every tiny bit counts.  And if you know any benevolent marathon runners, pass on the link, let them see how insane it is for themsevles and get them to leave a donation , too – www.justgiving.com/THCF

At the end of the afternoons activities, having drawn the raffle (and walked away with a food mixer and Christmas hamper!), closed the silent auction and totted up cash donations through tickets, raffle and cake sales to inexcess of £2,300, plus cheques totalling more than £1800 and over £3000 in auction lots, I was well and truly shattered.  Surpsingly so, in fact, but I think the combination of a bad night’s sleep, adrenaline and nerves from the talk and being on my feet for almost 5 hours straight had taken their toll and I needed a kip.

Excusing ourselves in the middle of clear up (here comes the guilt again…), K and I headed up to our room and laid ourselves out for an hour to recharge.  When I woke, I plodded back over to the house and met up with the rest of the marathon team who had joined remains of the day (with the exception of Jodie, who couldn’t come for cross-infection reasons with me).  Both Guy and Barry are exceptionally nice blokes and seeing the hilarity as they tried on some of their cold-weather mountain gear and their thermal sleeping backs and blow-up matresses almost made me wish I was going with them.  then I remembered they were running a marathon on Everest and the urge miraculously disappeared.

In the evening, K and I took ourselves off into the centre of Durham (thanks to Alex’s wonderfully kind taxi service) for a nice meal between the two of us, followed by a walk up to the Cathedral to wave at Castle.

When we got back we sat and chilled with Family Cronin for a while, catching up on the day’s gossip and chatting about all sorts of various disparate subjects from the Mac vs. PC debate to modern horror films and shooting stage plays.

By the time I’d got to the bottom of my beer it was pushing 11 and I was acutely aware that everyone had things to do tomorrow, not least the two of us to make our way all the way back down South.  We were already imposing on the family a day longer than we’d expected to (after I realised the inherent foolishness off trying to drive home from the party in the afternoon as tired as I was), so I wanted to inconvenience them as little more as we could manage.

We headed back to the room, brewed a cuppa, sloped into bed and I don’t know about K but I was asleep within minutes of hitting the pillow.

With tremendous excitement, K and I load up the car and head back Northwards to Durham for the second time in a month. Bizarrely, as we arrive off the A1(M) and head into town under the Castle and Cathedral, artistically lit and welcoming, it feels like coming home. Odd that you can get that feeling on just your second trip, but there you go. If it weren’t for K and uni, I get the feeling we’d already be house-hunting.

The day started on a more mundane level, with K heading off to work, me getting through a chunk of email stuff from the weekend which was demanding my attention and then managing to scoot off to the gym, know it’s pretty unlikely I’ll see it again till Thursday.

I come home and rest up after my work-out, getting in an hour’s nap before grabbing some lunch, tidying the flat a little, then heading off to pick up K from work and start the journey upwards.

We get on surprisingly well on the trip, managing it door-to-door in about 4-and-a-half hours, which includes a stop on the motorway and minor detour through Durham, plus un petit hiccup finding our final destination.

Said destination was the house of Dr Stephen Cronin, a – frankly – complete madman who’s taking on the Everest Marathon at the end of May along with a team of friends including a runner who suffers from CF.

The house – and family – are both gorgeous and delightful, even if the former is somewhat overrun with preparations for tomorrow’s lunch for the ladies of Durham at which I am to talk and try to increase the sponsorship coffers of the Tenzing-Hilary Marathon team.

The Tenzing-Hilary Marathon is bonkers. Also known as the Everest Marathon it does exactly what it says on the tin – you walk/hike/trek for 12 days to Everest Base Camp and then – because clearly there’s nothing better to do – you run 26.2miles back down the slopes you’ve just come at an altitude which roughly halves the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere. You’d have to be crazy to even think about attempting it, let alone fill in the application form, so I’m bowled over by the fact that Stephen appears – at least at first sight – to be completely sane, a minor penchant for running silly distances not withstanding.

It says something for the family, though, that their eldest son, Alex, has accompanied his dad on all of his 4 marathons so far and is gutted – yes, really, honest-to-God disappointed – not to be able to do this one too, wrapped up as he will be in exams.

Still training doesn’t appear to be so hardcore at the moment that Stephen can’t kick back a little bit and we were treated to a lovely Chinese take-away not long after our arrival, which is always a sure-fire way to win me over.

Shattered from the journey and mindful of the big day ahead tomorrow, we retire early to our accommodation on-site at their Coach House guest house across the courtyard. (Yes, their house is big enough for a courtyard…). For anyone even thinking about visiting Durham, this is undoubtedly the place to stay. I have no second-thoughts about a large and blatant plug for the place here, as it is one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed in and so wonderfully close to the centre of Durham by car, too. Click here to check it out.

We’re hugely lucky to be given our bed, bathroom, kitchen and sofa gratis and even get a lovely little welcome pack of breakfast bits-and-bobs to see us through. The attention to detail is amazing and K and I spend at least 15 minutes exchanging “oooh, look”s at each other as we find something new and cool.

The place fully explored and long, hot, travel-cleansing shower taken, we hit the sack and attempt to get in a good night’s rest before tomorrow’s event.

First fact of the weekend – Durham is far.  Not far like as in quite a long way from MK, I mean far as in get-up-early, leave-before-lunch, drive-for-ages, double-stop and still only just get there before nightfall.

So get up early(ish) we do, drag our butts out of bed and K breakfasts while I repack all my useless packing from the night before into a better case which, I hope, will be easier to handle.  We set off by 10, making a quick stop off at Parental Lewingtons to say Hi and drop off the Mother’s Day gift and card for the day we’ll sadly be missing out on tomorrow.  Part of me feels terrible for not being around to share it with my wonderful mother, but I know that actually, what will make her happier than anything is knowing that I’m able to be off gallivanting and enjoying myself at the other end of the country.  And a nice pair of earrings doesn’t hurt, either.

We’re off and away onto the M1 by 11 and start the trek to the North.  And then a bit further.  One of the dispiriting things about heading that far North, as I have previously to Newcastle, a mere pebble-chuck from Durham, is that you travel for ages on the M1 and eventually get passed Sheffield to Leeds and you realise that you’ve still got as far to go again to get to where you want to be.  Still, it could be worse – we could have paid £360 for the both of us to do the 5-hour train journey instead.

Along the way we rock the iPod, whiling away the miles listening to a track-listing of the machine’s choice, occasionally edited by the passenger-seat DJ.  We finally roll into Durham off the A1(M) at somewhere around 4 o’clock and amazingly find our accommodation within 10 minutes after only a single phone-call to our Castle-based “fixer” the ever-attentive Pops, doyen of the My Friend Oli campaign.

The room is a spacious twin guest room in the college of St Hilde and St Bede.  I’ve no idea who they are, but as Saints go, they have a good line in comfy sleeping-quarters and nice, deep baths.  No sooner are we in than I hit the sack to crash out for an hour, before we venture up into town to meet Pops and her little (although really rather tall) bro.

The walk from the college into town gives us our first visual impression of the city of Durham and as first impressions go, it’s hard to imagine a better one.  With light shimmering off the river as we wander along the towpath, we pass the hardy-yet-incredibly-foolish rowers packing up into the rowing club, then round the corner to get our first sight of the Cathedral and Castle atop the hill in the centre of town.  With the Elvet Bridge mirroring itself in the inky blackness of the river, the scene is as close to mesmerizingly seductive as it’s possible for the still life of a city to be.

After climbing the biggest set of stairs we were to encounter all week (and encounter them fairly darn often, too), we manage to bump into Pops and bro on the bridge itself.  It’s the first time since the campaign kicked off that I’ve actually met Pops, despite numerous conversations by phone, email and good ol’ reliable Facebook.  Not surprisingly, what with this being a student town and Pops being a resident hard-core studenty-type, the first thing we do is settle in the nearest  bar.  This is where I fell in love with Durham head-over-heels – where else but a student town could you pick up a round of drinks consisting of a pint of Guiness, a half of Kroenenburg, a double-Gin and lemonade and a coke for under a tenner?  Certainly not in any of the bars in MK.

After an interval of one-and-a-half rounds (don’t worry, I was on Coke), we are joined by Pops’ just-arrived, former-native other half.  No sooner had the longed-for-loved-one turned up than Pops abandons us to make her final prep for tonights’s closing night of Assassins, the Sondheim musical she’s MD’ing, in amongst all her work on My Friend Oli, plus uni work, plus Oli-sitting duties for the weekend.

After the most rushed meal I’ve eaten in a long time (which came back to haunt me later, but that’s another story all together), the four reprobates she left in the pub stumble/run/lurch our way up the Bailey just in time to slide apologetically into our seats having delayed the start of the show with our tardiness.  Well, I like to think we were important enough to delay the start of the show, but then again it was probably more likely to be problems tying John Wilkes Booth’s cravat than anything to do with up.

I’ve not seen Assassins before and I was pleasantly surprised – I often struggle with the first viewings of Sondheim shows, even if they do grow on me with time.  Although there were a fair share of technical problems with radio mics and odd-lighting (largely due to the awkward nature of the venue, it must be added, rather than any ineptitude on the part of the production team), it was an impressive show, especially considering the speed with which it was put together and the work-load the cast have to carry outside of the Theatrical realm.

The show also marked the first time in 2 years I’ve seen the ever-marvellous and always Gentlemanly Bill Bryson, Chancellor of Durham Uni, world-renowned author and – let’s not forget – instigator of the whole My Friend Oli campaign, following our first meeting and subsequent phone chats since.  It’s great to see him again and spend a bit of time catching up on our news.  Well, I say “our” but in reality, the first evening is spent almost entirely and exclusively talking about me and my op, many of the details of which Bill had yet to be appraised of.

After the show, K and I decide to judiciously step aside and let the cast and crew make the most of their last night party without forcing Pops and the rest of the My Friend Oli gang (the ever-organised events-queen Alice) to feel the need to nanny us through the night and thus not really take part in all the usual shenanigans that one should at the close of a production.

Being the impossibly nice person he is (seriously, you have to see it to believe it), Bill insists on walking us the 20 minutes back to our lodgings along the riverside before heading back to exactly where he’d just been to catch his own cab back to his residence.

Bushed from the day’s driving and the night’s exertions (not least the hills of Durham), we are both in bed by 10.30 and I’m fairly sure I’m asleep by 10.31.  But I’m already dreaming of living in Durham.

Today was, hands down, the longest and most tiring day I’ve had since my release, but seeing as it did a trip down to Guildford to visit C, my other Godson, it was completely magical.

I used to visit him quite often (at least every major school break), but gradually I slipped backwards as I became more unwell and my annual trips to his birthday parties in the summer came off the rails and I began to rely on his parents bringing him up to see me at my mum and dad’s, where they could handle the catering and things and I just had to focus on having enough energy to play board games with him all day and even that was often a stretch.

So it was an experience beyond comparison to be able to drive down today and catch up with him properly – take him out for lunch, explore some bits of Guildford and generally have a totally awesome day.

We were up at 8 and out of the house by 9 (no more 2 hours of treatments to clog up the morning), making our way mostly cross-country to the big G thanks to rubbishness on the M25.  K ably navigated us off the motorway and through the brilliantly named Egham which has some of the most sumptuous and gorgeous houses this side of Ascot.   Although it takes a little longer, K and I often prefer the country routes to the motorways for all the little gems you find along the way.

Bizarrely, as we slipped through the traffic into Guildford, K spotted on the pavement a friend of hers from school she hasn’t seen in 6 years.  Small world doesn’t even begin to cover it.  We managed to pull over to she could chase her down and catch up, before strolling on to C’s house just the other side of the town centre.

With everyone else either at school or work (his brother’s school had half-term the week before – parental nightmare or what), we had C all to ourselves, or rather he had us all to himself.  Or whichever way round works.  After a quick cuppa, made in brilliant team-work between me and C, we set off to find an indoor climbing centre where we had decided to try out C’s bravery and my new lungs.

Disappointingly, there was nothing on their website to tell us that pre-booking was a must, so we couldn’t actually climb, which came as something of a relief as the sheer size of the indoor walls (the full height of the industrial warehouse which housed the centre) made me slightly concerned that C’s bravery would entirely show me up.  Although, being a grown-up, I managed to artfully hide my near-panic at the potential mess I’d gotten myself into, I have to confess to feeling pretty much precisely the same emotions as were written all over C’s angst-ridden face as we stood and gawped at the men dangling precariously from the over-hangs.

We vowed to book ahead for the next break and to take it on together, however scared we may be.  We moved on, instead, to the Electric Theatre in the centre of town to the altogether more sedate but brilliantly enjoyable Doodle Wall.  Set up in one of their function rooms was a 6ft high wall of paper which ran the length of the room, on which anyone could come in and leave their mark in whatever fashion they liked.

It was a brilliantly simple concept, but brilliantly great fun.  Something we thought would be a quick 10-minute stop-over on the way to something more exciting turned into almost 40 minutes of intense, concentrated art-working and we all came away pretty chuffed with what we’d managed.  Being that I can’t draw to save my life, I instead chose to add a nice big block of colour to the wall.

Once we’d doodled ourselves out, we headed up to Jo Schmo’s – a restaurant of C’s choosing – which supplied me with the world’s biggest burger (since the one I had at the Burger Co in Carnaby Street), which I once again managed to demolish with my hands and by minorly dislocating my jaw in suitably snake-like fashion.

Hardly able to move post-burgers, we settled on spending the rest of the afternoon sharing turns on the Wii back home, including the new Lego Star Wars game which had both K and I bickering about who killed who and weren’t we supposed to be a team, much to C’s amusement.  Once his mum got home we then rocked a bit of Cluedo, which I managed to gmable on and lose spectacularly by trying to out-wit the other three and jumped the gun at hazarding and accusation.  I found myself much more suited to Wii bowling, in which I found my niche after being destroyed by Chris on both Golf and Tennis.  Lucky we didn’t do the Boxing or I’d have been even more humiliated.  By a 10-year-old.

After catching up with Mum, Dad and big bro once they all got back in, we eventually shuffled off about 7pm for the 2-hour drive home, again using up a mix of motorway and back-roads once our patience with stop-start M-way traffic wore too thin.

Arriving home at 9pm, we had just about enough energy to sack out in front of the TV and catch the recorded episode of the outstanding Extreme Dreams we’d missed that evening before kicking our keks off and jumping into bed.  I don’t think I’ve fallen asleep so quickly – or so early – for a long time, but when it follows a day like today, it’s not only very welcome, but sleep arrives with a wonderful wave of the most delightful contentment with life, the universe and everything.