The highs and lows of life

Well what an exciting few days it has been for all of us here! So many people celebrating over several days. There were so many different ways in which people could celebrate,which meant that even more people could get involved, including the likes of me, who spent some of the time watching the events unfold, in front of my television.

The Jubilee celebrations have been the main focus of everyone, including the media. Everyone has their bit to say! It has been all consuming as if there was nothing else happening. We have quickly forgotten our political issues and our economic problems. They have barely had a mention in the last few days.

But like any other celebration of good times, reality, must kick back in! As after all it is reality!! All this four day holiday, and sitting around celebrating, is lovely at the time, but life carries on.
Last night I had dinner with a great friend of mine, and we were walking along the river towards Tower Bridge. It was like nothing had happened a few days before. You would never have imagined what events had unfolded there recently. Everything was back to normal and people were chatting about daily stuff.

Yesterday, I was doing my usual Wednesday volunteering at Macmillan h/o and although there were probably only half the staff around, it was business as usual as I would have expected. More meetings to attend, more lovely people to see. The wheels were turning once again!

I thought that this is a great example of life in general, for all of us. We have our regular everyday lives, including work etc, which provides us with the stability we need. Then come the highs. Birthdays, weddings, births etc even holidays can be included in this. These are things that take us out of routine and give us cause to celebrate.

But fairly soon, those events have passed and things get back to normal. I guess that if we didn't have the element of routine in our lives, we may not appreciate the highs as much as we do.

This weekend also made me wonder if the sheer level of celebration, was slightly accentuated by the fact that news for most people has been gloomy for some period of time, and it was a fantastic reason to let off more steam than normal. To put your troubles behind you, and forget about them for a bit.

Most people complain about their lives being fairly routine, and some might even say boring, but I feel that most people need some sort of route, mapped out for them to help them get through life, and need the discipline that work brings. Sure we all need a break from that from time to time, but it is only a break.

This made me think about my personal health journey. My life before diagnosis, was relatively routine but filled with excitement of the unexpected, and in many ways life has continued a bit like that. The lows of the diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment. The highs of getting a bit better and starting to do some normal things again, but then continual highs and lows to the present day.

I am having my now, regular treatment, which will tie me up in tubes for a couple of half days. In fact after completing this post I am off to hospital. I now look on this as a high. Firstly, thankfully things are improving for me, if slowly, but secondly I meet some wonderful people who are also honorary members of my community. We now talk very openly about our diseases and I think that we learn more from each other than we learn from the clinicians. The nurses always say that they learn a lot from our chats.

In a funny kind of way, I look forward to catching up with these guys, and I guess for me, treatment and hospital visits has replaced the routine of work, and these people are like colleagues, but with out office politics!!!!

Have things got back to normal in your life? We all have highs and lows in our lives, maybe you would like to share some of yours?