The plan was that by this time today1, I should have been arriving at a hotel in Scotland with the rest of the 3 Peaks team to prepare ourselves to tackle the immense 3 Peaks Challenge this weekend.
As we all know, other things happened to get in the way of that.
I’m absolutely gutted that I’m not going to be with Ben, Dave, Gary and my bro this weekend and that I’m not going to feel the immense sense of achievement (and exhaustion) on Sunday morning that I anticipated feeling. What makes it worse is the fact that this is now 2 years in a row when my health has got in the way of the very same challenge, with the very same team of people.
I’ve dealt for many years with the ups and downs of my health, but I’ve always managed to come out of things with a positive spin and so it is with this. Despite thinking that after transplant I wasn’t going to face these kinds of disappointment, I’m finally starting to hear the sense in my own words, spoken at almost every event I speak at: transplant is not a magic bullet, it’s simply exchanging one set of problems for another.
Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing – NOTHING – that I would change about my life right now. Transplant has saved and transformed my life and allowed me to be the person I always wanted (and believed) I could be. It’s allowed me to do all the things I’ve always wanted (and believed I could) do.
Events like the things that have been happening recently serve only to remind me that although I have downsides, so does everyone else. And thanks to my transplants, my troughs are a hell of a lot shallower than before – and than many other people deal with every day – and my peaks are a hell of a lot higher.
So it leaves me simply to suck it up and move right along – knowing in my heart of hearts that not going this weekend is the right decision and knowing that something else will soon come along to excite, entice and energise me as I move forward.
As a result of recent events, my life is going through a lot of changes, but they are all enormously exciting and I know that the best times of my life lay ahead. It’s time to knuckle down, get on with it and start taking my first steps forward to the brave new world to which I’m being introduced.
- around 4.30pm as I write this [↩]