I used to hear the birds sing, now I listen.

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belief, choice, fear, hope, jesus, love, motogp, positive, Rio, teamGB, youth

That’s what cancer did for me, it helped me to realise what was important in life. To many people in the world (myself included) are concerned with how much things are compared to the value of something in your life. I used to get woken up by birds singing, I even found it an irritation on times. They do get up early don’t they. Take right now, I can hear the birds chattering away, I love it. When I was in that hospital in isolation all I could do was see them, I longed to hear their chatter chatter. So now I listen to them at every possibility.you should try it, it’s a sound we all seem to block out. Yet when we listen yo it there is such beauty not only in being able to hear the birds, but also in the appreciation of life.

For me when I listen to the birds, problems seem to disappear. My heart becomes grateful for what I do have not what I could have. I become thankful for a life I have rather than hoping for more than I have. Why does it take for someone to face a hardship to realise the value of life. There have been many moments in my life that have been light bulb moments. One of those being the sentence in the movie “the lion king” Simbas girl friend says to him. “You are more than you have become” how very true that we all can be a better us. That we can choose to have a better thought process, choose to be positive rather than see problems. After all are problems not an oppertunity for a solution. It just depends how we choose to think in our own minds.

You can choose to listen to the birds if you like and appreciate your surrounding. Or you can let your circumstances you find yourself in, dictate to you. Or you can appreciate what you have had in life and be thankful.

For me today I choose to be thankful that 15 months ago I looked like this.

Because when I looked like this it has enabled me to have the freedom to value what I have today, LIFE. That bone marrow transplant has helped me to get to this position where I can listen to the birds. The question is.

Will you?

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Our support group on our FB

Cancer stories (people helping people through experience) 

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 

Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories.

Copyright © 2016

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It’s about determination.

Tags

belief, determination, eu, fear, fulfilment.grace, hope, love, referendum

This weekend I have had the honour of meeting many people, yet I should not really be here myself. I when I got cancer the second time realised I could let it beat me, or I could fight. So like I had the pleasure of sharing this weekend, the first post I wrote was. ” I am Mark, a cancer fighter. I will win!” Arrogant, or determined. Well arrogance is not based on what is not seen, so I would say determination. In life, it’s what we choose to do that matters, what we choose to not do has no effect on our lives, except negative. What really? Well yes because doing nothing is erm just that isn’t it, doing NOTHING.


I love people that do with thier lives, people that say yes to doing rather than making an excuse not to do. Are you with me? Ok so people that want to do and don’t just say they will but do do. I saw pictures today that would be hard for some to comprehend. Like a hook as big as a house. Yea like I said some will not be able to imagine. There is a point to this trust me. 

So for me giving up in that room was the easiest, it was really really easy to just let go of my life that my parents had given me. They had joined together and made me, I was made in love through their passion and love for each other. Now whilst I may never totally understand my parents, I do want to thank them for my life. But do I just have them to thank, do I not also have someone else to thank much greater and knowledgable than me. Do I not have my maker to thank, the person that put my parents together. Well that’s thanks to Bible collage, yea I know wild right. 

It does not matter how your life started, it matters how you value what you are, who you are and what you stand for. what your life means. Well for me mine is a statement of what can be achieved. We live in a generation where we hear of much going on all around us on social media. Love hate and much inbetween. Yet it’s our choice still what we choose to do or not to do. I have chosen in the past to hate, and I was proberbly hated aswell. But I have this to tell you today, loving someone and being loved by someone is a gift you give and a gift you take given to you by someone else. People choose to love you and I find the most amazing times I have had since choosing to beat cancer have been choosing to be myself. To be who I am, for years before cancer I had times where I tried to please others by being something. But not me. I did try to be a person I did not know. Tried maybe to impress where there was no need, forgetting that the real me was actually me.

That the real me was the best me there is and was. That I am not a failure, I am not living a life for nothing. So I leave you with this statement. 

“The real you is the best you, just be you”! 

Trust me if someone does not want to be in your future it’s their loss.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Our support group on our FB

Cancer stories (people helping people through experience) 

It’s a group where people’s experiences are used to encourage others. 

Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories.

Copyright © 2016

Have no FEAR, when YOU are here

Tags

fear, life, people, philosophy

Fear keeps us in the background. It convinces us we can never accomplish our dreams, tells us to keep quiet, and separates us from the ones we love. Fear has an unparalleled ability to freeze us in our tracks, and limit what we are willing to try. Fear makes us lead a smaller life. All fears, […]

https://ananyaaishwarya.wordpress.com/2015/10/10/have-no-fear-when-you-are-here/

Stephen Hawkin

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answers, determination.thuth, fear, hope, stephen Hawkin

This won’t be a fight, it will be a heavy defeat for us all.
 Stephen Hawkin I may not know you, just heard of you and seen you on my screen. But you need to know the world holds you in awe, and if it’s enough and the world does not. I DO. No other words today.

Today is a gift.

Tags

belief, believing, Belive, empathy, fear, gift, giving, healing, hope, life, living, love, motivation, self, today

I am remembering a story I was told as a child, a parable about a blind man. Jesus put mud on his eyes . After removal of the mud, the man could see. This is a bit like me now, knowing what it’s like to have cancer makes you see the world differently. It’s like you have been blind but you can see again. I saw life very differently before I had cancer, maybe even thought I was indistructable. I did not ever think that the man that I was would become so ill. I never thought I would have to fight for my life. 

  
One thing I always believed though, was that I would win. Don’t get me wrong I had days even weeks where I felt I would not make it, but I always believed with Faith no matter how hard it was. I know my friend Deanna watches my journey as I do hers, we have both been on a similar journey both beating cancer twice with similar attitudes to life. You can’t feel what we feel unless you have had to fight like we have. Beating it twice makes the world seem like a different place, I am still here with a life. 

  
What am I trying to say, well I want you to know that life after cancer, is like have the mud removed from your eyes. It means you can see again, we imagine our future very differently to life before cancer that’s for sure. Compassion is more real, love is more meaningful. Family becomes more important, things become irrelevant. Whilst at the same time appreciating what you have. One thing I do know is, that my life needs to benefit others daily. My life needs to help others, after all I would have been dead without the fight that’s now behind me. 

  
Parts of me are glad I have been touched by cancer, to enable me to see life in this new positive way. I have always been positive, but it’s a different  kind of positive now. It’s a place where I see the good in nearly all situations, a place where I am grateful to have what we have. I am pleased to see the sunshine or the rain, what ever happens it’s a new day and the past is behind us. We can only change who we are today, it’s the only day we have. That’s how I see life now, that today is a gift. That today is more special with you in it, your reading this because you have a life. Because you are living your gift, don’t you think that’s amazing.

  
Well  be amazed because you are amazing. But you have to believe that. You have to look in the mirror and tell yourself that. God knows I have made mistakes, I still do.  Am grateful to be alive, and I hope you are able to see a snippet of what today really means.

Enjoy today,

Mark

Could today be results day.

Tags

belief, cancer, contemplation, faith, fear, mystory, relief, trust

Morning, today is a strange day, because it’s 6 days before my appointment with the consultant. But of course me being me, I have called the consultant asking him to relay what the scan results are before that time. Considering it takes 2 days for the scan to be reported, it’s surely there by now. I have a knot in my tummy and am almost paranoid about what will be. I can only relate it to a boxing match, as the rocky storey remains a source of strength to me. I still watch and gain huge strength from the storey and it gives me the strength to believe, to believe that the battle is won.

  
What I feel I guess is fear of the unknown, but I have faith that all the prayers people have sent for me have been heard and answered. I have to believe that I won’t have to have chemo again, have faith that I have done all that I can to survive. The journey has been relentless, it’s been tiring. As I lie here, I am thinking about how my wife must be feeling how my parents must feel, how my friends must be feeling, The people on Cancer stories. So many people are involved, because so many care. There are real compassionate people out there, people I will think fondly of till my last breath.

  
So where is my positive today, truth is I don’t know. I just have no idea how or what I should be thinking, I just have to be patient. Unfortunately it’s not the the person I am, I am a doer. A person that makes things happen, not the hot air type.
I want you all to know I have done everything I have been asked to do. It’s just a waiting game today, but then maybe the call won’t come at all today. My mind needs focus, needs the answer so I know how the path before me is laid out. All these feelings I have of, trust, faith, belief etc are all in a huge pot with other emotions like fear, hope, anticipation, and love for all the people that have helped me on my way. All the things people have done for me whilst on this journey. It seems appropriate to say thank you to you all, new friends have been made. Connections all over the globe, it’s amazing the positive things that have happened as well as all of the fighting there has been some good come out of having cancer to. I am thank ful for that. So I thankyou all for your input, I thank you all for being there for me on my journey.

  
Even though I have all these mixed feelings today, I still feel this overwhelming passion to help others. It’s just in me, and believe that I have been on this journey for a reason. I believe there is a purpose in all of this somehow. It’s the not knowing that’s worse than knowing what you are faced with sometimes. I hope you are having a good day, I will put a blog up as soon as I hear anything. 

Have a great day

Mark

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Everything you read are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something to you it will to someone else.