I've been away from here for a while, trying to pretend maybe. I know it's real and as I lurch from 6th month scan to 6th month scan interspersed with an Oct to Jan wait for a successful colonoscopy (3 attempts at it!) I wonder how I can really start again. Just still stuck. Unsure how to find motivation.
How do we do it?
Good morning Alottment lover and good to hear from you..... although not great that the roundabout keeps on going.
"Unsure how to find motivation....... How do we do it?"
In reality we just have to keep on walking into the storm....... at times we can find ourselves in the eye of the storm and I am told that the centre of a hurricane is actually a peaceful place....... so we need to keep looking for that place of peace.
My incurable cancer is still asleep (8+ years now) and my aim is not to kiss any princess and wake it up again 
But over the past year or so it's been full of 'other' tests (Colonoscopy, CT, MRI, Prostate Biopsy......) all done slooooowly....... to eventually say that nothing new was found!!!!
It turns out that my massive Hiatus Hernia, that developed way back in Oct 2015 when I was violently sick during my very last 30 mins chemo, was 'moving around and changing!!!'
I got to see a 'fly through' of my Hiatus Hernia for the first time and wow....... it completely encloses my stomach and more...... but it's would be dangerous to operate on so we have agreed that I 'live' with the new challenges that it is bringing along....... but on reflection, compared to my very challenging days of 10 years back....... I can deal with this.
I am unfortunately a total 100% optimist....... but this often is not good when others are struggling around me with their journeys..... but looking for that small thread of peace, contentment, hope, encouragement........ can helps us then look again and see a way forward.
When we were navigating the 'challenging days' I was in basic isolation for about 4 weeks for both my Stem Cell Transplants...... but every day my wife and the rest of the family.... and our friends made sure that I received a at least one new building block of encouragement and support......
A new picture of one of our 4 granddaughters, a picture one of the girls had made, a facetime with one of the family or friends (I was in Glasgow for my treatment, we live in Inverness so 3-4 hrs away from our friends and our close family were 100s of miles away).... these building blocks were so important in getting me through.
I am 8 years out from my last treatment but the rhythm of encouragement keeps going to this day....... I will be getting a cake with 9 candles on it in Oct as it will be my 9th re-birthday.
But the rhythm of encouragement slowly turned my eyes outward focused and here I am encouraging you......
The lessons we/I have learned over the past 10 years..... infact it's coming up to 24 years since I was diagnosed is encapsulated in this thought….
The road we navigate on our journey has two directions to follow. There are two signs along this road one sign is pointing to Pessimism, a mindset that always sees the worst will happen, not appreciating that the many treatments available can do the job, where stress and worry controls every aspect of life and as a result the journey is made extremely hard and draining.
The other sign points to Optimism, a mindset that is full of hopefulness, determination, confidence about the future and appreciates that the treatments available can turn the Lymphoma tide….. even in the most challenging storms. It’s important to continually seek to choose the optimistic direction as this simple thing can define how you walk out cancer journey.
((hugs))
