Day +1825

Tags

Covid, encouragement, faith, friends, hope, partner, struggle, together, transplant

Day +1825

5 years since my Bone marrow transplant today.

If it was today 5 years ago i would be in hospital having my Stem cells given back to me. basically if you don’t know how that works; you have your stem cells harvested by an injection to encourage reproduction in your large flat bones, (hips and Sternum) your connected to a machine. 1mm needle in each arm, then the blood goes into a machine and is flicked. the heavy cells (stem cells) are heavier and end up in a bag. Which are then cleaned and stored in Nitrogen. You don’t have to be in remission to do this. Although a very severe chemo given to you over 3 days called ICE is administered. This is called a cycle so if you have 2 cycles its 3 days in hospital normally., per cycle. I was the second person to have it as an out patient. That in itself is severe to deal with. I vomited immediately. Having to up meds to stop sickness.

THE DOORS

You then have 7 days chemo in hospital attached to chemo nearly 24×7. that’s called BEAM. Once that’s gone in your body, your cells are given back to you called day +1. otherwise known as you re-birthday. that’s today 21/05/2020.

i have to stress at this point that all this treatment meant you had no immunity what so ever for about a week. your spaced out, angry, and feel helpless. that’s the worst for me thinking there was nothing i could do. that it was out of my control and in the hands of people i did not know, but trusted them with my life.

While I was attached to my chemo I did press ups, and walked when my wife was not there to the bathroom and back completing 3km plus every single day and a minimum of 50 press-ups a day.

So what was it like?

Personally i think it was harder for my loved ones my wife, mum dad Brother sister family and friends. it was a means to an end I set myself a goal. To get out in 3 weeks and get to 5 years. That’s today.

I wrote everyday for a whole year while i was in there I wrote once a day no matter what but sometimes more, to encourage those that may have this process in the future. I realised early on that writing would be one of the things that i could do whilst locked in that small room. Recently i have not been on my blog that much but to my surprise there has never been a day goes past, where it does not get read.

how it felt !

I don’t mind telling you, that room was hard to deal with. it was like being locked in a room but you could leave if you wanted to. but if you did you probability is vastly reduced. You leave “You will die” You have to finish. There is no option and there were times when i actually felt like i would survive if i jumped out the window. we were on the 7th floor but trust me i actually believed i could and even planned to do it. its all normal in the world of transplant though. i believe my dad when he was in hospital thought he was a Lion. drugs do funny things to people. the whole process was overwhelming. but doable .

There are so many people to thank, not least the #NHS the staff are to many to name but the oncology at Southport were the ones that saved my life. The BMT unit at the Royal Liverpool. What an amazing bunch they were. Helping people that would otherwise be dead have a new start in life.

My friends and family that called me each day and cheered me up when i was down. or wound me up. i am sure Sky chuckled right then. (He knows)

Having a BMT affects everyone involved in your life that’s for sure! you make friends that will last a lifetime. You learn so much about your health your body and how to stay healthier. drinking far more water now than ever i did. staying hydrated being the no1 thing that keeps our bodies shifting the unwanted waste from us.

The path to recovery.

one thing we loved in hospital was my mums Faith diaries part of the post above links you to it. Or here The path to recovery.

one thing i was amazed at were the acts of kindness people did. video calls from Egypt whilst losing his granparents but yet still encouraging me. the parcels my mum n dad brought up to their son. my friend the jeweller came and dropped individually wrapped fruit for my wife to bring in. my friends children sent me videos and wrote messages and made canvasses for me. nephew Josh sent in a box with a monkey, my sister sent in a box. well came to the hospital to send it. Ethan was the only nephew that saw me in there. Hi 5 Eath.

Thankyou everyone of you that were there for me/us. The kindness of my own wife’s work colleagues too. Its been amazing knowing who your true friends are.

in my mind i have seen this mile stone as the last stumbling block, the last one in believing i would be rid of cancer. i have learnt a lot during these last 9 years from my first diagnosis. i have been slow, lacking get up and go and not felt like i liked the new me.

well today is the day that i change my thinking. That my thinking should change from

“i am what i am because of cancer”

or

“That was then this is now” mentality.

i have been plagued with all sorts of things. But its all in the past now. today is my new day plus 1 with 1825 learning days maybe 1 or 2 less due to leap years. i am sure someone will correct me. Thanks in advance.

i want you to know that finishing any challenge starts with a step. but the key ingredient is to be determined to get to the end. never ever give up. i watched all the Rocky movies whist in that room and my fav other film. our wedding DVD. what a great day that was.

when i was first diagnosed we moved to a house nearer to the sea, we have had cancer in our lives ever since we have lived here. but as soon as i knew there was gonna be a fight i sought plans for an extension started by someone i called a friend. Good things happen with a positive mental attitude and a support network of people that genuinely care about you. I wrote a list and got my wife to photograph all of the cards. here is the post. sorry if your names not there. “But that was then and this is now”

I just want to thank you.

Its not easy facing anything in life, people give up when the going gets tough. The only way to carry on is to realise how precious you are and your life. You have to want it really want it. Sometimes you have to realise what you could lose and change your life for a bit. Respect life and those that are in it. When bad things happen only the. Who your really are is revealed.

Thanks for reading and I hope you feel energised. Because only you stand in the way of you.

Stay safe everyone and here’s to another 5 years.

Mark

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram @dogrupher

@fonzymark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Everything you read, are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. People share

with others, if it meant something to you, it will to some

one else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post!

Will you?

Copyright ©2020

Everyday life

Tags

Christmas, destiny, encouragement, friends, Laughter, myloma, together

Everyday life

Inspired by Cold play

https://youtu.be/UMkCkPzbLYI

One particular line (you gotta keep dancing when the lights go out)

Have you ever felt like it only ever happens to you?

You ever felt like it’s only you that gets dealt the bad hands and others get an easy ride. I know I have but at Christmas time we start to think about others don’t we. The ones fighting, the ones that are cold. The ones facing treatment, watching their life long partner breath their last breath. The lonely the blessed. The survivors the people that just won’t be beaten and carry on regardless! Some of the most wonderful people I have met in my life have absolutely nothing! Yet they have everything. To look in a persons eyes that has nothing to hide is a wonderful thing.

Somehow this line that’s inspired me. this blog post has taken me right back to when the lights went out for me, but had to keep fighting. I chose to carry on dancing in the dark. But more than that I am 4 yrs and 7 months post Bone marrow Transplant. I live with pain everyday and was fat when I left hospital! I hated the way I looked. I never understood how people could gain so much weight until it happened to me. Slowly but surly I have built n built making small adjustments to my life and because of that line. Because I heard that line. I realised that I have been dancing since the lights went out for a very long time.

But so much more than this, it’s made me realise that everyone has their own journeys. Their own daily struggles. Don’t ever look at someone and think they are not dancing in the rain. We all have different roads, different times yes. But you can never underestimate what a person has been through to get to where they are today. When I see old people I often wonder what went on in their life. How long they were married and it always fills me with delight to see older folk holding hands!

You know what cancer has taught me that everyone is on a journey.

It’s about doing something what ever that may be. Everyone hurts and everyone cries. Everyone falls. Everyone has hopes and dreams. But while some are doing their best some are unable. Your not alone!

We all go through things in our lives and everyone has battles. Maybe unseen, you may never even know someone faces anything.

It’s Christmas time where we celebrate that Jesus was born on earth and lived as an example for us to learn and follow.

It’s a time to remember someone, to make someone feel good. Behind every successful person is a bumpy road behind them. Yours is no harder than anyone else’s. Because as always it’s not what we face it’s how we deal with it. Please God forgive me, I have not been the best role model.

But then we come to the point that no darkness exists where there is light. Cold play may have just shone a light in my life by creating this song.

But like my friend Rob would say. Where there are ripples there are reactions.

So I want to challenge you to send this message to someone in your phone book. Send it to two people and ask them to do the same. Shall we spread some love this Christmas and make some people know that they are not alone! That they have a friend. That they are important. That they matter. That they are not the only ones!

Will you help me do that?

This is the message.

You are getting this message, because your important and appreciated. Because your treasured by God himself. Never give up! You have friends. What kind of world do you want it to be?Please forward to 2 people.

Can you imagine if someone chose to carry on dancing when the light go out because of you.

Let’s bless some people. If it’s a silly idea then fair play but it’s something we can all do today. To bless someone with positivity.

What are you going to do? What kind of world do you want it to be?

“Ya gotta keep dancing when the lights go out”

But carry on keep moving, keep being good. Choose to be a blessing.

Fonz

Don’t forget your message 👍🏼

Pss Merry Christmas

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram @dogrupher

@fonzymark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Everything you read, are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. People share

with others, if it meant something to you, it will to some

one else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post!

Will you?

Copyright ©2019

Did you know depression is a gift!

Tags

depression, destiny, encouragement, friends, Hodgkins, love

Hi, time to share with you about mental health. I want to share with you my findings in life. How depression affects you, How it can affect you if you let it! As I sat there talking to my friend. Imagine Will hunting. That’s how it is in therapy, I dig in all the time. I refuse to take down my armour. I am impervious! I am stronger than it!

Overcoming depression is about believing it will be replaced, that there will be light, but you have to pick up the torch! The thing that’s the hardest in the battle against depression is to do the thing that it is stopping you doing (walking the dog, taking something round to a friend, choosing to give in, rather than walk in nature) depression if you let it will help you do one thing. It helps you look up. Lately I have heard voices

“your not good enough”

“your not strong enough”

“Your not successful”

People that are depressed have lost something in their life.

Did you know pain is depression or success.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE! God showed me that today. That in weakness is when God is strong. ” so you have to be weak to find strength!

Depression is essential for someone that wants to help others. The lessons I have learnt today are miraculous. I have cried many tears today.

Suicide is a permanent solution to something temporary. I am struggling so much right now. But there is never going to be a view unless you spend time climbing.

It’s impossible to know what happiness is unless you have felt sadness. Routine, exercise, doing the opposite to what depression tells you to be. Pain is a great thief in my life! Yet I stand put on my coat and walk my dogs anyway! My pain will still be there if I do or don’t do. So I get out there and do things, I let myself see the trees, smell the air. See people’s hearts, allow yourself times of vulnerability . Like I did today!

Guys darkness is hard!

Commitment to using my pain to build my character, and finding a greater meaning to my pain. Maybe then I could become useful to others.

We are given 5 tools in this life along with air and water we are what we are. Yet it’s down to our persistence of teaching ourselves when we find ourselves in the state people call depression.

Our consistent thoughts we think and the consistent things we believe is what we become. If you know depression, then I guarantee you know what happiness is! But I want you to know, that having your head in your hands will not help you beat depression. Accept what you cannot change, but change your habits.

Do you know that your brain is a record of things that’s happened, you wake up everyday in the past!

CHANGE IT!

Do the opposite to what depression wants you to be. This is not a way of finding happiness today, but it’s a way of teaching yourself that your past does not define you!

If you keep looking at the cause, then you will always have a low mood. The cause is in the past. So the only way to move forwards is to change the way you move forwards and the only way you can do that is by becoming happy. Trust me! Becoming happy is what will help you overcome depression!

If you don’t want cancer again you have to change the way you live. I am training myself to do the opposite to the habits formed by my regular appearances of depression. Because after all it’s how we respond that matters!

Enjoy being different! But also remember it will pass and your not defined by your thoughts, you can change them. Your defined by what you choose to do.

Thank God for Jesus!

Mark

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Everything you read, are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. People share

with others, if it meant something to you, it will to some

one else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post!

Will you?

Copyright ©2018

We each have what each other needs.

Tags

destiny, encouragement, facebook, friends, games, invictus, love, loved, transplant, treatment

How can watching the Invictus games not inspire us. How can we not be inspired by people’s stories. As you have probably realised I have been watching the Invictus games. It made me realise that we need each other. Not needing anyone are thoughts of my distant past. I don’t know what would have happened to me had it not been for my wife. But also those that are honest with me. It’s 06.33 and I have been up for 2 hours. So I thought I would finish this blog post as it feels like quite an important one to me.

You have heard me repeat my late mother in laws sentence.

“It’s not what we do when someone is gone that matters, it’s what we did in their lives that truly matters.” Norma Winn

What ever it is that you did for someone can have a lasting impact on their lives, yet you thought it was just a passing quip, or something you said thoughtfully. The words from Norma always flick around in my head adding myself “that it’s better to do something than nothing” you have a lot to give as a person. I without doubt have been left with a disability because of my treatment. I could just shrivel up and give up, but I don’t because I know how important it is to keep giving to people. We are only here once and I feel it’s a privilege to even have had a chance to live on this planet. How grateful I am to be able to give something to someone. Even if it’s just something said to encourage them.

People get inspired by what people do. I like to do little things like tell someone how gorgeous they are. The other day I was in a supermarket and I saw a lady struggling to get something off the top shelf. I took it off for her and put it in her hand. (She was about 80.) as I put it in her hand I told her how beautiful she was, whilst holding her hand. A tear rolled down her cheek and I kissed her on that cheek and carried on with my shopping. I saw her again as she was paying for her food. She was talking about me, saying how happy she was that I talked to her.

You see you don’t know where someone is at in their lives. I believe if you think it then you should do it. Think it you should say it. Think it you should be it. Now this is not the same for everyone because I know someone who if he said everything that was in their head. There would be more problems than before. The good things we think are what we need to.

You have what someone else needs. You are someone’s tonic, someone’s life line even. Life’s a privilege, and it’s something we have been given as a gift. That’s Gods gift to us. ‘Life’ but our gift to him is what we do with it. I like to encourage people with mine. What do you do with yours?

Next time you think you should say or do something, do that. You thought it for a reason. You have what someone else needs. But will you give it to them?

Have a great day

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Instagram
@fonzymark
Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

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

You could change a life by sharing this post!
Will you?
Copyright ©2018

Empathy

Tags

attitude, awareness, cancer, destiny, encouragement, energy, friends, perspective, struggle, survived, transplant

You ever thought about Empathy, how important a word it is. Or even what it’s true meaning is? It’s something that people do not use; unless they have experienced something similar to another. Unless we have been through something similar to someone else, we don’t have the gift of empathy. We can only sympathise with someone. Although it’s a great thing to be able to sympathise with someone’s situation, we can all do it. We all know how to sympathise. Yet to be able to Empathise is but a special gift.

To empathise we have to have worn the t shirt, to have walked the steps someone else has and have experienced a similar journey. That’s why our Cancer stories group on Facebook is so special. We all have walked in each other’s shoes and know how hard it is to walk those steps. A story comes to my mind that’s very off piste or shall we say a different topic all together. Yet those that understand will empathise with me.

Oh how I remember so well being in a service (church service) in okehampton Devon. When the welsh pastor David, with great passion and vigour. Put his shoes in the middle of the isle. He had been getting criticised for his methods. But you know how, behind his back. People were slating him. So he asked everybody in the church if they would like to step into his shoes, that if they thought they could do a better job. That he would step down and let someone else. No one empathised and no one stepped in his shoes. He carried on for many years later.

An example of how empathy can help someone in their life is, something we have endured personally. We can put our arm around the person knowing that we can encourage them that they can. That although difficult we know how hard it is. But we have come out of the other side. It’s like that with this blog. That I empathise with many people on many different levels because of the terrible bone marrow transplant I have had. I understand the risks and the euphoria at being able to beat the beast they call cancer. That although I was given weeks to live that I still have life. Sad then that people don’t use the opportunity to use the special gift of Empathy.

People say, “It happened for a reason” what a load of rubbish that I got cancer for a reason. But wait, don’t I always find a positive somewhere? Well the positive is Empathy because unless you have suffered something yourself then how can you empathise with another. It’s a special gift and maybe just maybe you can give someone hope because of your experiences. Yes Cancer or any disease is terrible. My wife lost both her parents to cancer at 59 and 63. Yet she is able to empathise with people that lose their parents to early. Life’s a gift and so are our experiences if we choose to shift our perspective.

Pistyll Rhaeadr near Llangynog north wales.

You think it’s a small trickle till you see the bigger picture.

See it’s not what’s happened or happening to us that has to change. It’s how we look at it in our own minds that truly matters. Using the things that have made us miserable to give someone else hope. That they may learn that there is light at the end of their tunnel like there was in yours. You see even in death there is something to bless someone with. So I am writing this that you may see a different way of thinking, in the hope that others will be blessed because of you. Because of what you have endured someone will find blessing, hope and comfort. Just because you have empathised with another. Such a special gift, yet so many people leave the wrapping on and the beautiful bow and never open the box of Empathy because it hurts so much. Yet when it’s opened, so much can be given to someone else because of you.

Amazing don’t you think. So next time you have the opportunity. What will you do? Empathise, or sympathise?

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Instagram
@fonzymark
Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

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

You could change a life by sharing this post!
Will you?
Copyright ©2018

Be kind to yourself.

Tags

destiny, encouragement, energy, faith, friends, hope, life, Oscar Wilde, relentless, struggle, survived, trending, twitter

Do you ever do that? Worry about what someone thinks of you, then that changes the course of your day. Your month or even your year. Words are cheap, yet they can have a lasting effect on someone’s life. What you say to yourself can be unhealthy, even damaging to yourself. Maybe you value another’s opinion to highly, you stop doing what you want to do because your worried about what someone thinks of you.

“To love oneself ” whote Oscar Wilde “is the beginning of a life long romance!”

Well I am going to stop chastising myself, stop changing my direction because someone’s opinion is different to mine. My opinion matters. But more than that, being restricted by someone else’s standards. Because you don’t want them to see you. Putting on a face all the time, and not allowing myself the moments of ‘not being ok’ that sometimes your not happy and the constant pain does indeed sleigh the giant from time to time. That it’s ok to feel something, to feel something means an incredible thing. It means you have something that can’t be bought, you can’t see it, you can’t borrow it, or be given it. Yet something more powerful than you would believe.

PASSiON!

If you feel it you have a drive others don’t, yet passion comes from integrity and doing what you believe to be 100% honest and true. No non. You either have passion or you don’t. You can’t do anything to get it. It’s a gift.

So in short I owe it to myself and everyone who will read this. To be myself, and to be ok with not being ok. That people actually like the normal mark. The mark that has integrity. (Thanks Rob Fischbeck)

What ever it is you do, don’t cut your nose off to spite your face. Embrace what you may learn and move forwards being kind and gentle towards yourself. People will like the real you, I know I have tried it many times.

Mark

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

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. People share

with others, if it meant something to you, it will to some

one

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2018

Life and death.

Tags

encouragement, faith, friends, health, hope, love, loved, Peace, weakness

Over the last few days I have been breaking my heart, the loss of my friend from my school days has really ripped into me. So I have had to go through a process of elimination. To take each step as I find it, yet realising such a hard lesson. That friendships (some at least) were never meant to be permanent. It is indeed right to compare this to a tree.

Our Damson tree

During my journey through life, I have expected to much from people due to my willingness to give so much. Yet I find in this time of deep sadness at a friend from schools death. That I have wasted so much time being disappointed! It’s my fault I have been this way. I expected to much of those around me.

Taken from Simons Facebook.

I have said many times. “That if you have more than 5 true friends it’s to many.”

Take a tree. We will use the tree as an example of people in our lives. That some people we meet are like leaves, that it’s beautiful to see them. But they are there for a purpose (maybe bear fruit) and a short time. The time could be as long as 6 months but one day you won’t even see them again. A gust of wind will come and their life will take a new direction and they will actually be “gone with the wind”

Others are part of the tree but through periods of no rain.(not seeing each other) the twigs break off and carried away by some way that may not be nature. Maybe a dog picks it up and moves it somewhere else. Not everything will go the way we want it to. Because there are to many things outside of our control. People move and you lose touch. Yet you remember them with such fondness. As you get older you know more people, and of course more people will have come in and out of your life.

My wife always says, “it’s the people who are prepared to push the limo when it’s out of fuel that are true friends” even some people at work we find out are actually real friends.

One of my true friends is without doubt a root that holds your tree in the ground. There will not be a time when we lose that. Your parents and siblings should be those roots and your faith should be the tap root. The strongest root of all.

My mistakes in life, are always that I expected to much of people, disappointment and low feelings of upset and of loss of joy.

Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life” but that’s not correct on it’s own. The next part reads “No one comes to the father except through me” things are great to have, and I have enjoyed things a lot in my life. Experiences, home, love, and patience. Yet I have wondered in my life, why people don’t do what they say they will. Because it’s something I do my best to do.

Well let me start again, to move forwards with no expectations rather that than the disappointment I have had all of my life. If in life your expectations are exceeded, surly that is kinder on yourself than expecting more than you were ready for. We are all growing and just because someone grows apart, or in a different way, or even place. That does not mean it should or could be hurtful. It comes back again to our own perspectives then doesn’t it surely.

Love what you have right now, but don’t expect something or someone to be in your future because that may not be in the master plan.

I remember going and watching Oasis at Heaton Park in Manchester. Wow what an amazing experience that was. Yet I can’t stand the group. My wife made a sign, her mum Norma died at age 63. We sent the sign forwards as she grew up on the same estate as the oasis brothers did. The sign read.

“Norma would have been here, but it was not a part of the Master plan”

So my friend, thanks for all the times we shared. Thanks for the love you gave in your life that you chose to end. I won’t forget you. After all you were the first to say hi by that tuck shop. Brigsy. You never truly found peace, you always were looking for something else. But what you looked for always shined, people that were fun. Yet now it’s time to say goodbye. but knowing that now for sure you have found peace. You can rest now Si.

See you soon Brigsy! but not yet.

Fonzy

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Everything you read, are based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. People share

with others, if it meant something to you, it will to some

one

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2018

Divorced people are amongst the most lonely in the world.

Tags

cancer, encouragement, faith, Families, family, friends, happiness, health, Hodgkins, hope, life, love, survivor

A divorce is like a death, it is for sure the same and certainly no one will understand unless they know the hurt that’s felt, when someone they love dies. I would like to think that all people marry because they love each other and believe that to be case in most marriages. It certainly was for me, yes that’s right I was married before as was my now wife.

When someone gets divorced, they carry hurt, Pain, and a feeling of failure. In my own experience it’s hard to see people siding with one or the other. No one truly knows what’s gone on except the people involved. Yet all that the people experiencing the separation yarn is what they got married for. They yearn love, and they look for a way to get rid of the pain. That’s why you see so many people drinking to excess, taking drugs and perhaps even ending their own life because they don’t feel it’s worth living anymore. I know how all that feels, the desire to not feel the hurt anymore.

You hear friend say that they are looking forwards to their own life changing events, a baby, marriage, a christening, you want to feel happy for them so so bad. But you just feel like the loneliest person in the room, everyone does not understand you. They just see what they thing we should be doing. To love someone is the most beautiful thing, yet in divorce it so quickly turns to hate. Everyone seems to see solutions where all you want is for the Pain to go away. The talking stops and the thought that you ever loved that person just seems so inconceivable.

I mean what is it we all want in life?

I would say that there is only one thing on this earth that has ultimate importance. It’s a concoction that we all crave to meet this end goal. That life gives us that one thing. It comes through, faith and love. Consideration for others, friendship. It comes through giving, through laughter and being around people that care about you and don’t want something from you. It comes through hugs, from having a good family. Yet someone going through divorce will not feel it, they have so much more to overcome before becoming happy. That’s it isn’t it, that we all aim to be happy in life and to find that balance has a high value. If not the most important thing in life is to be happy.

Everyone of us can be that small part of that concoction for some happiness. My challenge to you today, is that you can be a part for someone’s happiness. That someone who is enduring a divorce or a loss needs our love not our sympathy. They need our arm around them to tell them that they are important, they are loved and have value.

I think the key is not to judge what has happened, or who’s at fault rather love the person. Remembering that rejection which is what divorce is, can result in devastating consequences. Not to long ago a distant friend of mine (our electrician) committed suicide because the divorce was so messy. Going round to see him with some ring donuts and phone calls to lift him. We’re not enough, or maybe there just we’re not enough people that helped to lift him up. I cared about him and did my best to help him to come through. But ultimately he was not happy, that was missing in his life.

Our girls puppies

Happiness was not a part of his life, rejection took over and Gary could cope no more. That’s what we need to nurture in life. The situations and people that bring us happiness, and the feelings that go with that. Happiness is a priceless gift and one to be cherished.

The point of this blog is to remind you of what’s important, happiness. Bathe in it and enjoy it like the new morning sun. Happiness is peace, and peace is acceptance. Those 3 things are without doubt a recipe for a disease and stress free life. I have experienced the latter and for sure seek happiness over anything that’s going to rob me of it. If it’s not going to bring some joy in the end I tend to steer away from it. Life’s to short that’s for sure.

Have a great week.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

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. People share with others, if it meant something to you, it will to someone

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my olwn, taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2018

If only we all loved like dogs.

Tags

bone, dogs, encouragement, energy, facebook, friends, given, life, love, twitter

What’s the importance of Love?. It’s a bizarre life. I mean are you important or is what you do THE most important. What you you do, is so much more important than the importance of who you are. Good people will be surrounded by good people. I once said to a friend, “it’s not about how many friends we have, it’s the quality of the people you call friends that matters”

The world is a complicated place if we make it that way. Yet, if we just did our best for everyone we have in our lives. It becomes not so much about us but what we do that matters the most. What matters is what we do with ourselves, blessing someone with what we have makes what we have important to someone.

It brings us to the story of the rich man and the poor old lady. They both gave at the church collection. One gave a seemingly large amount, yet compared to his wealth it was a drop in the ocean. The older lady gave ALL that she had. There was nothing more to give. Yet it seemed like she had been stingy compared to the rich man.

The point of that story today is to help you to realise, that when someone suffers what they give may seem small, but they may have given you everything they had. It’s difficult for some people to give a lot of their time, when it’s so painful to move. But when someone gives all they have, that’s such a special gift.

When it comes to love, what’s the point in loving if it’s not with your whole heart. My dogs never ever seem to let up in the love they show. It’s always everything they want to give me. Not a bit, then run off. They smother us with kisses and love never is it to much trouble, if only we were like that. That we love people anyway. Wouldn’t the world be a fabulous place.

To love someone without condition is a precious gift. What I have I give, because what’s the point in enjoying it to myself when I could be sharing.

Don’t hold back this Christmas period, life has shown me that life’s precious and what you do for someone else could really make a difference in our lives and more importantly theirs.

Have a great Christmas everyone, and enjoy your holiday. More importantly enjoy giving.

Have a great 23rd of December.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

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 better based on my own experipence and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Why ya gotta owe something, to get something.

Tags

awareness, encouragement, faith, friends, given, happiness, hope, meaning, owe, partner, stories, together, weakness

It’s how people see things that are not saved, they think that if someone gives to them that they must owe them something. Wow that sentence hit home for me, because I like to give yet I receive aswell. It’s a hard lesson for someone that’s a giver to receive graciously. For sure I have made many mistakes in my life, some catastofic. (Spelling I would like to say is catastrofic but I can’t spell it.)

No ones perfect! But yet a really valuable lesson is to learn that to be given to is as beautiful as the person receiving something from you. Yet we hope the person would receive the gift and accept you want nothing in return. I have learnt in life that people want to give to me and I take away that pleasure for them sometimes. I love the feeling I get when I give to someone and even a small thing can mean so much to someone.

There begins the line from another Rocky movie

Que Rocky Balboa accent!

“Friends don’t owe, friends do because they wanna do”

Those nurses saved my life, didn’t they? Or was it the whole thing, the transplant, my faith, my friends? Or was it not the giving of all the people that were in the whole process. I digress.

The point is that giving in its self is a gift, that humility in being given to and allowing that person the beauty of the feeling we all get when we give. I believe that it’s as important as giving itself. It’s for sure something I am learning and stepping forwards to get better at it. You know I still don’t think many people get why I blog and get nothing for it. I see people going to work and earning while I blog to encourage others yet for no reward. Every time I pick up this I pad I want to use it to help people. So am I actually one of the people that feel like I owe, because the treatment saved my life? Well the answer is possibly a bit, but that’s only because I want people who are going to face what i did, gain from my experience possibly. That’s why I give.

We are all blessed in our own way, maybe although I don’t reread what I have written out loud very well (so I am told) but I am able to a small degree at least. Help people to find the strength to carry on, to find a way when they feel there is no way. To articulate what’s happened in my life to encourage other people. You can’t do much when your isolated so I did what I could do with what I had in my hands.

My friends I must conclude by saying, if someone wants to give to you. Allow them to feel good about it, allow them yo enjoy their giving. But also if you want to give don’t be afraid of rejection, be happy you are able or in the position to give. Don’t take people for granted, recognise the good things about them. But most of all. You ain’t gotta owe someone, to give something to someone.

Positivity changes lives.

Tags

cancer, Christian, desire, encouragement, friends, GOD, Hodgkins, hope, Liverpool, Lord'sPrayer, love, marrow, memories, Peace, southport, survivor, weakness

I did a bit of a test yesterday, I was feeling low and I have to say depressed. I was sat at the table and almost felt there was no point to life. Yet, I have done things for people that have lifted their spirits yet mine were low, I was really down and was punishing myself for not being an,e to do things. That my wife is now the bread winner in our house because of cancer, I was low that my energy levels are still low, my pain is still high. All those things got a hold of me.

Then out of the blue my friend sent me a link, it was about hope and that if you let go of hope then what are you anchored to? Something else perhaps like fear, or helplessness. Self pity, anger. The bible teaches us that perfect love casts out all fear. That fear is a product of our own making. Then I started to realise that even if I didn’t have faith, I had named my dog Faith. Knowing that even if someone was looking after our baby that they to, while they had her would also have faith. I started to think about all the good things I had and the top two were Faith and hope. You can have no money, no possessions and yet still be blessed with Faith and hope.

So you all know I can’t have children or so I am told by the doctors, yet I always look around the house to child proof it for when we do have children. I have hope.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Heb 11-1

Now those of you that know me well, will know that when I beat cancer the first time that I bought a lab. We called her faith because I believed I would beat it, I hoped that it would be gone and I believed it would be gone. I want to go back to when I was 4 years old. My parents were poor and they could not afford a bike for me, they told me that if I hoped for a bike then I should pray for a bike and ask God for a bike. My hope for a bike was so much greater than my parents knew, that night I believed I would get a bike and told God I would like a red one please. Every night I prayed, and asked God for a red one. Then one day, someone told us about a bike my dad picked it up and I still remember seeing my red bike with solid tyres by the gorse bush in the back garden lent up against the outside toilet. You see to have faith you need hope.

I had hope I would beat cancer, which gave me faith. Which was the name of our dog. So effectively we always had faith, and we say her name everyday. Yet even with faith I still had to hear those words again. “You have cancer” yes that’s right a second time it came but this time things would be much worse. I would have to have a Bone marrow transplant.

I have to say my faith took a hit and I did become very low exhausted and felt ripped off somehow. Yet still in the back of my mind I had hope, hope that I would win. I started this blog and wrote as my first post.

“I am Mark a cancer fighter, and I will win”

I had hope, and after my treatment was finished I had a fertility test that told me I was infertile and would never have children. We would never get to call our daughter Lily over to us, never get to hold our baby and nurture him or her. If we had a boy he would be called Harry. So we chose a different path and faith had puppies and we kept one. We spent 7 weeks nurturing those pups, letting them go one after the other.

Barney,

Reggie,

Hope,

Bonnie,

Trevor,

They all had their own little personalities and for sure made friendships in the box. If you want to see more of the antics in the box we used #BigPuppyBox

We kept one of the puppies and the one we kept we named Hope, although my wife did change her name to Lily Hope we have Faith and hope in our home and believe it’s a special way to live.

What ever happens in your life, never let go of hope because things hoped for is the substance of faith. With faith in what we don’t understand we can rise above our circumstances.

So yesterday I wrote a positive post. I wrote that I had beaten cancer and that I was 2 1/2 years out of transplant and that if I could you could. I stayed anchored to hope but I chose to do that. We now have a 9 month old puppy called Lily Hope, now we always have hope. But you can have hope also, you just have to chose it over fear. Because does not have a positive ending where even in the darkness hope can bring light and help you have faith that you will win.

What ever you choose I hope, you choose faith. Because that’s where a new beginning starts. Here is a picture of Faith and Hope as I write.

My state of depression was lifted because I chose hope. What will you choose dear friends?

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

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 better based on my own experipence and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

I am not!

Tags

family, friends, help, life, love, together, transplant, will have never seen them

Even that is a creation. You can choose the “I will be” creation but that’s your choice. It’s not about you being happy or God being happy with you.

It’s about the you you are, being positive about you. If the feelings not good, let it go! People say things like

“why me” but why not you?

“Life’s so hard” it is for everyone!

“I wish I could” you can, there is a way.

Life is as hard as we expect it to be, I mean I can talk right, suffering more than I should because of cancer? Or maybe cancer made me realise how alive I am. Pain is a reminder of that everyday. A reminder cancer could not win, or a reminder I am alive. Oh of course I get my bad days, but then you can’t go though life with just all good days, or all bad days. You can’t have one without the other.

When we live life this way, nothing can bring us down for long periods. Because there is always something to look forward to. Pain is a reminder we are still winning. Reasons to do rather than excuses not to.

Living a grateful life is for sure a better way to live. We can’t have one without the other. A battery can’t work without a negative, and for sure you can’t have a positive without it. So a life being grateful for the negatives is far more useful.

Another one drives a duster…

are you grateful for the negatives?

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

@fonzymark

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 better based on my own experipence and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Stress is a killer. Some helpful tips on stress relief.

Tags

friends, internationalstressday, nationalstressawarenessday, nationalstressday, Stress, stressday

How are you doing today? Happy? I spoke to a guy today that has suffered with Depression all of his life, I won’t pretend to know what I am talking about or say I am an expert on the subject. Because for sure that’s not true, but what I can tell you how I have dealt with things. I know that when you shake a bottle of pop, then take the top off it goes absolutley everywhere. It’s the same with stress, I think personally that Anxiety and stress are in the same family and both CAN lead to a state of depression. Although I don’t understand fully the medical state of depression there are many thoughts I would like to talk about in this blog, and share my own experiences and talk about how I overcame stress. 

My first bit of advice to anyone that is suffering from stress is to make sure that non of what you feel belongs to someone else. For example the way someone parks outside your house. That someone has not finished something, the way people live their lives. Anything that’s not yours to worry about is NOTHING to do with you. 

The garbage truck Talks about that and how you have enough problems of your own without worrying about what others do, it just fills your back pack up with other people’s junk! What’s the point. 
The only way to over come stress in my mind is to Let it go. Look at it like this, that it’s a pop bottle with the top on it. That with the top on the pressure can build up, like us if we have no outlet at all! The stress builds up and can lead to serious illness. Where as a bottle with no top on can be poured out any time you like and no pressure builds up at all. 

Credits: Lukas Gojda/Shutterstock

So I have to go back to the man in the Dacia Duster again reversing into a space next to me and I was getting bothered about it. Why, just let it go, it is after all nothing to do with me what so ever.  Unless of course he had hit our car, then I would have had to react appropriately.

There are many tools available to us, mindfulness, mental health  is a real issue. (I know here I go again right) cancer changed my life and helped me see a new world. Although sometimes I let little things others do affect my day I do want to be a better person tomorrow than I am today. I learnt that if I have tension that I needed an out let. I don’t have the energy of a normal man, so excercise although important was and is not a method that keeps me stress free. So I had to achieve a number of things that did not involve expending energy. I thought maybe writing and having something to think about would help. So I started a blog and challenged myself to write everyday for a whole year. 365 blogs in 1 year. I did that and you are now reading the blog that I stated writing. 

To overcome stress, you need another focus, I have a car that I take out when I need a smile putting on my face. I will go out for a drive just to hear the exhaust note. 

When I was at my junior school I used to sit in front of a fish tank and watch the fish. Mr Glover thought this was a punishment to me, but I loved it so used to be naughty to get out of his boring lessons. The led to me having a pond where I watch my fish and allow my heart rate to be lowered, thus relieving me of stress. I believe stress leads to anxiety and depression, and is a serious problem that people need pressure releases to overcome it. Boxing, cycling, walking, swimming, a hobby like my fish are, boating, hill climbing, canoeing, shooting, classic cars, writing, art, gardening, being part of a group that challenges you. All these things release stress, I used to dance, (badly) but it released stress. Weight training helps to, as does anything that keeps coming into your mind like a job that needs doing in the house. Get it done and it’s not an issue anymore, that can cause stress to the  longer it goes on for. 

​​

​One thing I realise is no one will help you if you don’t help yourself. But helping yourself makes you feel good as does helping others. You will need to find your own stress reliever, but having our dogs is a massive stress reliever as are cats. Our cat was put down a few weeks ago which was sad. But times a healer, our two dogs have given us a new perspective and always are with us. 

Laughter with friends is the same as the whistle on an old kettle, actually why don’t all Kettles whistle when they boil? But that whistle is what’s happening to your body when you laugh, you let off steam. Only yesterday I talked to a friend about how important it is to have something to look forwards to and something that will help you release pressure from your system. Even a stress ball can help,

Signs you are stressed

Stress can be revealed in many ways, here are a few. People that are stressed respond differently to people that are relaxed. They snap, take things personally. They clench their fists, they don’t hug their partner enough. Take it out on their partner rather than talking about it and hugging it out. Stressed people also don’t make their bed and have piles of things yo do in the house that have mounted up. I know because I have been, and have created all these problems myself. You will go to bed and still be arguing, you will drive to fast. For me there are lots of things that don’t cost money that can help with stress relief. Time with friends and a game of pool is really good for mental health aswell. Your not a failure if your stressed you have just gotten into a situation where you have taken to many things on. Don’t take on any more and get the jobs ticked off one at a time and don’t look at it all at once. If you look at the 101 jobs that need doing you will never do even just 1 job. So just do one at a time. Once one is done move onto the next ect ect.

Trust me ticking some boxes, and having a holiday to look forwards to. Will help your mind set. We got back from Scotland and booked another cottage for next year. 2 weeks away with our dogs, my mum n dad will come and my brother and sister in law with my nephew Zac. It will be fun and something ahead we will enjoy together.

Take care of each other, your important. More important than you know. Make sure you look each other in the eyes and hug. Hugging and loving others is a tremendous way to relive stress. Say sorry, even if it’s not your fault. I tell myself. You don’t have to be right, it takes effort to be stress free. But for sure a stress free life is far better than anxiety and depression. Releasing your stress will go a long way to helping yourself in other areas of your life.

Hugs to you all, wow and thanks for reading. Just think if just by sharing this you helped someone. Just a thought.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

 @fonzymark

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 better based on my own experipence and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright

The mountains of Scotland.

Tags

Compassion, energy, faith, friends, Goodness, health, hope, Scotland, strength, travel, Writing

I am sat here as a new by to Scotland really. Even though I have been to the highlands. It was in the dark and nothing like our experience of today. I am finding it hard to find words to do this country proud. But I must start by saying how truly emotional I have been today. That we were able to enjoy the majestic mountains of Glencoe, the highlands and the small of the island of Skye we have seen today. I had always thought NewZealand to be the most amazing country in the world until today.  I have just merely been introduced to Scotland today. Yet we have so many adventures to encounter. Could Scotland actually be the most beautiful country “IN THE WORLD”

As you round each corner you see more than one mountain that comes into view, as you look up at the splendour faced by these naturally formed mountains. (The photos don’t do them justice) You feel small, insignificant and after a week of thinking about the right word to discribe them. intimidated. Intimidated in a gasp kind of way where you have your heart in your mouth, in awe that the world has such splendour in it. That a 8 hour drive had all this to offer, yet only now at 49 had I followed in my grandads footsteps. At this moment I would like you write you a picture. You see my grandparents loved travelling these parts, even though they lived in Redhill Surrey, they used to drive up to the highlands above lochLoman.  

They would get in the car, a beige Honda; always with them were  two chairs that unfolded. A table, a scrabble board, one of those blue gas burners you could buy for camping with the L shaped prongs. Theyunfolded so you could place their kettle on the top. Of course a kettle. A metal tea pot and my Grandma always had an old square tin that has had shortbread from a previous trip with some home made cake in it. They had pillows in the car so they could sleep anywhere. 

When my grandparents wanted a cup of tea they would pull over, put the chairs out facing each other unfold the table (wooden) and put the scrabble board (deluxe) on it along with the China cup and saucer. The kettle would be placed on the gas burner complete with the whistle to tell you when it was boiling. The water was then added to the tea pot, this was done by straining the water through a tea strainer. No tea bags for them, then more leaves added to the pot and left to stew. The tea would then be poured through the strainer to catch the leaves to make a truly British cup of tea.  Grandma would always have a tartan rug over her legs and they would both always have a smile. Sat by the side of the very quite roads laughing with each other, eating cake and drinking a lovely cup of tea. I feel like we are following in their footsteps and have imagined them sat in a lay by many times whilst enjoying time with my wife and dogs on this amazing island of Skye. 

Scotland it’s just one amazing place and we are so so pleased to be celebrating our anniversary together. Scotland, you are a dramatic, intimidating place to visit. We have one more week here and look forwards to feeling inspired and intimidated in the coming days.

Little did I know that when more of our friends came to visit, we would actually be doing axe throwing in this land. The wifi was aweful in Scotland, so we spent a lot of time talking with each other, enjoying this wonderful planet through eyes that for sure have been cleaned through a new perspective I now have. The love of the planet is just so completely and utterly lovely, enlightening, emotional, and enchanting. No wonder my grandparents came up here so much. 

The waterfall you can see in the photo above was in our front garden, yet it could not be seen from the window. All I can say is we will most definetley explore Scotland more, what a wonderful country Scotland is. 

Everyday we would leave the cottage, and drive slowly being careful not to hit a sheep. Everyday the same thing happened, we would scream with delight as we saw the bird of prey. Which of course made him/her fly off, leaving us with phones in hand still trying to get the camera on. Your phone all of a sudden becomes like a jumping bean. When just moments earlier it was all calm and peaceful somewhere on the dashboard. Every single day the same thing would happen till we eventually got some absolutley appalling pictures that were blurred and really disappointing to look at. Even seeing the birds massive wing span will never ever leave my mind, but that’s no good for you, is it. I am sorry we failed at our endeavours despite being perched ever so close one morning. Our shots were just laughable. 

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I like to think our dogs saw the magnificence of those wonderful birds. We saw a white tipped sea eagle and what we thought was a golden eagle to. A Kestrel, and I think that was awesome. If your Scottish, your country is amazing. May I say sorry to you all for not coming sooner. It’s like a world I had never seen before. Thank you Scotland we will be back again.

Fonz

Your future, not your pain.

Tags

awareness, cancer, Christian, destiny, Families, friends, GOD, Goodness, happiness, health, longevity, muscle, Peace, relentless, together, unity, weakness, Writing

Your future, not your pain.

WOOH! 

The reality of  the past 7 years and the realisation that what I was interested in doing. (Encouraging someone everyday) has been achieved. Nuts really how this has happened considering the pain that envelopes me on a daily basis. Success is doing what you say your going to do. Asking if I want a coffee in a morning if you know me is pointless. Making a coffee for me if you so wished, I don’t take milk and less than one teaspoon of sugar. The point of this post is to talk with you about doing, not considering it. Talking to me seems useless, but standing up and doing something means so much to me these days.  

You see when your faced with losing your own life, no really you do start to see. It’s only then that you become. Let me explain. Good people, give. They don’t say, hey can I, do you mind if I, please let me. Good people do, they don’t speak of what’s happened. They just do, possibly because they have learnt the same lessons as me. This next picture I took of one of my friends and it speaks so much of what’s going on in this world. That to enjoy what you can’t control, is so much more of a peaceful way to live. Yet, I so often allowed things outside of my control to affect me. I know as another friend reminded me yesterday that we are of course ALWAYS a work in progress. If we are only willing to allow ourselves to not be controlled by our surroundings. Rather to accept what others choose, and enjoy what they choose even if it’s not what we would have done. 

This picture although not me, says all I want to say to you really. That to let what’s around you be, and be comfortable with others choices. That no matter what is or has happened around you standing and doing what you feel is right is actually right for you. No other way is right. To stop talking and start doing is when you discover life in its true fullness.

I know I have spoken of sentences the bible says at times in my blog. But this is what I mean.

Jesus Predicts His Death

John 12 vs…23But Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24Truly, truly, I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a seed; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25Whoever loves his life will lose it, but whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.…

In other words, if you continue to hate the world you live in and live a life of turmoil it will always be that. But let go of those things and allow the world to be around you and not try to change them. I most certainly will continue to become a better person. To stop allowing things others do to not bother me as appossed to annoy me. That the journey of others is theirs nit mine. Whilst on holiday, a Dacia Duster driver was reversing. Seemingly directly into the car I was driving. 

 

My accepting the world photo.

Why can’t you just laugh knowing your a better driver than that, Sentance. Changed my perspective and as ever. If your not with a friend that loves you enough to not let you stay the way you are. Then the chances are your with people that are around you because they want something from you. People that love you will always challenge you. But then of course they will always accept you to. But love you to much to let you stay that way. 

That’s what the verse means, until you stop worrying about your souroundings. You will never enjoy what your surroundings are.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Instagram

 @fonzymark

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 better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Be who you are, who cares what others think?

Tags

achieve, attitude, cancer, destiny, encouragement, energy, faith, friends, hope, life, love, twitter

The most important thing is what you think about you, what others think is not actually your problem unless you make it your problem. From this moment onwards, my caring about what people think stops here. Impressive is being happy in your own skin, not wanting others to recognise that your ok or that your a good person. Actually why would you care what anyone thinks of you, as long as your ok with you. You will have made mistakes in life, and thats ok. Don’t give yourself a hard time for the mistakes you have made, move on and surround yourself with people that like themselves. Choose your friends wisely and make sure your around people that want to build you up, not drag you down. People that are content not to be something, will not help you grow. Growth starts with you, and the acceptance that your a good person. 

Be who you are, not what the world thinks you are. Because you know what, people will want you to trip up. I still don’t know what I want to do in business but I do know this. That I want to encourage people in their journeys. I want to lead people to success, even if that’s believing that they can beat cancer like I did. Believing you can starts with you and not what others think of you. What you are not, is a wasted sentence. What you did wrong is a wasted thought. 

Be positive in your daily walk, and make sure everyday you do something that builds yourself up. You won’t find multi millionaires in a night club being sick down a toilet. They will be in a nice restaunt eating good food with a hood wine or even an ice water. 

Be who you want to be not what others expect you to be. Because what others think is not your problem.

Have a great day

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

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 @fonzymark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Everything you read are better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Pleapse share with others, if it meant something tou you it owill to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Sometimes you love a person, for all the reasons their not like you.

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achieve, attitude, cancer, desire, encouragement, faith, fish, friends, hope, labrador, love, loved, relentless, stories

Sometimes you love a person, for all the reasons their not like you.

I might say some pretty random stuff in this post. I make no apology. It’s time to have a little fun, maybe be a little crazy and most of all smile. So here we go, here is a little story inspired by a sentence on ‘Brigette jones baby’ .

I wonder if it was just me that spent a long time looking for someone I loved the look of, that loved what I loved, that wanted what I wanted.  Spending thousands dating, then at the end of a night that you spent all week buying clothes for, that lasted 5 hours. You find yourself on your way home in a taxi hoping you would be sick in the toilet and not all over the cab windows. Then hoping shortly afterwards that you would not get the cleaning bill for the taxi but then ya did. Only to find you had no money and you had to go inside your own home to look for money stinking of sick. Along with kebab sauce dribbled on your shirt. I can assure you this look is also accompanied by a bad hair day to. No not you? Oh well that would be just me then.

That the one you were to love, was interested in what you were, not what you had. Yet one of the first questions was always “Do you like motorbikes”  not all girls do you know, in fact I would say MOST don’t. I found out quite early on in life that just because a lady (girl) said they liked Martini. That alcohol should be savoured. That not all men would like Martini, including me, especially as I drank a full bottle in approx 40 mins. It was actually the second bottle of alcohol I drank that fast. The first being one of ‘thee olde English ciider’  just before a party at 13 I think (sorry mum) both occasions resulted in huge amounts of sick. Thinking back I wonder why I ever drank again. Just to clarify I don’t think that any more I am just not blind drunk every weekend… quite possibly making myself look bad but there is some humour among the the honesty, I think.. I mean. Oh never mind.

I am one of the fortunate people on earth, that I found out what is meant by the word love. That just because you like to eat fish it does not mean that’s right for the fish. In fact it’s not fair on the fish at all, it’s selfish love. If you loved fish, would you not look after them and feed them? Love for yourself, that’s why so many get divorced, because they love the fish and don’t look at the person eating the food we don’t like. 

Ok let me be clearer, we all love ourselves. A short video I watched recently reminded me of that.  You giving  love to someone does not mean you love them. It’s the other way round. You love those who you give to. You see when you give to someone you count the cost. If you give because you love to give, you never count the cost. It’s just given, because you will always love those you give to. Because you love you right.

Only understanding these principles can we understand who cares about us and who does not. The love of my life, who just so happens to be my wife likes all the films I don’t. The tv shows it all. Yet we give ourselves to each other making ourselves vulnerable often. Yet in doing that we don’t feel vulnerable because we both know, there is some of us invested in the other. True love enjoys vunrability. People that look for a fake skin deep love will never have anything invested so it will always be weak and fail at some point. Possibly leading to divorce.

Oh how I wish I could upload what I have learnt and take the chip out and put it in a younger persons head. But it’s not like that is it. I can tell someone that, it’s really bad to walk backwards on a pavement and turn around. Because at some point you will turn round and be faced with a lamppost. We have to learn it all for ourselves. Even the books we read will still mean we will eventually find out for real in the life we have.

When you give to someone and don’t want anything back, that’s true love. You can love working because you get paid. But giving to someone because you want to is the most precious of gifts. So true love is because you love  giving to that person, not what that person can give to you. 

Love is not easy, but then if it was we would all know how wonderful it truly is to love

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 better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something tou you it will to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Thank you cancer

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bone, cancer, desire, encouragement, faith, family, friends, given, health, help, hope, hospital, love, loved, survivor, transplant, Writing

Thank you cancer.
Why not? I mean cancer has for sure helped me to see a world in a different way. I hope I can explain it well enough for you, that maybe you can see the world differently to just by reading this blog.  
In my world only my loving wife and my mom and dad truly know what life’s like for me. I am fortunate to be a prayed for man, which humbles me greatly that people take the time to pray. As I wrote that I phoned one of my dads friends who is in a nursing home who prays for me to thank him. People are so nice aren’t they. So on with this post.
If you suffer with pain or know someone that does or side effects from treatment this is for them, I just hope you can share it with them if you think it will help.
You see when you have pain, a useless one like nerve damage. It’s not something that can be changed, it most certainly will not go away by complaining about it or worrying about it. However there are things we can do, things that make life less painful even though the pain still exsists. I get told many times how wonderfully I have done, and can only thank God for the strength I have been given to carry on and the friends he has put my way. There are many things and words that can help us in life you know, just by putting a positive word into Google, or on my blog you will find something that will take your mind away from the pain you feel. So let’s take a word any word, an ordinary one and let’s see if we can help ourselves with one word.
BEE

So firstly from my own mind, what does the word Bee mean to me, well until just recently it could be an insect that stings and then dies needlessly. Pointlessly you may think. That could be the end, could it not? Or we could look at what a bee has it’s sting for that it protects its colony from predictors, that it makes Honey that’s used in so many different ways. In fact we find that some bees have heeling properties in their Honesy such as Manuka from New Zealand. We can take a photo of it and look at how amazing it is how it collects pollen, and by doing so pollinates other plants and even helps them to produce fruit. In fact without the bee, there would be no fruit at all on some trees. We can see the beauty that there is in what the bee does and how it looks all the time whilst doing this one thing, the pain we have feels less. Because we have looked at something in a different way. We have given ourselves a new perspective at that moment therefore helping our mental health and feeling less of the bad things for a short while.
Of course the Bee symbolises so much more now, being a symbol of anti terrorism for Manchester and a sign that we stand together against it.
Our two Labradors are amazing, they change how I feel and for sure help me with my own pain levels to. When I concentrate on them rather than the pain, it’s like I have gone through a period where I forgot I was in pain. Speaking of positive things, and doing positive actions make a differance in life, not only for the person that suffers but for the person that supports a person that suffers.
How you perceive something changes your whole life.
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. I
Everything you read are better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something tou you it will to someone
 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.

You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?
Copyright ©2017

I know what it’s like to eat salty bacon with tears.

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awareness, bone, cancer, faith, Families, friends, Hodgkins, hope, life, love, partner, Peace, strength, survivor, transplant, weakness

I know what it’s like to eat salty bacon with tears.

I don’t know how many of you have just watched “Growing up with cancer” but I just did. Children that had the cancer i did, children that had to grow up with cancer and face things no child should. Well it took me back once again to that room where I had my stem cell transplant.  Kids are so resilient aren’t they, accepting of their situation and able to rationalise things and adapt. They seem to be able to deal with things quickly and efficiently. 

There was a young lad in the wards that became depressed and lost his appetite. He was unable to eat due to how he felt, he was angry and upset although he was uncertain of why he was so unhappy. Being depressed he was certain of. I know I was low and forced my family away from me, which is actually why I am writing this very post.  The family that wanted to be close to me I pushed away.  I did not allow them on the ward even though they could have really. I was so hung up on the word. Isolation. 

I wanted to give myself the best chance at beating cancer and living longer by not being around any germs what so ever. Well I want to put that right right now. Today should my wife’s dad be alive he would be 74. But cancer took him aged 59. I never knew him. But it’s made me realise I was wrong to be that way, that I should apologise to my family and say Sorry. Sorry for keeping you at arms length, and ask that you all forgive me.

Whilst in that room the chemo they give you, is so horrendous that you get hundreds of ulcers all the way through your body. They tell you that you are unable to eat, and that you would be better to have a nose tube to be fed through, and that exercise would be impossible. 

What I did in there I did for my family, I did what I thought I could to come through. I did press ups on the visiting chair that my wife used sometimes. I walked from the bed to the ensuite which was about 5 steps and back whilst having chemo moving all of the time and eating my breakfast not once but twice everyday. Sounds greedy right? Wrong. I would say eating bacon with ulcers in your mouth throat, intestines, all the way through to your bowl is not easy. You cry whilst eating making the bacon taste saltier. But every bite hurts like hell as it goes through your body making you not want to eat. Without doubt the easiest thing to do is to not eat, to choose nothing off the menu to sleep all day and not excercise. To give up. 

All I did in there I did for my family, and want to say sorry for not doing the things you wanted me to. It was wrong of me. 

To anyone that’s facing cancer or supporting anyone with cancer. What seems normal in life without cancer is most certainly not normal in a life during cancer. 

But I leave you with this, to do something is better than doing nothing, even if at the time it may seem like the wrong thing to do, it’s still better to do.
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. I

Everything you read are better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something tou you it will to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

To give Life

Tags

cancer, encouragement, family, friends, GOD, hope, life, love, together, transplant, travel

To give life!!
At the moment we are looking after 3 dogs, although the other 2 are faiths pups you still follow them around guiding them to be good. The warmth they give my heart far out weighs the mist chief I find them making. Take this afternoon.

I am making a bigger pond for my fish of which I have 12 remaining. But that’s due to me not putting a net over the pond and a heron pinching one last night. So I am indoors sorting out cloud print or something on our Epsom printer… (Still no idea) the pups were outside. 

I am not silly, I know they make mischief but hoped they would be good. They normally play in the side garden, ripping up paper and snapping things. Anything is fair game. Take the other day I planted some climbers, only to find the plants half eaten on the grass. I said nothing and ent and got some chicken wire ( the plastic kind) and screwed it either side of the posts so no further intrusions of plants avoiding all dog chrime!!

The next day I came into the garden where I was confident I had sorted the issue to find the same plant uprooted and more besides and the netting ripped off. I looked at Lily Hope our puppy who tilted her head to the side in a (waaaaat) kinda way. Looking to cute to chastise. With a smile on my face… “NAUGHTY PUPPY”. I said. She looked at me satisfied with her dog chrime with a look of one upmanship as she waddled off.  No more has happened since. However. 

We return to the pond build and I had successfully moved all remaining 12 fish into a paddling pool ready for putting into their new home. Tomorrow. Whilst confusing myself with printer clouds and google chrome it appeared the two amigos ( sisters ) have been naughty and removed one of my fish and had decided to play with it on the decking. When I arrived they quickly left the area waddling satisfactorily down the path whilst I decided if I should bin the fish or do my best to revive the poor girl. 

Of course I opted to revive the fish, to my astonishment it now lives. My puppy and our friends puppy no doubt will still be partners in dog chrime, and I will continue to love them, and hope they find me some sort of  leader in the future. But I do rather think it best to enjoy that they are with us, and see their little lives as pleasant unpredictable additions to our family. 

Life is that, and no matter what your pain you can look upon the trials you face however you like. But you do have life which is a gracious gift.
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. I

Everything you read are better based on my own experience and my own opinions. I express them here to encourage you. Please share with others, if it meant something tou you it will to someone

 else. All images are from a Google search. Or my own, taken whilst creating memories every day.
You could change a life by sharing this post! Will you?

Copyright ©2017

Friends are the family we choose.

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belief, faith, family, friends, GOD, hope, strength, together

Friends are the family we choose.

As I sit here on the settee minding my Dam ‘Faith’ I am watching the movie ‘CREED’ it’s brought a lot of memories back to my mind. Rekindled my cancer journey and even why I embarked on treatment in the first place. The first reason of course was my wife. My friend turned LIFE long partner, then my wife. Which she will be till my last breath. Loads of things are spinning around in my head, in not very long faith will give birth to her puppies. Life will be because of the fights I have had to have and won. Strange for me to think, that without cancer there would be no Faith. Without cancer I may not have realised who my fake friends were, but also who my real, true friends were and indeed are the family I have chosen.

It’s bringing back to my mind not just why I beat cancer but how. In the film Rocky gets the cancer I had, which opens the flood gates for me every time. I can’t help remembering the day, the day your told what’s making you so tired and weak. You see when you fight cancer, it’s every scan, every blood test every chemo. It’s Avery person that sends you a text that helps you to go that one more round when you think you can’t. That’s what beating cancer is about, ‘one round at a time’ Faiths about to give birth and whilst she will never understand the words I write, our friendship is without a doubt real. 

What ever you face on your journey, I want you to know that you can. That no matter how many obstacles there are in the way. If you keep getting up and moving forwards that you can.  You have to have the heart to stand and move forwards though. I don’t know about you but the friends I call family have given me the strength to get up when I thought I couldn’t. The visits from people when I didn’t want them, because I wanted to give in to cancer and die. I want to right here right now, thank those people for helping me get to today, for my actual family for the love and support they showed me to. That through his people God gave me the strength to choose life.. in choosing life, there will be new life in the form of faiths puppies. 

So thank you cancer, and thank you for helping me choose life.

Together we are stronger.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

Follow me on Twitter

@fonzmark

Email – fonzicloud@icloud.com

Ps, I have committed to doing this to encourage people, what I ask of you is that you  share these blogs I make on email, facebook twitter, you can affect people by pressing a button. It only takes a click or two.

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. I

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

Copyright ©2017

Love yourself.

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Throughout my life there have been many stages, but one lesson I would say is perhaps the hardest, or maybe took the longest. Was to learn to love myself, you see most people blame situations people, ( I was dealt a bad hand)  my friend says it like. The people in the pub that have a woulda coulda story – if only it was not for such and such. Well it’s all a load of rubbish. Absolute BS. Our future is in our hands but unfortunately, if we don’t live ourselves we will find life is so much harder than it would otherwise be should we be happy with who we are. We have to become that person that when the person who is looking back, your content with. I am not saying the full article because no human is ever the ful article in my opinion. We learn until the day we die if always want to improve ourselves. 

  
I personally want to better today than I was yesterday, I think they call it growing. Always learning and always becoming a better you. Let me put it this way, a house needs solid foundations to last. Without solid foundations there will be cracks in the plaster in time, bricks will move and the house will become unstable. Loving yourself is the foundation for everything we build on top of it, a relationship, the ability to live with your whole heart, holding down a good job, respect from others. No one will respect you if you don’t respect yourself.  

  
I found the right person to marry because I had found myself in travelling Australia, yup that’s what it took for me. It was not till I was 36 and a broken marriage behind me that I became truly happy with the reflection in my mirror. Very late in life I would say, but at least I got there in the end. Cancer has honed me, made me a better more rounded person enabling me to see life through the eyes of a disability. The disability being the disabling treatments that my cancer demanded. In your life you will have your own challenges, but what ever happens in your life love the person who you are before you build a life.

Have a great weekend

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Chemo Brain.

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I read an article today on a site called Had cancer, talking about different ways that we feel sometimes years after having had chemotheropy. Some doctors say it does not exsist, (apparently) I have never had this exsperience with doctors myself but then I am quite a large person both physically and in personality. After reading the article I realised that maybe I could write about the very thing that frustrates me so much. So let me explain how it is for me as a cancer patient that like the person who wrote the article. I had cancer!

So for me when I was having chemo, even my first chemo (mine was very strong) it had to be I was at 4 a and in a bad way. Close to losing my life and riddled with cancer. Remember in previous blogs I have talked about chemo feeling like snakes in your head, it did. Sometimes your head even hurts as you remember stuff, but then your brain is a muscle. It has lots of connections in the brain that need to work in a certain way. Now I am not a doctor, but it makes sense to me that maybe the brain has been affected in a small way by the drugs pumped into my body. I do forget things where I didn’t before. So I have to write things down to remember them. Where as before I really never did I just remembered.

Trust me no cancer patient uses it as an excuse, after all who wants to forget? I look like a Pratt sometimes because I repeat myself, repeat myself. Seriously though it’s embarrassing.

  Picture by Fine acupuncture.com
People that have not had cancer will never understand how it affects a human being. How can they, we must excuse their ignorance in not trying to even understand. I have been insulted, even misjudged by people close to me. I have to realise it’s not something they will understand unless they try to. Walking around pointing the finger at someone suffering does not help anyone.

Chemo brain can last for years so if it’s you, know it’s a possible normal for you. It’s frustrating because people may get annoyed at you, no one will understand unless they have researched what you maybe feeling. It does not mean we have lost our intelligence. It means we have been affected by chemothearopy, our memories may not be up to scratch but it does not mean we are inadequate. Far from it, chemo brain is real. But the fact is that chemo brain is much more frustrating for the person with it than it is for the person communicating with that person. Have a great day and know that your not alone, there are I suspect many that will read this and realise that it’s normal and even feel a bit better about it. Because others feel what they do.

Have a good weekend

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Do u listen to understand or listen to reply.

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Do you know the differance? Ok well here is my take on it. If your a friend to someone you will listen to understand what they are going through or facing. If you listen to reply, you are more interested in what your opinion is than helping the person to deal with the problem they are telling you about. God, if you believe there is a God ( I do). When he made us made us with 2 ears and one mouth, interesting don’t you think?  Does that not mean we should listen more than we speak, sounds  daft as I write this as I love speaking, but I also love to solution stuff. The only way we can solution is by listening, I love coming up with answers to situations. But hate jigsaws.

For a long time in my life I thought that people wanted to hear my opinion, when in fact the person that really wanted to hear my opinion was Me. I was a selfish person in some ways, even though my motive may have been good the result of my motive was to reply with my opinion. 

  
I have realised that by listening your learning, and when your speaking you are not learning anything at all. It’s a skill to listen and one I am working on everyday, as I endeavour to complete my challenge of blogging everyday for a whole year. 365 days. I am busy learning to as I get feedback from people, people that care, some are surprised that I am nearly 3/4 of the way through and still am doing what I said I would do. I know it’s helping people be use people are telling me and I am listening. Using the skill I am honing to listen to other people to understand as opposed to reply. 

  
Listening to understand not only gives us more knowledge but also it helps us to understand people and their situations. Which I turn gives us experience. The one thing about exsperience is you can’t buy it, you can buy someone to tell us from their exsperience, but if we want to have exsperience we have no choice but to listen and learn from someone else.  Because that’s what listening to understand does. It gives us the exsperience that we can call on in another situation in the future. We may be able to recall what we have learnt and help us in our very own situation. This may mean nothing to you, you may think you know what I am saying and don’t need to hear it. If that’s the case then you will not learn anything.

Have a great Friday,

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Steve job (his final words)

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This is what one of the richest men ever to become wealthy thought of life. Some of the things I have been saying in my blogs… This writing may not be exact, some think incorrect. I just think the words are perfect and for all mankind!

Steve Jobs’ Last Words –
I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world.

In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success.
However, aside from work, I have little joy. In the end, wealth is only a fact of life that I am accustomed to.
At this moment, lying on the sick bed and recalling my whole life, I realize that all the recognition and wealth that I took so much pride in, have paled and become meaningless in the face of impending death.
In the darkness, I look at the green lights from the life supporting machines and hear the humming mechanical sounds, I can feel the breath of god of death drawing closer…
Now I know, when we have accumulated sufficient wealth to last our lifetime, we should pursue other matters that are unrelated to wealth…

Should be something that is more important:
Perhaps relationships, perhaps art, perhaps a dream from younger days …

Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me.
God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth.
The wealth I have won in my life I cannot bring with me.

What I can bring is only the memories precipitated by love.

That’s the true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on.
Love can travel a thousand miles. Life has no limit. Go where you want to go. Reach the height you want to reach. It is all in your heart and in your hands.

What is the most expensive bed in the world? – “Sick bed” …
You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear the sickness for you.

Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – “Life”.
When a person goes into the operating room, he will realize that there is one book that he has yet to finish reading – “Book of Healthy Life”.
Whichever stage in life we are at right now, with time, we will face the day when the curtain comes down.
Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends…
Treat yourself well. Cherish others.
  
Look after each other

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

If it’s meant to be, it WILL be.

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This is a must read, a true story that has touched my heart!
As I walked home one freezing day, I stumbled on a wallet someone had lost in the street. I picked it up and looked inside to find some identification so I could call the owner. But the wallet contained only three dollars and a crumpled letter that looked as if it had been in there for years.
The envelope was worn and the only thing that was legible on it was the return address. I started to open the letter, hoping to find some clue. Then I saw the dateline–1924. The letter had been written almost 60 years ago.
It was written in a beautiful feminine handwriting on powder blue stationery with a little flower in the left-hand corner. It was a “Dear John” letter that told the recipient, whose name appeared to be Michael, that the writer could not see him anymore because her mother forbade it. Even so, she wrote that she would always love him.
It was signed, Hannah.
It was a beautiful letter, but there was no way except for the name Michael, that the owner could be identified. Maybe if I called information, the operator could find a phone listing for the address on the envelope.
“Operator,” I began, “this is an unusual request. I’m trying to find the owner of a wallet that I found. Is there anyway you can tell me if there is a phone number for an address that was on an envelope in the wallet?”
She suggested I speak with her supervisor, who hesitated for a moment then said, “Well, there is a phone listing at that address, but I can’t give you the number.” She said, as a courtesy, she would call that number, explain my story and would ask them if they wanted her to connect me.
I waited a few minutes and then she was back on the line. “I have a party who will speak with you.”
I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she knew anyone by the name of Hannah. She gasped, “Oh! We bought this house from a family who had a daughter named Hannah. But that was 30 years ago!”
“Would you know where that family could be located now?” I asked.
“I remember that Hannah had to place her mother in a nursing home some years ago,” the woman said. “Maybe if you got in touch with them they might be able to track down the daughter.”
She gave me the name of the nursing home and I called the number. They told me the old lady had passed away some years ago but they did have a phone number for where they thought the daughter might be living.
I thanked them and phoned. The woman who answered explained that Hannah herself was now living in a nursing home.
This whole thing was stupid, I thought to myself. Why was I making such a big deal over finding the owner of a wallet that had only three dollars and a letter that was almost 60 years old?
Nevertheless, I called the nursing home in which Hannah was supposed to be living and the man who answered the phone told me, “Yes, Hannah is staying with us.”
Even though it was already 10 p.m., I asked if I could come by to see her. “Well,” he said hesitatingly, “if you want to take a chance, she might be in the day room watching television.”
I thanked him and drove over to the nursing home. The night nurse and a guard greeted me at the door. We went up to the third floor of the large building. In the day room, the nurse introduced me to Hannah.
She was a sweet, silver-haired oldtimer with a warm smile and a twinkle in her eye. I told her about finding the wallet and showed her the letter. The second she saw the powder blue envelope with that little flower on the left, she took a deep breath and said, “Young man, this letter was the last contact I ever had with Michael.”
She looked away for a moment deep in thought and then said softly, “I loved him very much. But I was only 16 at the time and my mother felt I was too young. Oh, he was so handsome. He looked like Sean Connery, the actor.”
“Yes,” she continued. “Michael Goldstein was a wonderful person. If you should find him, tell him I think of him often. And,” she hesitated for a moment, almost biting her lip, “tell him I still love him. You know,” she said smiling as tears began to well up in her eyes, “I never did marry. I guess no one ever matched up to Michael…”
I thanked Hannah and said goodbye. I took the elevator to the first floor and as I stood by the door, the guard there asked, “Was the old lady able to help you?”
I told him she had given me a lead. “At least I have a last name. But I think I’ll let it go for a while. I spent almost the whole day trying to find the owner of this wallet.”
I had taken out the wallet, which was a simple brown leather case with red lacing on the side. When the guard saw it, he said, “Hey, wait a minute! That’s Mr. Goldstein’s wallet. I’d know it anywhere with that bright red lacing. He’s always losing that wallet. I must have found it in the halls at least three times.”
“Who’s Mr. Goldstein?” I asked as my hand began to shake.
“He’s one of the oldtimers on the 8th floor. That’s Mike Goldstein’s wallet for sure. He must have lost it on one of his walks.” I thanked the guard and quickly ran back to the nurse’s office. I told her what the guard had said. We went back to the elevator and got on. I prayed that Mr. Goldstein would be up.
On the eighth floor, the floor nurse said, “I think he’s still in the day room. He likes to read at night. He’s a darling old man.”
We went to the only room that had any lights on and there was a man reading a book. The nurse went over to him and asked if he had lost his wallet. Mr. Goldstein looked up with surprise, put his hand in his back pocket and said, “Oh, it is missing!”
“This kind gentleman found a wallet and we wondered if it could be yours?”
I handed Mr. Goldstein the wallet and the second he saw it, he smiled with relief and said, “Yes, that’s it! It must have dropped out of my pocket this afternoon. I want to give you a reward.”
“No, thank you,” I said. “But I have to tell you something. I read the letter in the hope of finding out who owned the wallet.”
The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. “You read that letter?”
“Not only did I read it, I think I know where Hannah is.”
He suddenly grew pale. “Hannah? You know where she is? How is she? Is she still as pretty as she was? Please, please tell me,” he begged.
“She’s fine…just as pretty as when you knew her.” I said softly.
The old man smiled with anticipation and asked, “Could you tell me where she is? I want to call her tomorrow.” He grabbed my hand and said, “You know something, Mister? I was so in love with that girl that when that letter came, my life literally ended. I never married. I guess I’ve always loved her.”
“Mr. Goldstein,” I said, “Come with me.”
We took the elevator down to the third floor. The hallways were darkened and only one or two little night-lights lit our way to the day room where Hannah was sitting alone watching the television. The nurse walked over to her.
“Hannah,” she said softly, pointing to Michael, who was waiting with me in the doorway. “Do you know this man?”
She adjusted her glasses, looked for a moment, but didn’t say a word. Michael said softly, almost in a whisper, “Hannah, it’s Michael. Do you remember me?”
She gasped, “Michael! I don’t believe it! Michael! It’s you! My Michael!” He walked slowly towards her and they embraced. The nurse and I left with tears streaming down our faces.
“See,” I said. “See how the Good Lord works! If it’s meant to be, it will be.”
About three weeks later I got a call at my office from the nursing home. “Can you break away on Sunday to attend a wedding? Michael and Hannah are going to tie the knot!”
It was a beautiful wedding with all the people at the nursing home dressed up to join in the celebration. Hannah wore a light beige dress and looked beautiful. Michael wore a dark blue suit and stood tall. They made me their best man.
The hospital gave them their own room and if you ever wanted to see a 76-year-old bride and a 79-year-old groom acting like two teenagers, you had to see this couple.
A perfect ending for a love affair that had lasted nearly 60 years.

  

Your past does not define you.

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Who you were you cannot change, but what you become is in your hands. You can be what ever you want to be, do what ever you want to do. You can achieve what ever you want to achieve. It’s believing what you say is true. You see for you to achieve what you want to achieve it means  you first have to believe it’s possible then step out in faith putting one foot in front of the other, and move forward. You see the further you move forwards the dimmer the light of your “what was”  will be. Of course I am meaning for my cancer journey, it’s not something I want or need to remember. The more days I live without cancer, the more I believe it’s possible to have a future with out it.

  
Whilst this blog will be short, it’s just to remind you and me. That because we have had cancer and are in remmission, this does not define us as a person. Even if you are having treatment it does not define you, what defines you is what you do right now. What you choose to become, your not defined by what someone thinks of you, what their opinion is, is not for you to know. What matters is what you want out of this life, if that’s to sit with your head in your hands blaming God knows what as to the reason you have cancer. That’s your choice, and that is what defines you. But I want you to know  that you have the choice everyday to leave that past behind you. The definition of you is in your hands.

You are so much more than you are today. 

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536
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. 

13 Destructive Mindsets That Will Stifle Your Growth in 2016

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Re blogged from http://www.fonzandcancer.com 

I want you to be determined and resolute in your mind that 2016 is going to be your Year of Growth.  I want you to visualize in your mind the goals you want to achieve.  I want you to feel the success.   I want you to feel the emotion of being scared.  I want […]

http://dreambigdreamoften.co/2016/01/06/13-destructive-mindsets-that-will-keep-you-from-growing/

The day I died. (What I saw)

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  Today I went to see Roy and Vickie, we talked seamlessly for over 2 hours. It was a really pleasant time, Roy shared with me his cancer story. It was a good time, I was asked the same question as Dave and Anne asked me though. “Do I ever get down” so now I will tell you how I cope with that, how I did cope with that, and hopefully what makes me feel like that. 

It’s hard to know where to start really, because people seem to think I am some kind of infalable  being that just gets on an does it. (Not true) it’s hard for me to talk about being weak, as it’s not in my nature to show that side of me. However the bible talks about when I am weak then he is strong. Don’t get me wrong I am not going to come across all religious on you, but this is how it happened to me. I remember quite distinctly the day that I realised beating cancer was not possible, cancer stories did not exsist then. I know if it had I would most certainly have coped better, I remember watching a movie I think it was called the awakening. Robert de Nero played a part of someone who deteriated badly, I remember how I wept the know the audible crying, feeling like you are out of control. I dropped to my knees that night, I cryed out loud. Please help me if your there, I can’t do this alone. I was not finding it hard fighting cancer, I could no longer do it anymore. It was just a wave of negativity that flooded my being, it would not be the last either. That was just the beginning of digging to the deepest you thought possible,my then having to dig deeper again.
Us humans are stubborn when it comes to losing our lives, or I was anyway. I had found the recipe for the rest of my life, a good wife, a great house. My little sports car, my faith but the one thing that was holding all that together was my health. Even so, no matter how sick I felt I always got up, I remember one day when I did not get up till 5 pm. There being a cold chill in my room, it felt like I was being taken. Dieing, that I was slipping away. I felt like I was being pulled out of a sleeping bag as they tried to take my life. I refused and fought like hell that day, getting up for tea time. I dare not sleep that day and night drinking plenty of fluid, feeling like snakes were in my head. The drugs I was on were pioneering drugs, as I was on a trial for a new drug that I agreed to have put in my body. Eventually over Christmas 2011 I finished my chemo and had the Christmas they said I would not have without the treatment. Apparently I had gotten into remission. No fan fare no party, they were just words that I did not believe. I felt all along it was still there!
I was explaining today how my cancer hid, and although I was supposed to be in remission. I knew the cancer cells were hiding in my bones. I could feel them almost laughing at me. Non of the scans picked it up, as they were rougue cells and scanners only picked up clusters. Everyday I would get up and wonder if today was the day it would show itself. Although I did put faith into practice by buying a Labrador and calling her Faith as that’s what I needed to get into remmission.

  
I remember when it came back again (hard recalling this) coiling up into a ball and  crying my heart out. The consultant had told me I would have to have my bone marrow removed, and have a stem cell transplant. This was to be done in isolation in a tiny room. Excuse my language, but how in the hell could I possibly do that, were they mad! I could see no way. For me it was a step to far, an impossible ask. I ached hopelessly inside, I asked time and time again if there was another option. Non what so ever this was my only hope, no more life for me with out it. It made me shake, I would be physically sick at the thought. 

In everyone of those moments, I made myself read positivity. Quotes from the bible, positive people on Twitter, Google and many other places just positives. Friends, family, everyone was only to speak positively to me. No moaning. When I finally got into the room. That big silverback became a weak hopeless human, put into the hands of medicine. 

The day I became nutrapenic, I felt really strange I left my body and even though I was talking to Andie, I felt like I was actually leaving the planet. I held on tight to Andies hand, I believed it was to early. That what was the point in me being the one who did not make it  surely there was a reason for me having this. As I hovered above myself I remember hearing the words “not yet” I don’t know who said them but it certainly was a comfort to me. The day before that I had been sat by the window shaking violently, imagining myself timing sheets together to escape. The door was always open, I could have left at any time, it was not escape from Alcatraz. That’s what being neutapenic made me feel.

So my friends, all of these things I felt, some I still feel. I know what the guilt feels like, to have made it where others don’t. That’s the only “why me” sentence I have said. Remember this, when you think there is no more to give. There always is, with determination AND FAITH you. “yes you” can do ANYTHING. Don’t give up, because you have friends.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Thank you Cancer.

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achieve, affair, age, animal, attitude, avec, awareness, baby, banned, because, believer, Bellamy, best, birthday, black, blood, bone, BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT, can, cancer, chemotheropy, Christian, Christmas, Christmaseve, Cole, Compassion, courage, cricket, cruise, CS, dad, David, dead, death, Depressed, depression, desire, destiny, diagnosis, did, Do, does, Edmonds, encouragement, energy, England, Eve, expect, Experience, facebook, faith, falling, Families, family, floating, foundations, friends, gallery, gift, gifts, given, goals, GOD, Good, Goodness, great, greatness, guilt, Hannah, hansolo, happiness, happy, hard, healing, health, help, Hodgkins, hope, hospital, Jewish, jobs, Johnny, know, last day, Leicester, life, lire, live, lived, Liverpool, London, longevity, Lord'sPrayer, love, loved, Low, machine, marks, marrow, MDU, meal, meaning, memories, memory, Monkey, morph, Morris, motivation, mum, muscle, Muslim, Natalie Cole, Natking, neurology, neutrapeenic, new year, Noel, not, of, oncology, one, one day, onedirection, Paddington, Paris, partner, passion, Peace, people, persevere, precious, Presence, R2D2, raise, real, reality, recover, regret, Rejected, Rejection, relentless, Remember, resolution, rises, Samaritan, SENSATION, Sharing, shortbread, silverback, somebody, southport, Spirituality, square, stage, star, stats, Stemcell, Steve, StevenHawkins, StMichael, stories, strength, struggle, survived, survivor, swopshop, taught, teach, tennis, Thames, thankyou, there, time, today, together, Tohetehr, Tony hart, transplant, Transplanted, travel, tree, true, tvr, twitter, unite, unity, wars, WE, weakness, wealth, wealthy, what, white, who you are, will, win, Wordpress, working, Writing, yang, year, yes, yin, you, yourself

Strange title you think? Really? Well if you think it’s strange you have not seen someone in remission, fight and win or you think cancer has taken loved ones to soon.  You see for me whilst I have fought like hell and won, along the way I have found inspirational people, people that I would not have met had it not been for cancer. Cancer stories has given everyone there the gift of friendship with someone. 

People around the world have been put in touch with each other and are talking to each other about the journey they had, and encouraging another who maybe facing the same journey. A couple of online papers have talked about what we have done, people message me with kindness. Giving encouragement to me to carry on blogging. If I am honest, I am exhausted today, finding it hard to stay awake even. Someone said the other day, cancer is the gift that keeps on giving. I am not sure if that was meant in a negative or positive way. But most certainly our attitude to what we face can help us, or hinder our progress. The daft thing is, by holding our head in our hands does in fact hinder us.

  
It’s only by standing up and choosing to face cancer and all that goes with it, that we find some good in the journey of Hell called cancer. For instance my friends Dave and Anne we would not know had we not been affected by cancer, we would not know those lovely people that are most certainly an asset to our lives most certainly not a hinderance. Anne serves a mean chocolate eclair and not just any eclair either. Only mns in their house.  We have come into contact with many people with great hearts, even gaining a sister along the way. Cancer whilst attempting to take my life has given us gifts, not without looking for the gifts did we find them though. 

The fact of the matter is though that cancer comes with some positivity once we are able to see through the pain that it gave to us, be it death, physical pain, disability, cancer helps us to value what ever we have left, it gives us a new way to look at life. Only being touched by cancer can we see this way of looking at the world. Because without cancer I would not have the sensitivity towards people I have now, and the tanasity to turn away from negativity. Each minute becomes more precious than before and there is no room in it to be wasted around anyone that has an inability to look at the positives that life has to offer.

Enjoy today, it’s a great day.

Fonz 

Things I want to happen in 2016.

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Some may have put, things they don’t want to happen this year, but I prefer to have a positive spin on things. There are lots of things I want to happen but I guess the no 1 I need to put last. The opposite to what you would expect in the hope that you read the whole blog 😆.

So in no particular order apart from my no1 which will be last.

• I Want to be a 34 ” waist I keep kidding myself I am a 36″ but all my jeans are stretching, as I have to breath in to put them on.
• To get out in Trevor more this year.
• To write better than ever before.
• To get 200 followers on my WordPress account.
• To help more people in 2016 than I did in 2015.
• To do the jobs I said I would do in 2015 in 2016.
• To pick up my nephew Zac from school just once in Trevor.
• To fulfil an ambition (I will blog about that when it happens)
• To not voice my disappointments, but accept its not my problem to deal with.
• To put my wife before anyone else ALL year. ( I believe I do that every year) nothing wrong with a bit of consistency.
• To complete my 365 day blog challenge. I have completed 249 so far.
• To get 1000 a day average view ( maybe unattainable ) I am not that good yet.
• To encourage more people in their own blogging experience.

Lastly to remain cancer free! 

  
I do not want cancer in my life at all from now on, but it does take effort to eat well and not binge on anything, like sweet things, pop, chocolate, ect. Eating well takes effort and Percy verance . Staying away from processed foods makes a huge difference to. Some processed foods for example –  farmed salmon have canceragenic   Properties. It’s a huge subject and one I want to learn more about this year.

Have you written down some goals for this year? Thanks to all of you that read and share with out you my blogs would be just read by friends and family. Thank you.

Have a great week, see this Monday as a new start and a new opportunity. NOT the Monday feeling of the holiday is over.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Tony Heart, gone.

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How many times did I watch Tony heart, he was one of life’s inspirers. He encouraged children to do works of art, I will never forget what you gave us and me Tony. Wow such a loss.. I will not forget you. This happened in 2009 but I love to remember people. I figure by blogging it’s there forever.

  
A BBC link with the details

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7836112.stm

I love to make small tributes to people’s lives that have affected our now. Now morph did not affect it, but he did and has made me laugh many times I wonder what you remember?

Just some reminders of a great British programme.

RIP Tony Hart

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com 

Rejection.

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Did you know this is a kind of bullying, even a form of abuse. Many people reject someone because of the way they look, maybe because they have some kind of desease. During my cancer journey I have been rejected by so many people that do not understand cancer. We have all felt it in our lives, we know what it’s like to not be liked by the kid on the street, or the work colleague that excludes you. I guess people reject anything or anyone that is not the same as them. 

  
I used to get very scared as a young boy, because when I was bullied I would get into trouble at home as well. Because more often than not I would get my coat stolen or bleed on a new shirt. I without doubt suffered rejection allot in my life, especially by the bullies on the bus. I have chosen to show love to all people and smile at and with people, I have chosen a path where I don’t judge everyone I meet, I choose to love everyone I meet. People want to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it’s not happened or happening. Well sorry for those that want a quiet life and for the truth to be unspoken, or just not speak of it. I have many things I wish to speak about, from now on I will, I won’t keep my thoughts under lock and key anymore. The world will know the truth and that truth shall set me free.

  
I have learned how to love, because I have been shown what true love is, it’s consistency, acceptance, and putting the other person first ALWAYS.

It’s 1 Corinthians 13  
1 Corinthians 13New International Version (NIV) While I hope to be some of 1 Corinthians every day, I do know I am not perfect. But do my best every day.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. 

It’s my wife that has taught me what consistency is, what home is. For the first time in my life as an adult I know what home feels like. The time before that I was 4,5,6 yrs old when we lived in Brighton now it’s in southport. I have lived here for nearly 6 years and even though I have fought off the beast called cancer whilst living here. It still feels like home. That feeling when you put the log fire on and settle down with our dog by my side and my wife with me, along with the cat stretched out in front of the fire. My home is not just a place to live, it’s a place where I feel welcome, loved and wanted by all the people that live here. That’s after all my safe place, a place where we don’t hurt each other, a place where we feel warm secure and needed. No feeling of rejection will anyone feel in our home, because our home is a place of safety. 

Rejection in cancer exsists in everyone’s journey I am finding out, it’s sad that people cut other’s off or alienate them because they are not well . It’s not just people with cancer either, it’s people that are misunderstood. People facing a situation that quite frankly the person who does not understand it does not even bother to find out about it. 

If that’s you and you need support there is a group of people that have had similar experiences called cancer stories  

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536/

You will be welcomed there, people who have had similar exsperiences and can empathise with you. So know your not alone, it’s common place in cancer but there is love and support out there from people that understand what you are feeling and experience. People there have been where you are and will do what we can for you.

Have a good day

Fonz

 

Stats and wordpress! Because of you….

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Wow this week has been amazing! It’s now Saturday my worst day in stats on wordpress is always a Saturday. But yesterday, New Year’s Day. Broke more records than Elton John. I had more likes yesterday than any other day, more followers follow my blog than any other day and my blog had been read by more people than ever before. As you can imagine I was really chuffed, I was chuffed for a couple of reasons. My main reason though was that more people were obviously interested in my writings therefore more people were being encouraged by the hell I had been through. Meaning my consistency in blogging was and is worth it. 

  
 
As you can see from the picture 467 ain’t bad for a new blogger right? Or am I wrong, am I still not doing so good? The feeling is good that I have I mean in the same week there was a day with 967 views I mean that’s nearly a thousand. More than all the pupils that went to my high school! 

  
There are my stats for the week last night. So what’s the point of today’s blog. Well it’s to thank all of you for reading and making New Year’s Day a special day for me in 2016 it’s a great start. So thank you! I was getting dispondent that is until yesterday when I also met another blogger called hugsandblessings she encouraged me and it was then that I realised, you need me like I need you. That you need me to help others read your blog, and I need you for the same reason. I know it’s obvious but it was like a eureka moment. God bless you all. 

Lastly to all of you that are dispondent like I was, seeing my weekly stats dwindle week on week. If you help others by telling others about someone else they will help you out naturally. Have a healthy new year everyone, I am hopefully going to enjoy a cancer free year. Now that’s worth fighting for.

Have a great weekend

Fonz

Natalie Cole Dead.

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It so sad that this has to happen to each and everyone of us, Natalie Cole dieing. Whilst sad, exstemly sad. She has without doubt left behind a legacy encouraged by her dad, Nat King Cole. 

So now it’s time for us to miss you like crazy Natalie. Thanks so much for the legacy you have left, you will never be forgotten.

This lady was part of my childhood, and of so many more around the world. No amount of money can stop the enevitable, it just makes me so much more than ever before want to make a differance in the short life that I have.

Natalie you are truly unforgettable.

  
65 is no age at all, way to young. 

Make the most of your life

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

What’s holding you back.

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Who has the right to stop you from being who you are, no one. I myself pride myself on being the person that says yes to my wife, the person that encourages her to achieve her goals. That’s why she drives the car she does, that’s why she has the opportunities she does. I have no right to stop her being who she is, no one has the right to stop you either. I read a blog today, in the blog she spoke about. If you want a burger have it, I agree. We only get one chance at this life so be who you are, don’t dress yourself up with all the pretentious shite people seem to want to do these days. I refuse to be in a place where there are people, that expect of me in a certain way. 

What of that? Does that make me selfish, or does that make me an individual. So many people follow each other’s example, mimicking them almost. Why is it then that a Billionaire wants to have something no one in the world has. Well I think it’s because they can afford to. I want to be the person I am from now on, why? Because I have fought for these days and there is nowhere, no place for people to attempt, to Mold me into something I am not. In this life and in this year. Are you going to follow the masses, or are you going to be the person you want to be. 
You see by “fitting in” some people call it, you are effectively pleasing those around you and not yourself. My wife is an individual, I don’t own her I am not her boss. But what I am is someone who encourages her to be the person she feels comfortable with. 

  
The only change you need to make in 2016 is to be TRUE to yourself. Those that want me to fit in are in for a shock because it’s not what I will be doing with my life from now on.  I will be being myself and I will be unconcerned what others opinions are. At the same time being interested to hear what someone’s thoughts on a subject are. Cancer has gone, I am here.

So happy new year, and let’s see the true you.

Enjoy being yourself

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Remember this.

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One day, you know a day that we are living as if it’s our last. One  day at least we will be right. 

Oh how I want to be so wrong every day.

Happy new year

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com

2015 review.

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2015 review, wow where do I start. Well I guess that would be 1st January 2015 but that’s not where the year began for me I began on the lads holiday 2014. When I felt a lump in my neck and knew I had to mention it to my consultant on my appointment 2 days after landing back in the uk. That led to an operation then ICE chemotherapy each cycle done over a 3 day period, in Feb, March and April then Beam chemo in isolation for 6 days and nights in May. completing 30 full days of chemotherapy in 5 years. 
   

 Just to explain a little what it took for the transplant, for those who know nothing of what’s required. Stem cell harvest wes allot of fun having a canular in one arm and a 1.5 mm needle in the other whilst they took my blood out harvested it in a machine, then put it back in my body. The whole process lasts about 5 hours repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday until I had 4 million cells were collected. 

  
I remember on one particular day, a gentleman sat opposite, he has a hicc an line in so the needle was not required. You can’t move at all for the 5 hours, and watching his son eat a Burger King did make me salavate some what and get food envy. 

The transplant itself lasted 3 weeks laid in a bed in a room 15 ft X 12 ft. With only a tv and an I pad for company. The nurses who I can’t name made the Experience more bearable, I can’t name the staff at the Royal Liverpool but they are an amazing team as are the team in the MDU at southport. Without a doubt our local GP Dr Hindle played a huge part in saving my life.
 It was also the start of the first complete year for the group made possible by its 210 members. A group that not only has helped people along the way. It has helped people to help themselves to save their own lives. Needing the very people I had set out to help whilst on a new cancer journey again. You see I was in remission when I set up cancer stories, and although I felt I was not in remission, I hoped it would not return. It did.
Whilst the group has encouraged many, it has also seen much sadness spare a moment as we think of those that have left us.
Noel Smalley

Rita Hodgeon

Becca Parkes

James D peace
There are others that have passed but I am not permitted to speak of them in public.
Sadly missed but not forgotten

  
It was a year where I strove to get on my lads holiday in Turkey, seeing it as my goal to achieve. I lasted 2 days and came home to find that 24 hours later the hotel was swamped by water. Not a place for someone 100 days out of bone marrow transplant. My friends made the best of what they had, 8 days later going to Mexico with my wife, where we would meet friends for life and enjoy some of the best weather they had seen at that time of year. 

  
Mexico was to end up being our true celebration, not only to have an end to all that treatment, but to finally be declared cancer free once more. The word cured was even used. We celebrated our anniversary 5 years married to my amazing wife, who has been by my side all the way through all my cancer Experience, I can’t bring 2015 to an end with out mentioning someone else. Rachel Brown for allowing Andie to have her time by my side in hospital whilst having my bone marrow transplant. 

  
Finally knowing I have another day each morning is an amazing feeling and as a consequence I never want to waste a moment of it unhappy.  We also celebrated Andie turning 40, and hope to make a special announcement soon regarding Andies Carrea.

  
Outside of my personal experiences and support from family and friends. I want to say thank you to all those at cancer stories there are to many to list, but you all know who you are that reach out to other people sharing your journeys with others encouraging and enthusing people to get themselves into remission. Thank God for hospitals and people that dedicate their lives so we may have life, that we may continue to breath and encourage other people where they are at.
Wasn’t it amazing that 15 people that had never met were able to enjoy a meal together, almost being kicked out after 4 hrs 45 mins of constant chat without a break. A complete privilege. Bless you each and every one. 

  
I have hope in my heart and faith that many of you will improve in 2016, I hope with a hopeful heart that you will know words like remission and cure in between the scans and sunshine, rainy and cloudy days.
Thank you to all of you that have supported us, well it’s time to look forwards now. To buy gym memberships that we will use twice, give up fatty foods for a 2 day diet before we get over our guilt trips and live normally again. Start walking to the shops, until we remember having a car was easier.
Have a great 2016 and all the best
Fonz

One direction.

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One of the reasons I was able to overcome cancer, was that me and my wife and the friends and family on the journey with us were all pulling together. How I like to explain it is like this.

When ever me and Andie have a problem that needs solving, we talk about it together and work out a strategy together. I see the problem as a block of concrete so big that it cannot be moved by just one person. Both of us need to be pulling the block for it to move. But not only do we have to move it together, we have to both be pulling in the same direction. It’s no good if the idea is split in 2 and 2 people are pulling different ways. Nothing ever gets achieved that way, me and Andie have achieved so much this past year. Tomorrows blog will be thinking about all the things we have achieved together because we are both pulling in one direction.

  
Andie had an opportunity to be promoted from the role she is in over 12 months ago, it would have been wrong at that time in our lives facing beating cancer again. You see cancer tried to fight me, to bring me down to put me under, defeat me and affect our life in a negative way. Two people like us will never allow a situation to ultimately affect us in a negative way because we choose to work together to make the best of what we DO have. We don’t focus on what we cannot change like people’s actions towards us. The responses of people to us are just something we cannot change, what people chose or choose to do on any day in particular we cannot do anything about. It’s ultimately our response to it that matters, people can say and do hurtful things. It could be deemed bullying or even rejection, we choose together to work together to make the best of everything. Even removing yourself from a negative situation that can’t be changed can help with getting to the destination. 

  
Our new destination for the next phase in our lives we can’t tell you at the moment, but I can tell you that we will be touching more people’s lives than ever before in 2016. There will always be people there to try and take the shine off of what your aiming to do, I get shocked as to where the people come from that try to bring you down with their own limitations which some regard as negativity. You see this is the truth of life. The only person that stops your dream, or restricts it is the very mind that dreams the dream. The problem with big dreams, is the fact that with it brings more possibility for failure. I prefer to dream big and then break that down into successful days, weeks, months, and years. 

You are in control of the direction you choose, our direction is by supporting each other in making our dreams come true. I hope your enjoying your next to last day in 2015.

I hope you had a successful 2015. I also hope you enjoy planning your 2016.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536
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. 

How to do GREAT work. (Steve jobs)

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  http://youtu.be/UF8uR6Z6KLc

Please watch this video.

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. I have a personal addiction, that is to people that are at the top of their game, people that have become the best that’s possible in that field. People that have used a lifetime, becoming the best at what they do. The only have one thing in common, all these people love what they do. They have not seen it as a chore to work, they have seen it as a way of life. Enjoying what they do everyday that some people call work, I am at a cross roads myself. I know what I love to do, I know that I am good at it and hope to pursue it to be the best I can be at it.

I adore encouraging people, I love to give people hope. It’s a passion of mine, I have and do not seek to make a living from it. I just want to make a difference in people’s lives, to help them to see the best in themselves.
I am fascinated by people like Steve jobs, Bill gates, Peter Jones, Duncan Balyntyne, Lewis  Hamilton, Guy Martin, to name a few people that inspire me. People that love what they do, people that are passionate about what they do. It was then that I realised something else that they had in common. All of them wanted or want other people to be successful, all of them encourage other people to become the best they can be. Whilst being at the top of their game, they have other people working with them that are also at the top of their game to.  I have allot of friends who are at the top of what they do, I am married to one of them. Two people who have been the most influential people on the planet I think are Steve jobs and Bill Gates. These people have made a fortune by helping people to have tec in their hands that can make them money. Something I am using right now. My IPad. Mine is the latest with the biggest memory. That’s thanks to the late Steve Job, also influenced by Bill gates. They both shared similar ethics. Building their company’s on Software, by giving us (the public) the capability of making software by providing us with the tools to make software. In turn helping people to make money at home by making things such as Apps.

I myself have chosen to write a blog a day for a year in the hope of reaching people experiencing cancer treatment, or the effects of cancer. To encourage them that they can win their battle also. I have not found it a chore writing my blogs, because it’s something that I love doing, now whilst I know I am not at the top of my game like Steve jobs was. I do know I am making a difference largely because of his vision to help people to help themselves with the tool for the job. ( no pun intended)

  
We all have an opportunity, it’s called Life. Are you wasting yours or using yours. That’s the key isn’t it, to use what you have (life) and use it to help others whilst not forgetting that family is THE most important in your life. At the beginning of my blogging journey, I did not really care about my spelling. But now I am starting to care a bit more, to do my best to be the best I can be. I don’t call mistakes failure, I call then lessons and a chance to learn.

I really hope this blog has encouraged you today, if nothing else to not settle until you find what you love to do, in turn doing great work because you love it. If I could only shake the hand of the man that has inspired me to inspire you. If indeed you are inspired.

Have a great day.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

My mum saved my life.

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Seems a strange thing to say doesn’t it, thank you cancer, but cancer has given me so much. It came into my life twice and tried to end my life twice. It picked the wrong man, my attitude was always that I would win. Never once did I imagine I would lose. I am fortunate though, if it was not for my mum I would for sure be dead.  Had she never told me I should get my lump checked out. See I just thought it was a swollen gland, never even once did I think a lump could possibly kill me! Well it didn’t it came and never realised just how hard it would be to get the better of me. I managed to get the better of it, not without the help of my family and friends.

  
My blog today Monday 28th December had the best day ever, even surpassing the blog  ” The Night I fell in love with Rita’s mum ” now it’s the blog about Steve Job that has now had the most hits, having more hits than the whole of last week in one day. Cancer has given me so many gifts, it has given me a new found wonder in the planet, I get pleasure from small things, our cat laid in front of the fire melts my heart. Children playing fills me with joy, I built a bike up for my friends son today. Seeing his beaming face was priceless. Everything on the planet is more valuable, family time is precious any time with my wife I adore and will not have it ruined. 

Birds singing a chorus, fish, laughter. My friend said the other day “Small things can make me tear up” it’s the same for me also. Cancer has given me friends I would not have had, it’s given me the group Cancer stories. It’s given me a desire to have love in the home that I live in. More than ever I did. My dog enjoying a run, so many things I appreciate more because I HAD cancer. For that I have to thank my mum, because without her I would be dead. Thank you Mum.

Try and find your positive in your situation, because if you look they WILL be there.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Star Wars

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We all have families, some are real loving ones. Some are distant in miles, some are wealthy. I am wealthy in family, because I have a loving wife who loves me dearly and knows me well. I was bought a Star Wars top this year by a family member, one that did not know me or it would never have been considered. It got me thinking though, how can someone that should know me so well get it so wrong. Maybe the time they had with me they never listened to what I liked, maybe they just bought it for me because I should like it. Or maybe it was a pound…..
Well my wife absolutely loves Star Wars, so it was not wasted, I am sure my wife will love wearing it with the picture of the millemem falcon on the front. It’s a man size so she will proberbly wear it as a nighty.. You know I have even watched the latest movie of Star Wars, we went to Liverpool to watch it at the gallery. You see it’s something my wife adores and I would do anything for my wife, and would take her anywhere. When we were sat in the cinema she said these words to me. “The last time I was with someone watching starwars at the cinema, I was with my dad” no previous partner had gone with her to see it because they did not like starwars. Her dad is no longer with us, he died at 59.. Such a short life, cancer took him, he had it in his stomach, maybe it had been there for 20 years. I don’t know if her dad loved starwars, but what I do know is that he went with her. 

  
Taking an interest in what someone loves is priceless, irreplaceable, because taking an interest in something another is interested in is an exsperience. Some people have blinkers on and only tune into their own interests because that’s all that matters to them. Some people don’t like football (like me) but again my wife loves it so I watch it and have banter with her because she loves it. She knows what I am passionate about, and she takes an interest in that also. For us our life is made richer because we learn about each other, I know about her dad and her grandparents, what they liked and disliked where they lived and what part they played in the war. Why because I want to keep the memories of those we lost alive.
I know that my dads love for football came from cricket, from a cricketer who used to also play for Arsenal. “Dennis Compton” his grandson plays for England to this day. How do I know that? Because my wife asked my dad. We then bought him a book on the man he respected, because we knew it would not be a waste of money. I don’t really like cricket either but I bet if you asked my dad he would think I did.. I have even been to meet Ian Botham, because I love people that have managed to be the best they can possibly be. I grew up with cricket and tennis in our house neither of which I love. Although Andy Murray is a pleasure to watch. I do however watch both, because if I try hard enough happy memories of being a boy come back doing the things my mum and dad loved. Playing cricket on the field with my day, and watching tennis with my mum whilst the sausages burnt, on a 14″ black and white tele.
I can’t stand Star Wars, but I love my wife. I know my wife does not wear nail varnish so I don’t buy it her it, my wife is exstemly beautiful and does not need to cake make up on, so I don’t buy it her. Next time I meet with the family we will play a little game. I hope you having a great Christmas break, and don’t forget to get to know the people you love.

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Your not alone…

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This Christmas for me is a huge milestone, but I think friends even family (some) have forgotten the previous battles. What it took to win this war. Maybe it’s easier for them to forget, for me what was is always in my now. The effects of what was is in my now. I am real emotional this Christmas, I keep having moments. Now I am not saying this for sympathy, just so that others will know that it’s normal that what I feel is documented. I hope that some day a person will get comfort from reading this blog, even just knowing that your not alone.

People do forget when it’s not happened to them, it’s better for them if you just don’t mention it or even communicate about it. The fact is though that the horror of what I have been through is all still so very real in my present. It’s like a reoccurring nightmare and all I want is to forget for a while. When I am around people I forget, people are like the tonic I need to get through. I want you to know, what I remember is in the form of flash backs. It’s not that I recall anything on purpose, really it’s not a journey that anyone would want to recall on purpose. 

  
All I want and need in my life is health and happiness, there are some people on the planet that naturally love us. There is not effort in that love, because it’s natrual. It’s is a love born out of accepting the other person and not wanting them to change. It has been said, if you are with people that are comfortable with the real you, you are with people that love you. I have friends like that, one is my brother and sister in law. I have some friends like that to, people that are in your lives that accept you are the ones you should treasure. They are rare, people that ask about you, not tell you about them. 

You are not alone in how you feel, when you have had a trauma in your life like cancer. We can’t exspect everyone to understand, only those in the cancer club truly understand what you have faced. Only people in the cancer club will truly be honest with you, because they know how it feels to have someone by your side that you can tell how you truly feel. We also know how it feels when someone does not let you know how they feel because they think your situation is worse. We don’t stop caring because we are ill, we still want there to be normality. But there is very little normality in cancer, the cancer club is a club of honest, real, genuine people. Once u accept that not everyone will understand what you are going through, you find having cancer is easier.

Have a great day,

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536
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. 

Time

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The one thing that we give that’s impossible to get back, once it’s given its gone forever. I just don’t think people understand how precious time is. It’s something we all have, we have been given a certain amount of time some call it life. An amount of breaths allocated to us that all linked together equals life. You do it without even thinking, yet it’s the most important thing that we do.without even a second though. When you finally realise that the time you have, the days you have and the people you do it with are only here for a certain amount of time.

  
See I have started to adopt this thought pattern, if someone is in my life and makes it worse. I remove them, I make sure I don’t communicate with them because their choices make me unhappy. That’s a big step for me, because in previous years I would have tried to change them, or even change for them. I have learned through cancer that I am actually a really good human, a kind genuine human that does his best to help others and to make the moments I am involved in their life fun and even hope I may put a smile on someone’s face. I believe that the life I have is being used, in part. To enrich another’s world, can we ask anymore from a person? Is not doing our best, a gift to another human. Is not putting the needs of another before our own sacrificial.

It’s Christmas Day today and I hope you have a fabulous day with the people you love, your time is precious as are you. Be kind to each other love each other to the best of your ability. We only get one chance at this thing called life, me and Andrea are the only ones not seeing my parents tomorrow. A result of being childless. They will get a great breakfast on Boxing Day morning though… I already have some quality sausages to cook for them. Make sure you give the best you can of you today. It’s a nice soothing feeling to think that we don’t have to deal with having cancer in our lives this year, and hope our guests have a fabulous day with us. Talking about that, maybe I should get on with making some of tomorrow… 

Have a great day and a very happy Christmas to you

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
Follow me on Twitter
@fonzmark
Our support group on our FB
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1595998743956536

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. 

Your road to recovery.

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  Well, for me it’s not been the same as everybody else’s.  But what’s everybody’s else’s like, is their recovery different to mine. Yes I think so, although there are similarities. The trick is though I think, to not let other people think they are not doing as well as them, but to encourage them where they are at. No ones journey in recovery is the same as the next persons, everyone recovers at a different rate. I personally dislike it when I hear things like. “Well you will be ok” what evidence do they have to be able to say that. Will I? Wow thanks Doc… 

You see what ever you feel, what ever stage you are at in YOUR recovery, I want you to know that’s ok. You don’t have to be or get to a certain place at any specific time. It’s different for everyone, you see just because someone says it was like that for them does not mean your body will recover the same, or at the same rate. You may recover quickly, where someone else gets pains in places you never did or do. You are you, and I want you to know that you should not give yourself a hard time for your body not responding how someone else’s does.

Perspective-so a car can have a very small engine which means it’s really fuel efficient but can’t go fast, another can have a really big engine and can go really fast but is no good at fuel economy. You are who you are, accept yourself for who you are not what someone expects of you. Concentrate on healing how you heal, it may not be cancer. It maybe something completely different, but you are you. Whilst what I say is true, remember this also. That you can’t make a dream come true if you don’t dream a little.

  
So this Christmas Eve for me is special. Not for any other reason than I am alive, I am here to write to you that you can read what is written here. Because this time last year I was being operated on at 10.30 am and was supported by my wife to get me to this Christmas Eve. It’s here today, I am not on an operating table today though. I am thankful to be where I am today, I am also grateful you are able to read this. We have more to be thankful for than we realise.

Enjoy today

Fonz

http://www.fonzandcancer.com
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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.